Generating Enriched Experiences

Peter McPartland, Bid Manager of national law firm Weightmans LLP, promotes the importance of constantly striving to create the ideal culture and environment for bid teams to flourish.

Bid teams bring together individuals with varying expertise, ability, knowledge, imagination and motivation. Our leadership must create the model conditions where everyone involved can do their most productive, courageous and inspired thinking – together as a team.

The potential impact of marginal gains with each person is huge when aggregated. On a recent major tender, over 60 people were thanked following its submission for their investment and leaving what I referred to as their fingerprints on a very special bid.

For me, people are at the heart of successful bidding. However, for many, the field of bidding is outside their natural area of expertise. Realising the potential that exists within each of these individuals to contribute ideas and stimulate the thinking of others represents a massive opportunity. However, the pressures involved in tendering mean we can run a real risk of neglecting to personalise support to individuals and allowing group dynamics to creep in, which foster behaviour that discourages collaboration.

The belief that great ideas are produced through an individual’s flash of genius is a myth. The process of anything innovative must be collaborative. Originality arises from the interplay of ideas and positive abrasion that occurs during the interactions of people confident to offer their own points of view.

At the formative stages, when you are developing win strategies, exploring different ideas or encouraging imagination, it is easy to forget that the harnessing of collective talent can feel demoralising for those involved. That is because the best ideas invariably evolve through discussions where people are exposed to what can feel like conflict and rejection. Giving people confidence to contribute ideas is vital.

Trust underpins positive conflict, but without engendering genuine trust, the conflict you experience can feel anything but positive.

Bringing diverse groups together, either from different teams, or made up of people at different levels can generate rivalry.

It is vital that we, as bid coaches, never lose sight of the importance of creating an environment where people know from the outset they have the freedom to share opinions, irrespective of their perceived comfort zone or the status of others in attendance.

Striving for utopia

To reach such utopia above it is important to perform honest assessments of what inhibits you in relation to your organisation’s approach, attitude and aptitude for bidding. For example:

• Relationships: Are people with client contacts or those who have been engaging with potential evaluators confidently extending your network of relationships?
• Competitiveness: Is the bid team genuinely aware of others you are competing with, their strengths / weaknesses or the likely win strategies they will adopt?
• Focus: How early on in the pre bid process are bid teams created and how positive are people about their involvement.
• Confidence: What depth of bidding experience do those involved have?
• Teamwork: To what extent are internal politics influencing how people behave?
• Imagination: How comfortable are people when asked to think imaginatively about ideas that can make a difference to client experience?
• Conviction: Is there is a lack of persuasion and energy in people’s bid writing? Similarly, when preparing for face-to-face pitches, is there a lack of potency or genuine cohesion from your pitch teams?
• Accountability: How much reliance is placed upon the supporting bid specialists to develop the bid rather than offer guidance or challenge the thinking of those involved to execute the win strategy?
• Responsiveness:  Are people adhering to commitments, particularly tasks that others are dependent upon to start theirs?
• Stimulus: How well does the business capture or share impressive evidence or information to consider emphasising?
• Learning: Are feedbacks, both internal and external, carried out objectively, and is there an appetite to progress through action plans that drive continuous improvement?

The outcome of such assessments presents opportunities to evolve quicker towards the idealistic.

Commitment to such utopia will serve to generate the enriched experiences and productive environments which stimulate enhanced performance – of all involved.