Managerial Self-Awareness

This one is going to be a little off my usual procurement related bent, but not too far. I manage a team in The Company’s procurement organization, so this is loosely tied.

So, I have a new manager on my team. She is a star performer and earned her way to this spot. She is great in her technical knowledge and strategic thinking.

But she is also a bit of a blurter. Meaning she’ll say whatever comes to her mind the moment it arrives in her mind. Usually, her frank and brutal honesty is an asset. Sometimes it is also a liability.

Like telling the CTO in a fully packed meeting room that one of the systems developed by his organization “really sucks”.

But I digress.

She’s working on her maturity and managerial style, and I’ve seen her take huge leaps in the past year. She’s a quick study and earnest in her job. That can make up for a lot of shortcomings.

Currently, she’s got an ongoing low-lying issue with one of her employees. Without disclosing details, we’ll just say that her employee suffers with a really bad habit.

This habit drives the manager batty. To the point she brings it up in almost every single one-on-one meeting we have. “Why does she have to act like that?” and “How can I make her stop?”

I’ve spent a lot of time explaining you can’t change people’s personality, but you can change how you respond to it. Meaning you don’t reward bad behavior (which, to be fair, this new manager often caves and gives into “the bad habit”).

Today, while listening to the latest rant, I had an epiphany. I finally figured out why “the bad habit” bothers the manager so much. Because she is guilty of it too, though at a much less intensity.

This got me thinking about myself and the way I manage my team. What blind spots must I have about managing my team based on my own lack of self-awareness?

This should probably be the new catch phrase along with “managerial courage” and “low hanging fruit”.

Managerial self-awareness.

I think for any leader to be effective, they should occasionally take stock of what is bugging them about their team. Then they might think about how it reflects back on them.

We don’t do this enough. I’ll raise my hand as a guilty party.

Being a manager is never a fixed point but always a moving target.

Much to think about today.

Personal code

I have a certain few personal rules by which I run my life.

One of them is on the forefront of my mind today.

That personal code is thus:

“Never trust a man who says trust me.”

Why is this front of cerebellum today?

Well. I just sat through a 90 minute meeting with a potential vendor. They are one of the short list and fighting hard to win.

I asked the “elephant in the room” question that was plaguing my team here at The Company.

The vendor then said a lot of words…all of which amounted to, pretty much, “trust me”.

Now as the capable procurement hero that I am…the question is, *should* I trust them? If they can pull off what they say they can, this is a HUGE step forward for my team

If they cannot, it’s a MASSIVE failure and waste of The Company’s resources.

But the question you gotta ask yourself…or rather I gotta ask MYself is…what if they only get halfway? Can it be salvaged?

See sometimes it’s not about success or failure but the ability to pull yer backside out of the fire when it’s “not quite”.

And on this answer, I’m just not sure.

But of this, I’m sure. I don’t trust them farther than I can throw their weighty sales literature laden proposal.

Off to ponder this a little bit more…

It’s just a flaw.

Like a pull in your sweater or a skipped stitch in your shirt collar.

No big deal. A flaw. Easily overlooked. Only detracts slightly from the aesthetic quality.

No problem. Just don’t tug on it. Because then the sh*t really rains down.

“Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the current financial crisis has uncovered a flaw in how the free market system works…”

This little “flaw” is causing massive disruption within my own little job-related world.

When suppliers can’t get financing, they can’t easily perform the work, deliver the goods or provide the services we need.

Turns out, it’s also a tsunami.

“Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress…that the current global financial crisis is a ‘once in a century credit tsunami’…

Gosh, what other euphemisms can we come up with?

Godzilla vs King Kong

Today the CEO of a respectably large company came to meet with the CIO of The Company.

The Purpose? To negotiate a fairly tricky and highly visible deal.

My CIO is no slouch. He’s hard to beat at the negotiation table.

The CEO of the supplier, I don’t know him, but I suspect he didn’t get to be CEO by being a pushover.

My role in this? Spectator.

Is it wrong to bring popcorn?

Ok, more than spectator, I get to write up the contract to reflect whatever they negotiate.

I’m kind of looking forward to the show.

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets

Replace “Lola” with “CFO” and you have the fire drill du jour in my life.

Seems the exec types have finally caught up with their reading and have decided something’s wrong with the economy. Must’ve seen a blip in their well-padded investment accounts.

So the directive has come down: look at every contract and tell us how you’ll take some money out of it.

What, so you think we did a crappy job negotiating the first time?

Isn’t getting to the bottom line what we in procurement, uh, DO?

No answer. Only “deliver me cost savings and do so by next week”.

Riiiiight.

‘Scuse me while I wave my magic wand.

Yessir, The Amazing Procuriffico will produce pennies out of thin air!

Where simplicity meets tenacity

That’s where you’ll find Procurement.

Was talking to a coworker today. Her team manages facilities and such.

They’ve just awarded a new contract to the company that supplies those water cooler machines to our buildings.

Easy, right? Take the old one out, put the new one in. Fill a cup. Drink.

Not so easy.

Incumbent supplier didn’t win. Gotta get the old machines out. New machines gotta go in.

And oh by the way, the clients can’t miss a single thirsty day.

Must be effortless. Seamless. So fast no one knows the difference.

How’s THAT going to work?

A simple plan executed with sheer tenacity.

Glad that’s not my gig today.

I have good news and I have bad news.

Which do you want first?

This what was on my mind as I was sending out notifications today.

Notifications about who did and who did not make the short list for a pretty hotly contested RFP.

A couple vendors will be happy. Several others will not.

So what’s your theory on this?

I’ve heard both sides. Bad news travels fast, so you want your successful vendors to know well ahead so they are not left wondering, so get the yes’s out first.

Or

Get the bad news over with first, save the best for last.

This was a lot more of a consideration in the era where notifications were given by phone call, with a hard copy letter to follow.

Now that I can give written notification via email, I write a number of emails, line ‘em up, and hit send one after the other, virtually letting everyone know within seconds of each other.

So that’s the path I took. Everyone heard about the same time.

I did send the bad news first, though. Goes back to my first mentor at my first procurement job. He was adamant that bad news go out first.

Some habits die hard.

Fweep!

Hold it right there, Mister! You done broke the law.

That’s right, today I had to get out my bobby hat and go chasing after The Client. Or really, The Client’s boss.

See, one of my contracts folks just launched an RFP on Tuesday. Then this morning (Wednesday), The Client fired off a purchase order for *the same thing* and sent it to one of the bidders.

One: they didn’t tell us. We found out by seeing the PR in approval cycle.

Two: they didn’t include this new stuff in the inventory for the RFP. They conveniently “forgot” it and handed a not insubstantial amount of business to ONE bidder, thus giving them an advantage in the RFP.

Three: they got schooled on the legal implications of this kind of fooling about. It’s not just Procurement hurt feelings, they put The Company at risk.

I haven’t had to get all Procurement Sheriff on The Client in a long, long time…but without a moment’s hesitation I marched upstairs, closed his office door, and let ‘er rip.

By the time I was done, he was saying, “you’re right” and “on behalf of my team, I’m sorry” and “we’ll never do this again.”

All the sorries don’t fix the issue, but at least now they know…Procurement is on patrol.

Performance Indicator

What’s the best way to measure the performance of a supplier?

Seems like that would be an easy enough question to answer, but it turns out, it’s not.

If the supplier is the kind that simply delivers product and does nothing else, then sure, it’s pretty easy. Did I get what I ordered and did I get it on time? Period.

But what about suppliers who provide things like professional services? Did they provide what I wanted when I wanted? Sure. But what about scope creep (that’s your fault). Did you clearly define acceptance of deliverables? CAN you define acceptance in a way both parties will agree with?

What about software? Does it work error free? Ok, but the fact that it fires up when you double click, is that *really* the measure that it does what the sales guy promised it would? What about when you buy services along with the software? Maintenance? Installation? How do you know for certain the supplier did or did not succeed?

It’s actually not so easy. I’ve come to discover that in the MRO side of the procurement house, measuring the success or lack of success of our suppliers is often not easy to do, and is therefore not usually done.

And that’s a shame.

Because when we finally cross the line to where The Client is mad and ready to boot them out the door, the Procurement person is now lost to be able to provide objective hard proof that the supplier isn’t cutting it. “Prove it,” they will say. And we can’t.

“Feelings” don’t really hold up in front of a jury when things go really, really wrong.

I don’t have good answers, but I’ll say this. The best way to incorporate measurement is early. Put it in the contract. Discuss metrics with the supplier when things are good. Hey, they might even have some good ideas! They may have their own measures you can use.

Implement quarterly business reviews. Yes, I know, they take time and energy but the dividend is worth it. Do QBRs at least on your top ten suppliers. The big dollars or impact suppliers should be watched the most.

Make sure the “feelings” are known early. Well before the “feelings” turn to anger.

Whoa, oh, domino

My jaunty reference to ol’ Van Morrison might date me a bit, but what the heck. On a day when markets are in free fall, why not sing a bit and click your heels together. Not like there’s anything *I* can do to fix this catastrophe of epic proportions.

But it didn’t take long for the “tinkle down” economics, as Archie Bunker used to say, to hit our little corner of the Procurement world.

One of my rock star contracts folks presented me with a problem today. She’s been working hard on a maintenance renewal along with a fresh new purchase with a BIG, well-established manufacturer of the hardware we like to use here at The Company.

No big deal, right? Happens every year about this time. When I was earning my stripes as a contracting rep, I did this renewal for several years, so I know a little bit about it.

My contracts person has negotiated the heck out it, project managed The Client to get an accurate inventory list and was ready to have the deal signed off.

Should just be a simple amendment, right?

Thankfully my employee is both smart and diligent. Just as any Procurement Rep should do, she read every word of the amendment just in case.

And found that Big Supplier is asking for something a little different in the payment terms.

Seems we’re being asked to sign a promissory note with Big Supplier’s financing company just to make double certain we’ll pay our quarterly payments like we say we will.

Promissory note? Financing company? THIS is new.

I would have bet odds that Big Supplier had no problem with the flow of cash. They are a good, solid company. But seems the issue of credit and of course, floating inventory, has presented a problem. They are selling our paper to make payments elsewhere.

Sound like any other economic crisis you can think of?

This is just the beginning, I assure you, of the long fall out from this harrowing economic crisis. This will touch everyone you know as the dominos begin to fall…