When someone says "Chocolate" what do you think of?

I was reminded of an exercise I use with groups when in a session with internal stakeholders of a procurement team last week.

In the exercise I ask everyone to write the first eight words that come to mind when they hear the word “chocolate”. They then spend some time comparing their answers with others in the room. There is a whole range of possible answers, that could include:

Milk, dark, bitter, bake, dog, buttons, sweet, good, bad, healthy, unhealthy, bar, biscuits, strawberries, cocoa, Fairtrade, relaxation, fountain, Labrador, sugar, hot, fattening, present, gift, orange, yucky, yummy.

The one word that seems to come up most often is milk, shared by about three-quarters of the group. The second most common word is usually shared with less than half of the people participating in the exercise. Very soon we’re looking at just a small percentage of people sharing a word. Sometimes someone may not share a single word with anyone in the room. Generally most people will have three or four associated words that are unique to them.

It’s clear that even for a simple word such as chocolate there are different things going on in our minds when we hear it. It’s this meaning to us that will impact our actions, reactions, words and behaviours and yet we often use words assuming a common understanding.

In last week’s meeting I realised every internal stakeholder in the room had a different interpretation for “procurement”. When the stakeholder heard the phrase “best practice procurement” their interpretation of procurement meant they thought they were already doing it. Continuing to use the word wasn’t going to change that so we had to start using new words that expanded their understanding.

New words that enabled them to understand in much more detail what was involved in the Initiate Project, Research & Analyse, Develop Strategy, Implement Strategy and Implement Contract steps.

The next time you’re not getting the response you’re expecting, it might be that they consider what you’re talking about to be yucky, not yummy.

Also blogged on Supply Management. Image from Dogs & Puppies

Let go of the past

Kriss Akabusi gave the after dinner speech at the recent CIPS dinner and asked us to 'reference the past don't reside there'. I shared one learning from his speech on my Supplier Management blog. However as I reflect on March's theme of well being there's something else I'd like to discuss.

I'd like you to imagine that we all have 100 watts of internal energy to use everyday. These 100 watts are available to achieve everything we want in the day: all the thinking, all the moving, all the feeling, all the doing, all the being etc. Our eating , exercise , sleeping and thinking will of course impact whether these 100 watts are available but lets just assume for the moment that we're doing all the right things and have 100 watts available.

Which brings me to what other activities will reduce the level of internal energy available to get what we want done: our emotions. Or more importantly emotions directed at the past or the future. Whether that's reliving not getting that job 3 years ago, anger at your boss for something they said 6 months ago, frustration at ourselves for not taking action sooner or fear about the interview coming up in a month? These all take some of those 100 watts. On a very basic level the past has gone and the future has yet to arrive. The problem is we can spend all of our 100 watts revisiting the past or imagining the future and then find we have no energy available to undertake the tasks of today. Emotions are great and do let us know how we're feeling in the moment. However recycling the emotion so it becomes learnt behaviour and a belief rather than real emotion isn't helpful. The key is being aware when we're in the past or future, and therefore allowing our energy to drain away, and bring ourselves back into the moment.

How many of 100 watts did you lose today? and what do you need to stop doing to ensure you do have 100 watts tomorrow?

Alison Smith

Helping purchasing relationships maintain their energy

alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

Simples - not really - lowest cost comes at a price!

The lack of blogs and tweets from me this month has been due to the time spent travelling back and forth and up and down the country. The content for such blogs hasn't stopped appearing though and the main theme for today's blog 'the price to be paid for low cost' is as a result of all this travelling.

Price one: Unacceptable behaviour
Have you noticed what sort of people we turn into in order to get a seat when using low cost airlines? The tannoy announcement squeaks into life and we're all on our feet and pushing forward. No one listens or cares about the priority boarders and young children who have to fight to come forward. We seem to only care about ourselves - eyes are kept firmly looking at our feet as we push forward to ensure we get choice over where we sit! Not a great advertisement for humanity - and I won't even start on the behaviour once on board trying to put bags into overhead lockers.

Price two: Suppliers start to charge for all those extras
It's a wonder anyone can determine who offers the lowest cost when we get charged for all those extras. Which of course will differ between airlines and on recently trips have included:

A seat - with one airline I have yet to find out how to say I don't want to pay to choose my seat
Airport check-in - when the email doesn't provide any links to do it online
Airport bag-drop - when the internet wouldn't let me change my details when plans changed

Payment - ranging from £4.95 (go on why not just say £5) to £9.95 (£10)

I appreciate these charges should enable me to choose whether to receive the service or not. However being charged for 'must haves' (a seat, payment) and increasing the likelihood of us having to pay the additional admin fees for airport handling are simply ways of increasing revenue for the airlines.

Price three: Specification drift
Is lowest cost what we really want then the lowest car hire price means ringing them up when we arrive at the terminal for them to send a minibus to come to pick us up to take us to the hire car!

Price four: Poor Service
A great example was when we were asked to put our coats and bags on our knees because the overhead lockers were full and people still had bags to put in them!

You might think I'm just having a bad day and enjoying the rant - and yes that's true - but all of these 'Prices' are also evident where we work too. In my own discipline of purchasing it's all too easy to see unhappy suppliers doing the same as the airlines and making us pay for forcing the price down. As a local MD of a SME said to me the other week "that last 10% cost reduction has just cost them all the good will. They will pay for everything extra and I can assure you that will cost them more than 10%".

What price is your company paying in it's search for lowest cost?

Alison
Ensuring purchasing relationships deliver value

Are you using information as a tool for empowerment?

In a recent conversation about use of his Blackberry Barack Obama was quoted as saying "Information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool for empowerment."

The challenge of course is how to move beyond the distractions and diversions of the Internet to such a place of empowerment. Here's a few suggestions - I'd love to know how you manage this challenge.

Aim for humanly possible not technically possible.

Just because it's technically possible doesn't mean it's humanly possible. We can't ever hope to keep up with the technology only manage it effectively. There are still only 24 hours in a day and cramming more hours in on the Internet wont help.

80/20
20% of the effort will still deliver 80 of the information. Therefore notice when the law of diminishing returns kicks in and stop looking.

Move beyond the Information to Knowledge, Understanding & Wisdom
More and more information doesn't lead to increased understanding. It's the evaluation of that information that will provide the insights. More depth, less quantity.

Alison

Alison Smith
Empowering purchasing relationships in their use of information and data