A Connection Project - Procurement = LOVE

My question: Can Procurement = Love….. and change the world?

Everything is connected….and we create the world we live in.?

Hold on…this is supposed to be a professional networking site…get back in your box Andy!

Bear with…

• How you and I run or take part in a commercial procurement has a direct and far-reaching impact on the world we and our children live in
• We take two steps forward and one step back….But we are moving forward
• Like watching the hands of a clock its hard to see?
• The world can be a terrible and frightening place
• Bad things and good things are happening simultaneously as I write this and you read it

But start with you…

• Dealing with your inner shizzle to bring out your full shining self...
• Listening to it and actually loving the parts of you that have caused you pain or shame
• Fully identifying and feeling trapped emotions, forgiving yourself and letting the energy go …. ?
• This will then show up next Wednesday afternoon at work…
• I see progress towards one thing - LOVE
• I did say I was going to put my shizzle out there…
• I know this…because I’ve tried it…and I’m not alone….I’m a work in progress and always will be…

The Biiiiiiiig Picture

Here’s a few unrelated examples of how things are changing:

• Gay and non-white people were often the subject of TV comedy and much much worse
• LGBTQ+ and anti-racism has a strong voice, greater respect and broad support
• We commuted to work everyday without question?
• We commute sometimes/for a good reason
• We tried to book meeting rooms (often in vain)
• Meeting rooms are now mostly virtual and infinite in supply
• We sent people to wars without too much hesitation
• Going to war seems much more of a last resort for many nations
• We bullied suppliers for cheaper prices because we could
• We need evidence of how suppliers could save money and yet maintain ‘Social Value’
• Most people kept a stronger divide between work and personal life ?
• We’ve seen pets and ironing boards and snapshots of personal lives on video calls
• Authority came with titles and a ‘tell’?
• Some authorities are starting to really listen, ask questions, use influence and collaborate

Here’s a few unrelated examples of things that seem caught in the middle:

• Newspaper headlines seem more and more ridiculous
• The advertising industry is starting to look lost and running out of ideas
• The education system still demands the memorising of scientific formulae
• Greggs sausage rolls?- wild card but very tasty
• Many employers still ghost candidates with no feedback
• Poverty and food banks on the rise
• Carbon usage abounds and the cost of energy?
• Bitcoin cloud cuckoo land
• Facebook are going to put us all in the Metaverse

An Ever Changing World

• 100 years ago there were 1.5 billion people on the planet.. wait, what?..
• Some people reading this have been through wars or a hostile immigration experience
• Everyone reading this has been through a pandemic
• We have been through many major world events together
• The nature of life, of business, of relationships has and is always changing
• Structures that we long took for granted are or have disintegrated.?
• Happily living separate safe lives with our families within a ‘roses around the door’ existence is dissolving
• The challenges facing us - whether it is climate change, growing levels of poverty, wars or further pandemics is and will be a shared experience
• You cannot watch this stuff on TV, eating a packet of Pringles, and say…’oh dear what a shame, isn’t that terrible…’ and then flick over to Love Island and forget it…
• Well…you can actually …but that’s getting a bit harder…and we all know it…
• I went to the cinema recently …couldn’t miss the new Top Gun film right….I was struck by how ‘out of step’ the pre-adverts were with what I will call ‘the collective consciousness’…maybe its just me…it was kind of grating….Buy this, you must have this, this will make you whole etc etc…
• Its the same with messaging elsewhere of ‘keep calm and carry on’ when the lack of stability in our institutions is on the news every day and we are all watching it in slow motion..
• The press continue to sensationalise headlines but again something has changed and some of the reporting can ‘hurt you in the heart' because you ‘feel more these days’, there’s been a shift and you know that there are ‘real people behind those stories’

My anxiety monkeys are kicking in….I wonder if anyone is still reading at this point

The World Is A Reflection Of Our Inner World

How connected are you to your self?…I don’t mean the self that is pictured on your internet accounts

Let me invite you to try this….

• Have you ever spent time, with a piece of blank paper and a pen, walking back through your life and writing out the key moments??
• Have you gone back around to remember the events that were somehow hidden?
• The ones you don’t like to think about or talk about except to your closest friends and/or partner
• Going around again..and looking for the events that you may have only talked about with a therapist?
• And one last sweep ….to look for those really deep experiences that are really difficult to remember..and for a very good reason
• Some memories may just leave a legacy emotion, a wisp of something or even a shudder…
• If you wrote this list of things down would you worry about who might read it?
• If so…then this is probably a decent list...
• So what would you do with this list? Why would you even bother writing it?
• What is the connection here??
• Because ……spending time gently looking at these things, without self judgement, can change everything
• How you feel about yourself
• How you feel about others
• What you do next…

Here’s some examples from my own ‘down in the sludgy bits’ list:

• Lack of self worth
• A feeling of under-achievement
• A desire to deeply connect to people, with the anxiety of being open (slowly starting to smash this one)
• Childhood trauma and a lack of affection and nurturing
• Despair at times with ‘the world as presented on the news’ and feeling better when the news is switched off
• Grateful for the experiences I’ve had and the richness of people that have been in my life
• Depression, underlying sadness, therapy, ADHD diagnosis (a whole other story)
• Bullied at school, fighting back yet with a generous dollop of self abandonment and shame
• Self mental violence and second guessing
• Pride for the teams I’ve worked in and teams that I’ve built
• The joy of being a Dad
• An ongoing desire to be a DJ (any day now..)

It took a while to identify some of these gems underneath ‘the Andy Show’

Whether I like to or not…my buried events and feelings seep out into my relationships, my work and how I feel day to day…its subtle…but the more I looked the more I noticed the shadows casting across…

Ok he says…straightening an imaginary tie and getting my professional Linkedin shizzle back together…

How Can This Play Out At Work?

This is the story of a commercial procurement project played out in two different ways separated by a (/).?

It's equally applicable for Buyers and Sellers. It attempts to show that if you truly be-friend yourself and others you can make a huge difference to what happens next…and the opposite is of course true.?

1. Wake up / morning rituals - feeling pretty good / feeling a little urghh

2. Travel to / settle down to work from home - eager to crack on / a feeling of slight dread and anxiety

3. Connecting with the team - reaching out and saying hi / reserved and not ready ‘to people today’

4. Defining the business need - building rapport with stakeholders and suppliers with an active eagerness to help them achieve their goals / sending an SoR or requirements template and chasing the business periodically to complete it and ‘griping’ behind the scenes when there are delays

5. Market engagement - Scouring the market and putting them at ease and tapping in to their drive to provide a great product or service / sending e-portal documents for suppliers to fill in with strict deadlines and minimal conversation, connection or listening

6. Launch the competition and tender period - providing plenty of notice, consulting on the length of the tender period, running a ‘hot start’ supplier session, after one week of launch to explain the key elements of the requirements and take and answer questions / Send 20 dense documents via the e-portal with a short deadline over a holiday period and taking ages to answer any clarification questions and even then in a cagey manner

7. Evaluation period - engaging early and training the evaluators in your business, getting to know them, putting them at ease and giving them plenty of time as they have busy day jobs / sending a number of emails and deadlines, hurrying up the evaluators and using phrases like ‘on your side of the fence’

8. Negotiation / clarification period - providing the market with a clear agenda and giving them a chance to shape it, conducting well run meetings with the right amount of time, asserting and listening in equal measure, putting the market at ease and building relationships / short aggressively run sessions with ‘authority’ dictated agendas in small pokey meeting rooms

9. Contract award - You’ve run a fair and confidence building competition, the market wants to do business with you but knows that not everyone can win a contract, winners are excited and their best people want to work on your account, losers will bid next time and will have learnt something useful / after several months of silence you announce the competition result solely through ‘tears’ and ‘cheers’ letters. The winners have little time to ready for mobilisation and the losers feel isolated and annoyed as they come out of the back of the sausage machine.

Talk about tenuous links eh…anyone still with me?

So… can Procurement = Love... and change the world?

Look forward to any comments ….and I will try and build the confidence to answer them this time!…

Love Andy