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That’s how we’ve always done it

2/24/2014

2 Comments

 
Posted by BJ
I recent heard a story which caused me to reflect on what Join and I often see as to the way in which many proposal groups function. I don’t know if this story is an urban myth but even if it is, the moral remains the same and, for me at least, delivers an important reminder as to how and why processes are developed and followed.
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A newly married couple was hosting a family gathering and they were serving a ham. While they were preparing the ham, the husband informed his wife that his mother had always cut off the two ends of the ham. When asked why the ends were cut off, he said he didn’t know but that both his mother and grandmother always served it that way.
Later, when his mother arrived they inquired as to why she had cut off the ends of the ham. The mother admitted she didn’t know but confirmed that her mother had always served ham that way. The wife surmised that the ham ends were trimmed off because they might be a bit tough and less desirable. The husband guessed it might have been because it made for crispier end pieces. The mother offered that her mother might have done this because it caused the ham to cook a bit faster. They all agreed the ends might have been cut off merely for appearance’s sake as it made the ham look more uniform.
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When the grandmother arrived, the group asked her about the family tradition of cutting off the ends of the ham. In response, looking a bit puzzled she stated, “I don’t know anything about a family tradition but I do know I always had to cut off the ends of a large ham in order for it to fit in my oven as it was very small.”
I’ve no doubt that how this relates to a process that might be in place and being followed, even if the reasons for doing so aren’t obvious and no one is sure why or if the process is necessary.

Another piece that delivers a similar message is “How Destructive Cultures Develop” by Tommy Wiseman (which I came across in the book Strategy Bites Back by Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, Joseph Lampel – published by Prentice Hall). Wiseman writes:

“Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he learns that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. By this point, all the monkeys that are beating the newcomer have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the bananas.

Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here. And that, my friends, is how company policy begins.”

…and, I suspect, this is also how many proposal processes begin!
2 Comments

The auction house auction

1/9/2014

0 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
From the current ‘Literary Review’:
Not long ago a Japanese man decided to consign to auction his substantial collection of Impressionist and Modern art. Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the world’s two major auction houses, were consulted; each put together a sumptuous proposal detailing their expertise, their marketing plans and their generous terms of business.
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They were so similar, however, that the man couldn’t decide between them. So he called the head of each company’s Japanese branch into his office and asked that they settle the matter with a game of Paper, Scissors, Stone. Christie’s won.
Paper, last time I played. And the outcome was certainly favourable. But when it comes to the proposal you are working on right now, I hope you are telling a compelling enough story that the outcome won’t be a matter of chance.

(And does anyone else rather hope that if their sales director was asked to settle a bid in such a ridiculous way, they’d have the pride, integrity and confidence to walk away?!)
0 Comments

The festive season?

1/2/2014

5 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
Two questions on my mind, as I start back at work in 2014:
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- what proportion of proposal people ended up working on bids over the festive season?
- and why on earth are very many procurement people so disrespectful of the staff working for their suppliers as to set deadlines at the very start of January?

I can offer my own perspective on the latter, from my days in purchasing (before I switched sides of the negotiating table, back in 1999). Running a very large (multi-hundred-million pound) global outsourcing deal for a major bank, our project plan included the eminently reasonable target of completing our RFP by the end of the year – before we broke for Christmas and the New Year.
What we then did surprised the shortlisted vendors: once the document was finalised (around the 18th, if I recall correctly), we refused to send it to them. Our rationale? Firstly, that we wanted the bid teams to be fresh and creative when preparing their responses. And secondly that expecting people to work over the holidays was entirely inconsistent with our stated aims of genuinely finding a ‘partner’ who could help us to bring about change to the way in which services were delivered to our organisation. That’s why our project plan was always clear: complete the RFP before the holidays; issue it at the very start of January, and then give the bidders sufficient time to respond professionally. Good for them – but, ultimately, helping to draw out the best propositions from the market for us.

I rather suspect that’s an unusual approach for a procurement manager to take – but, then again, this was a somewhat unusually forward-looking and strategic purchasing function, many of whose members have gone on to do other wonderful things in their careers since. Your more typical – junior, tactical, arrogant buyer – is far less likely to care, or even to think through the consequences (for them!) of their actions when issuing a Yuletide document.
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So, if you’re in a part of the world where this has been a holiday season, did you end up working flat out right through the end of December, or heading straight back into the office on the morning of 1st January? And, do you think the potential clients concerned got the very best of your organisation in the offer and proposal that you submitted as a result?
5 Comments

Finishing first

12/20/2013

0 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
The BBC website today quotes cyclist Mark Cavendish, after he had been congratulated for finishing as runner-up in a major race:
“Don’t ever, ever, congratulate me on finishing second.”
​I rather like that, as a variant on the old quote that “silver medals were invented to make losers feel better about themselves”, or Bill Shankly’s “First is first: second is nothing”.
We hope you’ve had a successful, winning year with your proposals – and wish all of our readers every happiness for the festive season. See you in 2014!
0 Comments

Proposal psychopaths

12/9/2013

18 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
I was fascinated by the research project underway online, linked to a forthcoming Channel 4 TV programme here in the UK, which tests an individual’s psychopathic tendencies.
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I scored 42%, marginally less psychopathic than the population at large. Apparently:
Though your conscience is in the right place you also have a pragmatic streak and generally aren’t afraid to do your own dirty work! You’re no shrinking violet – but no daredevil either. You generally have little trouble seeing things from another person’s perspective but, at the same time, are no pushover. ‘Everything in moderation – including moderation’ might sum up your approach to life.
​I wonder what the typical score would be for a proposal manager? Thus far, readers of the Financial Times weigh in with a staggeringly high score of 62%. Does my score suggest that proposal managers are less ruthless than those around us in the business world? That we’re too nice, perhaps? Or just not likely to murder reluctant salespeople or tardy content contributors!
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I’d be fascinated to know others’ results, if you get five minutes to take the test and share your score in the comments.
18 Comments

Of hunters and hunting

11/25/2013

0 Comments

 
Posted by BJ
I recently presented at a conference held by one of our clients. For this client, the market has shifted significantly and they no longer can rely on the steady stream of business from existing client they’ve enjoyed for many years. For this reason, the focus of their annual event was business development with an emphasis on winning new business (rather than renewals or additional business from an existing client).

Several of the presenters spoke about sales people being “hunters” and offered suggestions for improving with their “hunting” skills. Among such tips were to start learning about the potential client as early as possible and not waiting for the RFP to arrive to get started. The other was to do their homework and learn as much about the potential client as possible.

The speaker’s use of the terms hunter and hunting prompted me to consider the parallels between business development and deer hunting. I imagine this was also prompted by my residing on a very large piece of property that is home to many deer and the fact that this is deer hunting season.

The people who are given permission to hunt on the property fall into two groups. The first group is those hunters who have hunted the property for many years and who hunt each year for several days or weeks. This group is made up of people who live nearby and/or close friends. The second group consists of individuals who haven’t hunted here previously and typically only hunt for one or two days. These might be clients or someone I’ve recently met who are hunters and who, upon learning that I have access to good property for deer hunting and request permission to hunt for a day or two.

Those hunters who haven’t hunted here previously, and who only hunt for a day or two, rarely see, let alone manage to shoot a deer. They might stumble upon a deer and take a shot at it as it runs off. They have no idea where the deer are and have no understanding of their habits. They will inevitably come in after a day of hunting to inform me there probably aren’t many deer on the property anymore.

In contrast to these occasional hunters, those hunters who have hunted the land for several years know a great deal about their prey. Throughout the Spring and Summer, they are out on the property, watching the deer and learning the habits of the deer. They know where they sleep, where they eat and drink and they know which paths they follow. They even go so far as to put up motion-activated cameras which take pictures of the deer as they pass. These hunters have a plan when they go out to hunt. They often have selected the deer with wish to get and will pass up deer that come by to get the one they have decide to pursue. Inevitably, these hunters get the deer they are after. They inform the herd on the property is large and there is no shortage of game for hunting.

As with most of my analogies, I think the parallels to our business are fairly obvious. The majority of opportunities are won by those companies that engage with the client well before the release of an RFP. These companies have extensive knowledge of the client and understand their concerns and their objectives for both the business overall and the RFP specifically. They know the competitive landscape and have developed their strategy for capturing the opportunity. In many cases they may have even assisted the client in the development of the RFP. (This is not dissimilar to hunters that provide food for the deer in the later part of winter to ensure the deer remain healthy when natural food becomes scarce.)
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Please feel free to offer this analogy the next time a sales person requests that you provide support for a last minute hunting trip on property where they’ve never hunted before. In all likelihood, they’ll end up telling you there weren’t any deer there.
0 Comments

Make someone smile (etc.)

11/18/2013

0 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
This really doesn’t have anything to do with proposals, other than very tangentally – in that I was on the way back from a meeting on Friday when I saw it at Earls Court tube station. But I loved it: it made me smile, and I thought readers here might enjoy it too:

Picture
So, how many are you going to do today?
0 Comments

The essence of the question

11/15/2013

3 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
The speaker of the UK House of Commons gave a witheringly sarcastic put-down to prime minister David Cameron last week:
“It’s a good idea to try to remember the essence of the question that was put.”
We could apply this to proposals, of course – not only answer the question (’compliant’) but address its essence (’responsive’). When speaker Bercow gets kicked out of office, he might think of proposal management as a second career… and in the meantime, I can see myself quoting him to various recalcitrant content contributors!
3 Comments

On top of the world

10/25/2013

0 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
Just back from APMP’s wonderful UK conference, amidst friends old and new. We sponsored the event in the form of a free copy for all delegates of ‘Proposal Essentials’, our recently-published book – more to follow on that here shortly! And I had great fun co-presenting a UK version of the “Fifty Shades of Great” presentation that BJ and I first gave at Bid & Proposal Con back in Atlanta in May.
We heard from Ken Newland, this year’s excellent CEO, that the UK chapter recently broke through the 1,000 members mark for the first time, and that we’re now the largest APMP chapter in the world. It feels like a long way from cajoling 18 people into a room in Reading back in 2001, when first setting up the association here!

The keynote speech came from Sir Clive Woodward, the esteemed former chief coach of England’s world cup winning rugby team, and then of the British Olympic Association in the run-up to London 2012. Amidst so much wise counsel, I scribbled down a few quotes which really stuck a chord:
  • Great teams are made up of great individuals.
  • Talent alone is not enough.
  • What are the absolute things we must get right?
  • If you come across a decision you’ve not thought through before, your chances of making the correct decision are low.
  • What keeps me awake at night is that the person I’m competing against will have thought of something I haven’t.
Congratulations to all involved in organising the event. Next up for me, APMP-wise? A meeting helping to launch a Central European APMP chapter, in Budapest next week…
0 Comments

Homework

10/11/2013

1 Comment

 
Posted by Jon
I loved an observation made by a senior manager who attended one of my training courses in London last week:
“Too many proposal efforts feel like doing your homework on the bus to school.”
Stressful. Rushed. Just good enough not to get into trouble – or get too bad a mark. Yep, I can see the parallels oh so clearly!
1 Comment
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