Respect - what does it look like to you?

Source: thedisneyprincess.tumblr.com via Alison on Pinterest

Yesterday I blogged about our relationship to time. As a result of tweeting about the blog I asked did someone being late show a lack of respect. It was a trick question really because as I explained in the blog - those with a preference for In-Time won't believe so and those with Thru-time preferences will.

And they're both right - from their worldview anyway. I suggest it's up to both parties to understand the other's worldview. Those In-time should understand that their colleagues with Thru-time preferences may judge their behaviour to be disrespectful and understand the repercussions if someone holds that belief about them. Those Thru-time should understand that those In-Time would believe that their undivided attention in meetings is more respectful.

Which had me thinking about our values - of which respect might be one.

Our values are what inspires and motivates our daily actions. They're what determine what we will do and what we won't do. They also determine what we do and don't admire in others and therefore how we judge them - and ourselves for that matter.

Even at it's simplest level what values are in our top five can and will lead to disputes between individuals about what to do and what doing it means. As another blog in Supply Management suggested when I chunked our values into Achievement, Affiliation & Power. Someone valuing Achievement and Success may very well want to manage a project differently than someone valuing Affiliation.

Every action is motivated by a need to achieve a value - yes even actions that a majority of us would deem to be unacceptable. Which brings me to the added complexity that our values are nominalisations and we each have our own definitions for what achieving them means.

If I take respect for a moment then it might mean any, or none, of the following to someone:

• Being on time for meetings
• Giving our undivided attention in meetings
• Listening to what others are saying
• Acknowledging you have heard what others have said 
• Saying thank you
• Doing what you say you're going to do (see blog on being faithless and therefore trustworthy)
• Being honest
• Doing what they want you to do
• Respect for yourself
• Respect for others
• Respect for the planet
• Fairness (which I'd suggest is in fact another value)

The key is understanding that your definition of respect is just that - yours and that others are likely to have a different understanding of what respect is or may not even value respect as highly as you.

Alison Smith
Helping Procurement understand their and their stakeholders' values.   

Should you be wearing or wanging your wellies?

On my 4 day adventure on the farm this weekend I wore these wellies for the whole time. In fact I put them on as I got out of the car and took them off again as I got back into it 4 days later (yes I did also remove them when in the farmhouse).

This morning I spied a tweet selling wedge wellies and then another offering wellies for your wedding:

Source: wedgewelly.co.uk via Alison on Pinterest

Source: elliesweddingaccessories.co.uk via Alison on Pinterest

Whilst I love these latter 2 styles they wouldn't have been very useful over the weekend.

Isn't that also true in business. We need to use the right tool for the job - I'd suggest that's as true in sales, HR and Finance as it is in Purchasing and on the farm.

However once we've found a tool that work's we can't keep bringing it out and thinking it will work for every situation and every eventuality. Which I think many businesses do with their external spend. You see everyone thinks they can buy and I suppose that's because they can. The challenge in business is they should be purchasing or procuring ie using an increasing number of specialised tools and techniques to apply to the spend and supplier relationships to unlock the value.

Which means instead of wearing the wellies you might need to wang them instead!

          

Source: ukstudentlife.com via Alison on Pinterest

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping you unlock value in your business by ensuring you're using the right tools when purchasing
alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

For more on the #digdeep theme applied to business see my pinterest board

Spiral up or down?

When you woke this morning what choice did you make? Did you choose to spiral up or down?

I'd suggest if yesterday you were spiralling up that today you found it easy to continue to do the same. If yesterday was hard, you felt a little deflated or had let things get to you that continuing the spiral down may have been set as the default for today.

I've had many conversations with clients and friends about this over recent weeks and noticed the same in myself too. Let me give you my example:

It started with a cough which floored me for 2 weeks - I ended up staying in the house watching rubbish TV, sleeping a lot and eating rubbish too. For the following 4 weeks I was travelling with work which meant living in hotels and spending time on trains, planes and automobiles. The routine of rubbish TV, lots of time alone, grabbing food on the go continued. Weekends were a blur of catching up with emails, housework, sleep and yet more rubbish tv. I was only just managing to keep on top of emails, work and to-do lists. Energy was waning. I was certainly in a spiral down.

It would be easy for me to simply put it down to (ok..blame) the cough and the travelling and take no action. However that's 6 weeks of wasted opportunity, and there are simple things I could have done, even when ill, to enable me to spiral up. Even if only one step at a time. Things such as:

Taking my vitamins

Eating better

Drinking more water

Getting outside in the sunshine

Walking on the beach even when raining

Watching programs that inspire me (via TED, youtube or yes even on TV)

or progs that make me laugh

Reading

Spending time with other people

Taking baths not showers (this is a biggie for me)

Being creative

etc

Why - because these are all things I've written about in previous blogs that sustain me and help me maintain my passion for life - even if one day at a time. Do you know what sustains you. More importantly have you written them down for easy reference in times of need and when you've forgotten?

It's soo easy to buy into the spiral down and make decisions that support that movement. Next time you notice the change in direction go to your list of things that sustain you and make a choice - do one of them or even better do more than one of them. And notice what you notice.

PS you may like the PINTEREST vision board I've just started that acts as a reminder of what sustains me

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping Procurement teams to spiral up!

Image at top of page from On Your Mark's web site where there's an excerpt for a book called Spiral up!