I understand why “us vs them” rhetoric keeps surfacing in our profession. It is familiar, emotionally satisfying, and often rooted in real frustration. I have leaned into that angle myself many times, both on LinkedIn and in my newsletter. Anyone who has worked in bids long enough has felt the pain: Sales introduces an opportunity too late, SMEs go quiet when you need them most, executives arrive at the end with major changes, and procurement seems determined to make an already difficult process harder.
Those frustrations are real. But I think there is a deeper and more useful truth behind them.
The “us vs them” mindset may help us vent, but it does very little to help us win. Great bids are not won by one function heroically compensating for everyone else. They are won when different parts of the business align around the opportunity and contribute in a coordinated way, even under pressure and with incomplete information.
That is why I no longer think the biggest problem is bad intent (yes, even from procurement) and why I think the norm is that everybody is protecting their area of the business while making decisions with partial visibility, just like we (the bid team) are.
In practice, this means the real issue is often not people but weak collaboration design, which is about best practices (engage earlier, provide better context, clarify roles, ask sharper questions, etc.) – but also something else. Best practices still matter a lot, but experience has taught me that they only work consistently when trust underpins them. A good stakeholder approach that builds and maintains trust starts with adaptation.
With Sales, the conversation should focus on momentum, choices, and win strategy. With SMEs, it should be precise, respectful, and tied to a meaningful outcome. With Executives, managing up means filtering complexity and presenting clear options, not escalating noise. With junior colleagues or direct reports, it means reducing ambiguity, removing blockers, and creating conditions for good work.
Many common friction points in the bid lifecycle come from ignoring this. We ask without context. We overuse urgency. We involve people too late. We forget to close the loop after submission. Over time, those habits damage trust – and once trust is weakened, every future bid becomes harder.
This is why I believe the future of bid leadership is less about chasing content and more about building trust. In the AI era, bid professionals will spend less time producing first drafts under pressure. The real value shift is toward orchestrating people, judgement, relationships, trust, and strategy around the opportunity.
It is more than a soft skill. It is a win skill.
Because there is no “them” in a winning bid.
Javier Escartin
Javier is an aerospace engineer who has climbed the corporate ladder from engineering to business development. He is a full-time freelance Proposal Manager and has recently launched a business to make our work easier with artificial intelligence. He is the founder of DeepRFP.com, runs the proposals newsletter jescartin.com, and manages proposals for worldwide technology companies as a consultant.
