IN A ‘TOO-TIGHT’ TIMEFRAME,
USE INDIVIDUALS’ STRENGTHS TO
YOUR ADVANTAGE

WHEN YOU’RE UNDER THE PUMP WITH A SHORT SUBMISSION TIMEFRAME,
YOUR BEST DEFAULT STRATEGY FOR GETTING A TOP-NOTCH BID OUT THE
DOOR IN GOOD TIME AND WITH THE LEAST STRESS POSSIBLE IS TO “GO WITH
THE CURRENT” IN TERMS OF PEOPLE’S NATURAL TALENTS.

You can coach people in their
areas of weakness to a
reasonable degree, but rarely
will they be great in those particular
aspects of bid production. The fact is,
people generally gravitate back to the
aspects in which they naturally excel
and endeavour to avoid those in which
they don’t. And when a bid manager
is under the pump, the cold, hard fact
of the matter is that he or she simply
doesn’t have time to coach or cajole.
IDENTIFY PRIORITY SKILLS NEEDED
The first step is to accurately identify
the priority skills required for each part
of the submission and the process,
giving careful consideration to which
individuals possess these. It’s also smart
to consider personality traits or work
habits that stand to either propel or
impede progress towards the finish line.
Really think about each person and
who (rather than what) they are. “Day
job” position titles can be misleading
in the context of a bid. Often, the
strengths and weaknesses you’d
assume of an individual in a particular
role just don’t import across into a bid
team environment in the way you’d
expect them to.
I’ll cite as a case study, a small,
component operation of a larger
organisation with which I had been
working. One of the operation’s few
“white collar” staff members (aside
from the GM) was assigned as bid
manager.
It was a pressure cooker timeframe
and, a few days after kick-off, the
schedule was already floundering.
In short, this assumedly “natural”
IN A ‘TOO-TIGHT’ TIMEFRAME,
USE INDIVIDUALS’ STRENGTHS TO
YOUR ADVANTAGE
WHEN YOU’RE UNDER THE PUMP WITH A SHORT SUBMISSION TIMEFRAME,
YOUR BEST DEFAULT STRATEGY FOR GETTING A TOP-NOTCH BID OUT THE
DOOR IN GOOD TIME AND WITH THE LEAST STRESS POSSIBLE IS TO “GO WITH
THE CURRENT” IN TERMS OF PEOPLE’S NATURAL TALENTS.
bid manager appointment was a
disastrous choice.
As it happened, fate graciously
stepped in and saw that individual
suddenly pulled off onto another
contract elsewhere. Because I was
working with the team by remote
control, there was little choice but for
the Construction Manager to take over
the bid management role.
‘HUMBLE HAMMER SWINGER’
SAVES THE DAY
Fate dealt the bid a lucky hand
that day. The previous appointee’s
weakness was the Construction
Manager’s strength. This “humble
hammer swinger” (his own words)
made a brilliant bid manager. He
was organised, efficient, exercised
total diligence in keeping his own
commitments, and had an affable but
effective way of holding others to
theirs. His humility came in handy, too:
if he could see anything going off the
rails, he was quick to pick up the phone
for advice.
The fact that he couldn’t string
two coherent sentences together on
paper turned out to be inconsequential.
When the now-former bid manager
returned to the team, he gravitated
directly towards – and excelled at – the
bid’s writing tasks, taking on those
that had, in fact, been assigned to the
Construction Manager.
So, by complete accident, we ended
up with a highly functional bid team
and a top-notch bid out the door in
what, for that particular operation, was
apparently record time.
To re-emphasise the moral of the
story: When time is unavoidably tight,
ensure the highest quality and the
least stress by getting to know your
“human resources” and letting each
wear the cap that most comfortably
fits him or her. ■