Did you choose Sponsorship or did Sponsorship choose you?

Why would anyone want to be a Sponsor?

The Role of a Sponsor

I was explaining what we do to a new supplier. She is helping us with something that we are creating for our clients and it was vital that she could understand what Sponsors do.

I was talking about the role, what it involves and, the type of accountabilities’ that are typically included.

We had a chat too about the kinds of projects we support clients with and the specific challenges that Sponsors face on those.

Challenges Faced by Sponsors

I was explaining how Sponsors are usually the face of the project. That means being the face of it during delays, cost overruns, governance breaches, stakeholder issues, those dreaded headlines and, when the finished project fails to deliver the anticipated benefits. I told her jokingly how it felt more like the person to blame kind of face of the project than the paid influencer, glamourous photo-shoot face of it! It is more likely the sponsor is on a spiky chair than a billboard.

I told her that as Sponsor you often have to apologise, explain or negotiate when things change on the project or when the business changes what it wants from the project.

I was reflecting on my own experience of closing down projects and saying how hard it is to stop even terrible projects. The steering group or business can be caught up in the fallacy of sunk costs. At the same time, the project team can be disappointed that you are pulling their project away from them. Stopping a project is rarely a time when as a Sponsor you make a lot of new friends.

Around this point she said

"is this what you’ve been doing all these years? Why would anyone want to do this job? That is too hard with too much accountability. How is anyone sleeping at night?"

Faced with this do you ever wonder why choose to be a Sponsor?

Why Choose to Be a Sponsor?

Well you know as well as I do that some Sponsors choose the Sponsor life because:

• It is thrilling
• We love to deal in ambiguity
• We love problem-solving
• We get to work on important projects for our companies or maybe for the world
• We excel in handling complexity
• People skills are at our core

I don’t know about you but I have worked on some tough infrastructure projects. The day that they opened all the tough days melted away with the pride and job satisfaction of being part of a team achieving such massive goals.

I have sponsored change projects where I felt like the weight of convincing stakeholders was getting too much to carry, just at the point when enough people started to accept the principle that I knew we had that blessed tipping point of acceptance!

I do love to hear from sponsors what their favourite part of the job is too. Personally, I am a decision-maker and insatiably curious. The opportunity to ask a lot of questions and make a lot of decisions?always works well for me. What about Sponsorship works well with your personality or skills that made you choose it as a career?

One of our Sponsor clients recently said “I like it because of the variety. It is the only role where you really do work with every department in a business, well you better be doing that if you want to be good at it!”

The Unchosen Path

We also know that some Sponsors do not choose it. Instead, they are chosen. Perhaps they are out of the room when the next 'opportunity' arises and everyone agrees they would be the ideal choice. Maybe it magically lands on their desk as something they can do ‘on the side’. Perhaps on the side of running a major division or operation. Just a little oversight of a major business critical change project or maybe Sponsor the build of a major project in your lunch breaks! I joke but I also regularly support and coach Sponsors in this exact scenario.

I mentioned to our supplier that some folk just have it landed on their lap and she almost fell off her chair.

We are still a profession often undervalued and underserved and yet we know that an engaged and effective sponsor is among the most influential factors in successful projects.

So that is why every year I seek to add more help for the profession. Create more resources and opportunities to come together. Find more sponsors to introduce to each other. Help more companies find the right sponsors and provide training and support in as many ways as possible.

The easier we make the job for Sponsor the more we raise the standard. Please do share this newsletter with anyone Sponsoring projects or thinking about becoming a Sponsor.