- and [Music] [Applause] welcome to the art of procurement podcast with your host

Phillip Pike's it here at 43 share the trends strategies and tactics that you can
use to elevate the wall of procurement and your career hi there and thank you so
much for joining me and listening in to another episode of the art of procurement
and my guest today is Gordon Donovan Gordon is is presently actually a member of
the procurement leadership team at metro trains in Melbourne and he has a broad
range of experiences as a practitioner including head of procurement roles and also
as a consultant and as a trainer Gordon's career spans both the UK and Australia
includes roles at organizations such as the UK National Health Service the NHS
Transport for London health scope AG blue and the faculty and I first became aware
of Gordon through his writing actually we connected probably about six months ago
for the first time but since then he's become a friend and I'm really delighted he
accepted my invitation to join me on the show today we're going to discuss
influence so we've talked about this a little bit on the show before from a sales
in the marketing perspective also from a functional perspective in terms of
category management but today I want to go a little bit deeper and I'm willing to
say that there's few if any really who have studied the topic of influence and
procurement as thoroughly as garden so he wrote a 20,000 word dissertation which he
actually forwarded to me before the show it was about 96 pages I think for his
master's degree on the topic of the development of influencing skills was
specifically within the Australian procurement community and so as we run the
interview I do hope that you enjoy God's insights as much as I did before I do
start the show there is one more thing that I wanted to share with you it's it's an
important announcement for the art of procurement you know I teased this during the
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ado let's go to the conversation with Gordon I hope you enjoy the show [Music] hi
everybody and welcome to another episode of the art of procurement and as I
mentioned in my introduction I'm delighted to welcome God and Donovan to the show
today Gordon thanks for joining me oh thanks for inviting me Phil very much looking
forward to it and so this is a first at least the time that we record today that
the auto procurement is coming from Australia and from Melbourne so what's ironic
is that while we both opposite sides of the Pacific I think when I was working on
the map our hometowns in England are probably about 50 miles from each other yeah
just the patins project I know it and it's funny you know when you're in England
you have the War of the Roses and as a Yorkshire man like I am I'm taught never to
talk to her Lancastrian you know which survived until I went to university in
Lancashire but then when you when you get out of the country where suddenly you
know 50 miles apart is nothing and you suddenly you know comrades rather than
enemies so there's an English mafia thing going on right so something actually we
talked about before we rolled the tape but it was something as interesting it was
interesting to me not necessarily from an Australian perspective but just as a
procurement professional with you know kind of understanding where we are as a
profession around the world I always interested to know you know what the
characteristics of the procurement market right now in Australia and how its kind
of evolved over the last 10 15 years um I think the most the biggest thing that
probably drives Australian procurement mark is that most of the supply markets here
are quite distorted mm-hmm because although we're you know massive land mass the
the the population is relatively small weighs about 24 25 million something
something along those lines so you've not actually got an awful lot of consumers
for people's products and you sort of you lay that with a bit of history as to
previously until Bob Hawke and Paul Keating became prime ministers it was quite an
isolated might be the wrong word but he was certainly quite protectionist and so
who's quite high high tariffs high taxation into imported goods and it was quite
regulated and so what they do they deregulated an awful lot of what was going on
they brought in some foreign ownership does that actually then created the
procurement function if you like as as it as it started this and so interesting
documents going around on the history of Australian procurement which was published
by I sips in about 2006 2007 so so in terms of the characteristics that we see now
I would say that most supply markets are quite distorted traditionally a
traditional approaches of bundling things together have helped to create that
distortion as well as the geographical location I think that because of that some
of the more entrepreneurial procurement strategies have a lot of roots sort of laid
in in Australia there's been a quite a high rise in terms of low-cost country
sourcing and up global sourcing certainly the drive for sort of understanding their
deeper relationships with suppliers is is something that's it's becoming a lot more
prevalent in the Australian market if you take a look at rasma which is a sort of
global benchmark including Australian procurement the better Austrian procurement
organizations leading compliance but they like it they like in coverage and in
speed which is probably seeing a drive more for technology to help basically drive
for speed and also increase the coverage so I think the the finding from that is is
that when Australia procurement get embedded into organisations people are pretty
good at following the rules but actually getting there in the first place is
proving probably some pretty a little difficult bringing back to your procurement
carry how did you get staffed in procurement it was it something that you thought
odd did it choose you probably a little of both really my dad was a sales manager
he sold advertising strength so whilst you might automatically think of Mad Men for
that I can tell you according to my father was nothing like about mine while so
ever which was I think disappointing to him more than anything else and wonder what
the procurement equivalent of Mad Men would be that's you know what there's a an
opportunity so did I say dad was sales I left school in the u k-- Alice school at
16 and in the UK when I was 16 which was X number of years ago there was a scheme
called the youth trainee scheme the white ear suit called and and I my first
rotation was in a warehouse at Manchester Airport duty-free stores and my first
rotation was in in a warehouse in a bonded warehouse and then I did a rotation in a
duty paid warehouse and then there was some accounts and also the actual ordering
and the reconciliation all we would now see is the pizza peepees going on that kind
of got me hooked a little bit and then my first real job about a year later when
the white CS finished I was a I was a junior buyer and clerical officer for the
Northwest Regional Health Authority purchasing department December the 18th 1989
you remember well I do remember it well because because we later on holiday so and
so you know you've been in and out of you know being a practitioner being a
consultant I think for you know a number of years in new career and you keep kind
of dipping in from
one on the other has have you seen a difference in the kind of help that
procurement organizations are looking for is it pretty stable is where we are today
much different from where we were five years ago ten years ago it's a question I
think in terms of what people becomes the constancy of what people look for in the
help that I require is benchmarking mm-hmm how how are they doing against others
both locally and and more importantly for certainly for the larger organizations
it's the global benchmarking that they find incredibly useful and it's the the
ideas that there are other organization doing that they can then internalize a
little bit and try and figure out how are they going to be able to deploy these
types of thoughts these types of ideas in my organization what works on what
doesn't work that's pretty constant and then need a thing for procurement leaders
to understand where they sit in relation to others as has been the case for
certainly since I've been in because of the last sort of ten years more than
anything else but in terms of the the specifics you go back five seven years it was
a category management yeah it was all what are we going to do how do we do Telugu
Mandarin and to some degree there's still that requirement on what do we do with
Calculon what does he mean I read it I read an article about someone had written
like a degree management has failed and I think possibly it's because everyone
possibly consultants to blame for this maybe everyone maybe has their own
definition of out of your management and therefore it's specific to every
organization therefore category management is just something that people were
already doing and it's just putting another label on it I think at the moment
software support is big and I think that links back to the fact that the the speed
and the coverage areas that are verified it's a seroma world maybe lagging a little
bit so so software helps software implementation assessments as to whether or not
they're going to be able to get the benefits again it's linking back to
benchmarking a little bit but we're finding or found that there was certainly a
need people thought they needed some software support but they didn't know what it
was and they didn't know how to get themselves ready to actually take best you know
best use of these software supports and then I think always people are interested
in operating models and from centralized to decentralized to clan to to hybrid
systems and again that's understanding how technology is going to allow them to to
concentrate on different areas so it's it's quite cyclical certainly around the
organizational structure when I started in procurement in properly in procurement
in the Health Authority which is 1989 as I said we were kind of a hybrid system so
the the regions were all up were all had an essential Killman department where
there wasn't a national procurement epoch yeah about four or five years later went
national and then it went completely decentralized and pushed back and then it
comes national again it was decentralized so it is very very cyclical when you
think about the skills then that we as we continue to evolve you know I taught
about my view that I think that you know we need to look at our value proposition
and continue evolve it to remain relevant but to do that we might be limited just
in terms of capability just because the capabilities in my perspective at least
look different for driving procurement forward you know today or tomorrow than the
maiden in the past I know that you've had a lot of background but from procurement
transformation programs but also in terms of reading capability development
programs I mean in the right place is that fair you know I'm interested to know if
you agree or disagree that skill sets are changing I think that absolutely are
changing yeah I think I think they absolutely are I think technology is allowing
that the is allowing the skill sets to evolve because the things that that we may
have used to have been doing ourselves manually or all through Microsoft are
becoming a lot more automated which is therefore gonna allow us to do different
things which requires a different skill set I think as the need for procurement to
align themselves with with organizational goals means that we need to understand
what those goals are so that's for there's a lot more in terms of strategic
thinking and considering how we're going to put together things and how procurement
is going to operate to actually drive some of those goals and enable the business
to do what they need I think communication skills are an absolute must I think the
days of people say in the corner and they one of my old bosses got called and they
used to call it the brown car brigade those those days hopefully a extinct if not
it's not heading that way and I think we just need to be a bit more vibrant and and
being able to communicate in a language that other people understand I think that's
one of the biggest knocks on procurement is that we we seem to drive this insular
sort of world where you know what we do is really technical and it's and it's
really hard for others to understand it and therefore just leave us alone and let
us let us do what we need then I think I think those skill sets are changing I
think we need to demystify procurement in some ways and and allow people to
understand exactly what value it is that we delivery and also what value we can
deliver because there's a vast untapped potential the procurement can help deliver
for organizations you know wanting to move into new markets then procurement should
already be there because they're potentially buying from those markets very so I
remember Jonathan O'Brien this book about category management talking about that
and it's it's it's it's absolutely true and I think those are some of the areas
that procurement can thrive value so I I agree with procurement skill sets are
evolving and I know you prefer the word evolution rather than transformation yeah
because I think it is that I think it's more evolution though and I think it's a
continuum that they're not just procurement but every function goes through I think
when I started human it's not even called Human Resources that was personnel it was
human resources and now it's people and performance it's it's evolution you know
you said something then about demystifying what we do and you know I always have
this conversation I often have this conversation where I talk to people and say you
know it's not rocket science what we do it's a relatively straightforward but then
we make it sound a lot more complicated than it really is do you think that's
because we're trained to be protectionist and you know nobody if we make him seem
more complicated than it really is then people will just leave us alone to get on
with it yes yes absolutely i 100% agree with that i think and we're not alone i
think there's other departments very exactly the same thing but yeah i think you
know i think it absolutely is and i think we should do the exact opposite I think
you should simplify I think we should make people aware that the hard parts are
thinking about the strategies and how we can actually dovetail in with other
functions another orgonite and other departments within an organization I think
sharing the ability to deliver some of the sourcing work this is where software
this is where technology is going to help us do that and I think we can just become
a lot more valuable to organizations because we have insights into supply markets
that nobody else does we talked about it being complicated do you think because we
talked about to being complicated we believe it's complicated and maybe maybe it's
kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy that we think that it is not complex ourselves
and it really is I think sometimes we're guilty of making it harder than it really
is I mean in some ways the vast majority of things that we do is a straightforward
but especially the more that you do it obviously the more you do something the
better you get at it that's true of everything about some golf oh yeah thinking
that so I think sometimes it is a self-fulfilling prophecy and I think we get
caught up sometimes in the more technical aspects of things rather than probably
trying to break through that and without wishing to be to consultancy but you know
begin with the end in mind is something that has really driven me throughout my
career what is it that we're trying to achieve and then the quickest way there is
generally a straight line yeah it's nice that I've trained to belittle what it is
that we do because a lot of what we do is very hard and that's why it needs the
capabilities that we are trying to strive to to achieve but there's so much of what
we do that is relatively straightforward that is essentially a process facilitation
a process that is probably easier that we do need to demystify the facilitation
skills are just just so so important and there's multiple ways to facilitate things
but essentially what we're obviously seeking to do is understand what our business
wants what our business needs from this potential transaction and helping to
identify how that links into the other strategies friend of mine I'll give them a
name Chet Paul Rogers uses to run a sale the fundamental things we have to do is
answer the Spice Girls question what is it that you want what is it that you really
really want I think I think that's the key thing that we need to start with so one
of the key things you've got to consider in facilitation skills is how we're going
to influence the people in the room to get to where we want to get to and that's
not necessarily to get to do what we want right it's just possibly all of them well
how are we gonna influence people to actually share with everybody else in the room
what is it that we're trying
to achieve and that's that's a really that's a really key skill yeah and you've
taught us over and written a lot about influence so I'm interested you know we all
maybe think of influence as being different things and it's kind of like what you
said about Kashmir management it might mean something different to everybody who
talks about it how do you define influence I think influence has got two
definitions I think there's a functional influence and I think nism that's
influencing skills for me functional influence is around having influence within an
organization over strategic decisions which which you may not actually directly
influence but being able to have that conversation contributes to your
organization's success so I think there's a functional influence and my drive in
general from a procurement function would be for the the CEOs and CFOs and CEOs any
other things say when they're considering organizational goals and strategy that I
want them to think wonder how what procurement thinks about this let's let's speak
to procurement you know I think if we get that we've won yeah I then I think
there's actually influencing skills which is all around recognizing how I'm going
to change people's behavior how I'm going to maybe persuade them goldman talks
about wielding effective use of effective tactics of persuasion which is which is
quite interesting frame so so persuasion for me and influencing a kind of hand in
hand so you know are the different types of influencing are the different
influencing styles because you know I imagine the lots of people get to that goal
but they they take different paths to get there there are there's lots of different
styles that you can choose from and I think we need to be we need to consider how
we're going to deploy the work so one that I like which is from a graduate and
Robertson talks about reason assertiveness exchanges or alright bargaining if you
like coercion let us be clear now the threats threats that are absolutely you know
they're not our favorite one of mine I think negotiation there's a link of some of
those things clearly you know anyone with with kids will tell you that when you're
talking about influencing you can use all the greatest logic in the world it's not
a logical decision about I can tell you about our first experience right now
basically I've given up entering through importance at this point though I say to
people even training programs are around that the best negotiators in the world a
kids because they use emotion emotion emotion and they are persistent with a
capital P yeah and they usually get what they want at the end of the day yes
anything for quite life right so do you have to match or does it make sense for you
to match different styles with different types of people that you are trying to
influence because something may work with one person you know the coercion
unfortunately may work with one person we're trying to inspire them may not how do
you kind of figure out what's the best approach when based on the person you trying
to influence I think you've got to know got a good get another person so the key
the key skill here is listening because the person themselves will tell you how how
best to influence them you know there's so I think we need to understand how to use
those fell there's different types of influencing styles I think we need to
understand which ones we are better at and I think we need to understand the people
that we're trying to influence and the people that we're trying to communicate with
we have to understand what's the best way to communicate them to influence those
great because as you rightly say everybody's different their ever you know
everyone's an individual Monty Python makes up at some point and so we have to
understand most of a best way to influence them there's a great story in Muhammad
Ali's autobiography and it's about how Angelo Dundee influenced Ali previously when
he first started professional boxing he went through a few trainers including the
guy who ended up training Joe for 18 and they all try to tell Ali what they wanted
to do yeah which we don't need to know Ali to know they're telling early what to do
it's not and I was not he's not he's not the one that what what dundies did was
basically he made him think it was his own idea made him think he was already doing
it so the end of a round you'd come back and say the way that you're moving to your
left now is just sensation or the way that he's snapping out that jab now is just
brilliant I mean all he had the next round do it because he believed that he was
all be doing it and therefore he was in charge of it so you could say that that was
slightly deceitful or you could say it was recognizing that there a way to
influence that person was to turn around and allow them to consider the fact that
they've come up with themselves so I'm not convinced it's a power thing either I
just think everybody has got a different style that works and I also think it's
situational so listening understanding the individual and understanding the context
you're trying to influence is very very key what would you say your primary style
of influencing is then mine I would say I try and make people very relaxed with I'm
trying to influence them I try and get comfort and make people aware that there's
some level of knowledge here and it could be through building that trust over a
period of time and I think developing trustees is absolutely the foundation block
for for being able to influence and I don't do I know what I don't do I know I
don't do coercion 31 I'm not the greatest one it's threatening mainly because I've
never convinced I'm going to back it up and I'm very sure that comes out it's a
very short-term thinking though as well to use that approach isn't it because it is
you know you're basically doing on fear not because people believe that what you're
saying is something that they want to do themselves or that they want to follow
yeah and I think it's there's a if you look at you know great managers and leaders
then there might be an undercurrent of fear but it's more inspirational thing you
look at when people talk about an average Parcells autobiography and Lombardi's
autobiography and then one of the things that they all talked about was when
Lombardi or Parcells or I'll even use the majesty next manager as well because we
have to when they spoke the individuals in the room thought that everything was
being directed at that and they didn't want to let that person down right so the
inspirational piece of wanting to work for that individual I think his is key and I
think that when we're thinking about how we influence if we can if we can inspire
then that will be the legacy so when you're looking for people who have that
ability to inspire and have the ability to influence you know whether it's you know
as part of an internal program you're looking to build staff and you're looking for
influences are you looking for people to work with you on projects what are you
looking for what some of those key traits of a successful influencer I think key
traits is the biggest one is keep promises build build trust I think the minute you
you make a promise that you can't keep and you don't keep I think that Trust has
just gone and any influence the other is just gone out the window I'm looking for
people who have got who consider the listener so I think in communication mmm-hmm
we have we have a default setting this is how I like to communicate and actually
think we need to reverse that I think we need to understand how does the person I'm
trying to influence want to be communicated with I've got a really good friend of
mine easer he's a director of sales he try and communicate with him via email it is
just doesn't work I hate he has a thing when he comes back from holiday the clicks
on top of his emails click to the bottom his emails deletes the lot yeah and works
on the grounds if it was that important that it come to speak to me now doesn't
matter whether we think that's good behavior or bad behavior what matters is if I
want to influence the individual that I know I've gotta go and make an appointment
don't see that person going to him face to face and it's gonna take some time but
I'm aware of that from the communication point of view so I look for people who try
and understand how to communicate with a range of people and therefore have the
ability to communicate with a range of people in different ways well sort of it may
well be you know send me an email so I can actually do it you know we have this
world where work at the moment it's like a semi I'll put on me writing for me I
can't action it and that it's actually in front of me and that's fine there's no
there's nothing wrong with that it's just recognizing that everybody likes to have
things differently right I think one of the ways that we build trust is giving
people comfort that we know what we do we and so having having knowledge about
things I think as I've said before the the trying to gender the fact that you know
we've done this we've done this several times here's what we've learned here's what
we're gonna do differently and having that knowledge and belief and passion about
what you're doing I think the best influences and we've you know it's part of her
that one of the papers that have written we are interviewed a whole range of people
from Australia in the UK around what is it that made you know people who they
consider influential to be influential and they all came back and said look it's a
passion thing you know really if I can feel that you believe what you're saying I'm
going to go along with it and I'm gonna trust that that your passion is is well-
placed I think well again one of the things that they all came back and talked
about was was empathy and not sympathy being able to to sort of
recognize the things that people have done rather than sympathize with them mhm
and sort of like being the same sort of shoes was was key and the amount of
networking that the great influences do because one of the things that I think good
influences are able to deliver is if they don't know the answer themselves they
might they should know someone who knows that and they're almost act then as an
intermediary to introduce various people together right so pull people together who
can do that and I think that actually makes that person more influential to turn on
and say I don't know but I know someone who can and go and speak to such and such
yeah so not necessarily that they know it all but they're willing to put in the
work to connect you with correct you too yeah absolutely and and something else I
think was that you don't want people to fear that yard you're trying to influence
them for the wrong reasons or for reasons which aren't in their best interests yeah
getting they're forcing to someone to do what they don't want to do is is its
surefire way to a lose influence and be them you know some of the people that that
I'm aware else make sure that matter that'll make sure that they never do it rather
it kind of goes back to your earlier point about alignment so making sure that you
when you trying to influence that you're actually aligned on the same goals it may
be that you've got different approaches of getting there but generally speaking you
on how at least some similarities between what you're trying to do or else kind of
makes it exponentially more difficult yeah the alignment is is key and that's why
was it the second habit begin with the end in mind know where you want to end up
know that know the goal not necessarily that the journey is yeah it's really
important so just thinking about another example you know I have a stake holder and
obviously I think this is something we're all familiar we never stakeholder that
you train influence they want absolutely nothing to do with you they come and say
well I'm good on my own thanks have no need for procurement how do you teach
professionals to start breaking down the wall to start getting influence you know
it's not something that's gonna happen overnight but at least start to be able to
have a conversation so they can start educating us they caught on what you could
actually do for them that stakeholder sounds like marketing this is the traditional
vast you know how I never want you to do anything wrong right um generally what I
would say to people is the first thing is ask lots and lots of questions [Music]
Neil Rackham talks about the best negotiators the ones who say very little to put
astronauts a lot of questions because what we're trying to do there is to get the
other side to talk and literally plan against reveal I wanted to know so why are
they doing so well because let's not you know let's not take the fact that we know
everything here and they may be doing something that if we actually did something
similar in a different area we might be able to improve our service so I don't want
to know what it is that they are doing so well but everybody's got a pain point so
everyone's got a problem everyone's got something that they really dislike and that
may well be that they want to get access to a different supplier but they just
don't know how to do it yet and they don't admit it and I think that there are some
things that we can maybe say so what is it that you're currently doing that you
don't want to do and maybe we can we can start to sort of like gain some trust
there but without all of these circles it's all around gaining the trust mm-hmm and
proving ourselves to be knowledgeable and and useful at what we do and so I'd say
that for every stakeholder that the beginning is always asking lots of questions so
good tool to help us figure that out by the way is Johari Window I don't know if
anyone's Joanne correct a great planning tool

- guys Joseph Ingram Harry lost Joe Harry that serves named after and it's Donald
Rumsfeld speech there are some things that we know we know yes yeah so the way this
works is there are things that we know and things that the other person knows this
is months for this unknown knowns as Johari Window says this is in the arena but
then there are some things that we know we don't know and it's the things that you
know you don't know are brilliant because if you know you don't know them what can
you go and do go fight ask questions yeah yes I search you absolutely you live what
is it that I don't know about this stay calm that I need to find out either
research or I get some questions aligned to it and then there are some things that
you know you don't know you don't know I don't know what unknown unknowns the great
things with those is the minute you start thinking about them you've just turned
them into a known than that mm-hmm so so that's what I would actually say is is
jari window jo h ER i window it's all three on the web it's not my IP um i would be
using that for every planning meeting that i have from a stakeholder meeting to a
negotiation interests me I'm gonna link up to those I'll give out the URL later but
I'll definitely link up to that in the show notes so that listeners can go and
check that out great so as we start to wrap up you know I have a final question
it's a hypothetical situation really but it's one that people may you know find
themself in I'll be able to empathize with you know become a professional has all
the fundamental procurement skills but as things evolve we talked about the
evolution of the profession you know they're worried about how they can become more
valuable to their stakeholder and ultimately you know that means more valuable to
their business how would you recommend they start to think about the development
that brings them the skills and the capabilities they need to go to that next level
I think that's the first thing that I would say to everybody wherever you are in
your in your procurement journey your career is you own your own development mm-hmm
I wouldn't wait around for anybody to do it for you it's your development you own
it and so if it's yours the first thing you really need to understand is recognize
how you actually learn as everybody learns differently and I think that's a full of
other loss L&D programs that do get put together it just it focuses on one aspect
of one way of learning and one style of delivery and I think there's multiple so
there's lots of free resources around understanding you how you learn be it you
best someone who reflects on things or a reader or you would do her do you need to
have things presented audio you know or is it a visual person so there's there's
lots and lots of things that you can do to consider that but I'll start with
recognizing the ways that you do learn and the ways that you don't and then when
you're putting together your development plan or you're working with your manager
or your mentor to have it to have a development plan I would say getting that
balance and we probably all heard of the 70/20/10 rule so 10 only 10% of what we
should be doing should be sort of formalized training right either going to a
training course or doing qualifications and I think sometimes it gets focused on
that I've got a I've got a gap in this area what training course am I going to do
there's there's lots of ways to help develop that you can take ownership of your
self mismo this podcast for instance is a development so so consider the 70 over 20
d you're getting exposure to areas and the experience of areas consider it's not
just about training obviously understanding where you want to where you want to get
to so where your your gaps in your skills are I think is clearly essential but the
the thing to remember when you put it together a development program is the most
gap closure programs take two to three years to what's going close the gap and
people look at gaps that they currently have one of the goals you should be having
is thinking about when do you want to be 2/3 for this time and where do you want
you people to be two three four years time because otherwise you're just in a cycle
all the time just have fun we've caught up but we've never still two years behind
oh yeah your training training people to be where you want them today not way you
want them to be tomorrow exactly yeah so so that's probably what what I would say
is is think about think about how you learn think about where you're going to be in
the future now balance amongst the different things that you're going to do from
from having from acting up in certain areas from stretch projects to to education
to training programs let's let's let's not say that they're not useful because they
really are let's think about elearning activities let's think about workshops and
understand the difference between the two the key for me on workshops is always the
application so in consulting they talk about first hundred days yeah a really
important ones the new person's first hundred days look like and I'm sure when the
new president gets sworn in the first hundred days and I'm a West Wing devotee and
talk about the first earnest be anything critical so training I talk about the
first hundred hours right from from when you leave that training room there's a
hundred hours available before you start to forget what's going on and how to do it
so that the earlier you can apply this has to you learnt in that program the better
and if you can actually apply it in the program itself then you'll find that those
skills and those behaviors get changed because it's only through a repetition do we
change behavior so the early we start the repetition that's how and this is going
off a little bit of a tangent but how are you or have you been successful in
inspiring people to want to develop their own capabilities um hopefully by making
it fun I mean yeah not just not just the actual events themselves but I think the
procurement is fascinating and fun I mean possibly I think we all do I think this
the reason why we're in right in the roles that in the roles that we do in the
profession that we lost because I think procurement done well changes the world
procurement don't badly change the world as well but for different reasons human
done well can have a positive effect on the world and what's more fun than that no
I mean I completely agree and that's kind of one of the things that inspires us I
think on a day to day basis both in the profession but also in kind of sharing
experiences with others so we're coming against the clock I just have a last
question which is more housekeeping if listeners are interested in learning a
little bit more in following up you know reaching out with you directly where can
they find you I'm family on LinkedIn you can find me on twitter @ g donivan 1971 I
give you my year of birth so those those are the two two areas really linked in my
profile so problem Intendant yeah always happy to take emails through LinkedIn
you'll find on my LinkedIn links to the Articles that have written about
influencing hmm and also around understanding your learning styles plus plus a few
other areas as well so that's the best place to get help me okay great well I'm
going to link up as well for the articles that you wrote around influence because
those were my influence in terms of our conversation today and those are going to
be at at of procurement I comm slash influence ironically enough that's out of
procurement a COMSAT influence so garden just thank you very much for your time
today I just really appreciate you coming on the show thanks Willa really enjoyed
it hi there it's phil here again and i hope you really enjoyed the conversation
with garden before I go I just wanted to remind you of the address to check out the
art of procurement patron program that I talked about at the beginning it's art of
procurement calm slash patron that's art of procurement calm slashed patron thank
you very much and I'll talk to you again soon thank you for listening to another
episode of the art of procurement to find an archive of our past episodes you can
go to art of procurement comm slash episodes and to ensure you never miss another
show go to utter procurement comm slash subscribe [Music] [Applause] [Music] you