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 the
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’ 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
