KPPA CONFERENCE 2011: Barb Johnson
Barb Johnson, CPPO, CPPB, MPA
Manager, Contract & Procurement Administration Columbus Regional Airport Authority
Barbara Rich Johnson, MPA CPPB CPPO is the Manager of Contract and Procurement Administration for the Columbus Regional Airport Authority in Columbus, Ohio.
Prior to this position Barb served as a Buyer, Assistant Administrator and Procurement Manager during her 26 year career with the City of Columbus.
Barb is a certified Master Instructor for National Institute of Government Purchasing (NIGP.) She has achieved and maintained certificates from the Universal Public Procurement Certification Council (UPPCC) as both a Professional Public Buyer (CPPB) – 19 years, and the Public Purchasing Officer (CPPO) – 12 years.
Barb holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration in Finance, from The Ohio State University, John Glenn Institute of Public Policy. She was a charter member and was the first President of the Central Ohio Organization of Public Purchasers (CO-OPP), the local chapter of NIGP, The Institute of Public Procurement.
Since 1999, Barb has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Public Procurement (JOPP.) At the National NIGP level, Barb has served on the Governing, Finance and Research committees and as Chairperson of the Professional Development Committee. Through June 30, 2013, Barb is serving on the NIGP Board of Directors, representing Region 3; Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, & West Virginia.
Contact: [email protected]
On the Faculty of the following NIGP Courses:
Capital Acquisitions Contracting for Construction Services Contracting for Public Sector Services CPPB & CPPO Prep Developing and Managing RFPs Fundamentals of Leadership & Management
Introduction to Public Procurement Legal Aspects of Public Purchasing Logistics and Transportation Risk Management in Public Contracting
Strategic Procurement Planning Warehousing and Inventory Control
PURCHASES GONE WILD!
Page 1
Significant events By Jenica Rogers-Urbanek
We just had our monthly staff meeting,
followed by our monthly “Someone must be
having a birthday” excuse to sit around and
eat cake, drink coffee, and chat with each
other. During the chatting and eating cake
portion, the group of coworkers I was sitting
with started telling stories about the things
they’ve messed up in their years of
professional work. We were discussing how
with some student workers it’s easier to train
them after they’ve made one big mistake.
Once they understand that their actions have
consequences but that they’re reasonable
consequences, and that screwing up is bad
but not fatal, they’re sometimes easier to
work with. They calm down a little and
relax a bit. Once we were on the topic,
though… It turns out that in our shared drive
we have a folder called “Significant
Events,” so designated as the place to record
the crazy “OMG I can’t believe I did that…”
things that sometimes happen and the fallout
therefrom, so people have a place to look to
get background on some truly odd quirks in
our systems and policies. (excerpted and
adapted from this October 15, 2008 post at
Attempting elegance.)
When an everyday product doesn’t work properly, our scientists and engineers do something
about it. They develop prototypes, and test. Develop new ideas, and test again. And again. And
many times they fail. But it’s through those failures they learn even more, inventing better
technologies that no one else has thought of before. This was James Dyson’s process in his
original workshop, and is the process he leads today.
Source: James Dyson on Celebrating Failure
The knowing organization: How organizations use information to construct meaning, create
knowledge and make decisions. An organization uses information strategically in three areas:
to make sense of change in its environment;
to create new knowledge for innovation; and
to make decisions about courses of action.
These apparently distinct processes are in
fact complementary pieces of a larger
canvas, and the information behaviors
analyzed in each approach interweave into a
richer explanation of information use in
organizations. Through sensemaking, people
in an organization give meaning to the
events and actions of the organization.
Through knowledge creation, the insights of
individuals are converted into knowledge
that can be used to design new products or
improve performance. Finally, in decision
making, understanding and knowledge are
focused on the selection of and commitment
to an appropriate course of action. By
holistically managing its sensemaking,
knowledge building and decision-making
processes, the Knowing Organization will
have the necessary understanding and
knowledge to act wisely and decisively.
Source: The International Journal of
Information Management 2009 C. W.
Choo* Assistant Professor in the Faculty of
Information Studies at the University of
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journ
al/02684012
PURCHASES GONE WILD!
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Source: Failure is a good thing – Jon Carroll, NPR, Morning Edition October 9, 2006
Last week, my granddaughter started
kindergarten, and, as is conventional, I
wished her success. I was lying. What I
actually wish for her is failure. I believe in
the power of failure.
Success is boring. Success is proving that
you can do something that you already know
you can do, or doing something correctly the
first time, which can often be a
problematical victory. First-time success is
usually a fluke. First-time failure, by
contrast, is expected; it is the natural order
of things.
Failure is how we learn. I have been told of
an African phrase describing a good cook as
"she who has broken many pots." If you've
spent enough time in the kitchen to have
broken a lot of pots, probably you know a
fair amount about cooking. I once had a late
dinner with a group of chefs, and they spent
time comparing knife wounds and burn
scars. They knew how much credibility their
failures gave them.
I earn my living by writing a daily
newspaper column. Each week I am aware
that one column is going to be the worst
column of the week. I don't set out to write
it; I try my best every day. Still, every week,
one column is inferior to the others,
sometimes spectacularly so.
I have learned to cherish that column. A
successful column usually means that I am
treading on familiar ground, going with the
tricks that work, preaching to the choir or
dressing up popular sentiments in fancy
words. Often in my inferior columns, I am
trying to pull off something I've never done
before, something I'm not even sure can be
done.
My younger daughter is a trapeze artist. She
spent three years putting together an act. She
did it successfully for years with the Cirque
du Soleil. There was no reason for her to
change the act -- but she did anyway. She
said she was no longer learning anything
new and she was bored; and if she was
bored, there was no point in subjecting her
body to all that stress.
So she changed the act. She risked failure
and profound public embarrassment in order
to feed her soul. And if she can do that 15
feet in the air, we all should be able to do it.
My granddaughter is a perfectionist,
probably too much of one. She will feel her
failures, and I will want to comfort her. But
I will also, I hope, remind her of what she
learned, and how she can do whatever it is
better next time. I probably won't tell her
that failure is a good thing, because that's
not a lesson you can learn when you're five.
I hope I can tell her, though, that it's not the
end of the world. Indeed, with luck, it is the
beginning.
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Source: Business Week, July 2006 Cover Story:
How Failure Breeds Success - Everyone fears
failure. But breakthroughs depend on it. The best
companies embrace their mistakes and learn from
them
Ever heard of Choglit? How about OK Soda or
Surge? Long after "New Coke" became nearly
synonymous with innovation failure, these products
joined Coca-Cola Co.'s (KO) graveyard of beverage
busts.
Choglit, in case you blinked and missed it, was a
chocolate-flavored milk drink test-marketed with
Nestlé (NSRGY ) in 2002. OK Soda, unveiled in
1994, tried to capture Generation X with edgy
marketing. The "OK Manifesto," parts of which were
printed on cans in an attempt at hipster irony, asked:
"What's the point of OK Soda?" It turned out
customers wondered the same thing. And while
Surge did well initially, this me-too Mountain Dew
later did anything but. Sales began drying up after
five years.
Given that history, failure hardly seems like a subject
Chairman and CEO E. Neville Isdell would want to
trot out in front of investors. But Isdell did just that,
deliberately airing the topic at Coke's annual meeting
in April. "You will see some failures," he told the
crowd. "As we take more risks, this is something we
must accept as part of the regeneration process."
Warning Coke investors that the company might
experience some flops is a little like warning
Atlantans they might experience afternoon
thunderstorms in July. But Isdell thinks it's vital. He
wants Coke to take bigger risks, and to do that, he
knows he needs to convince employees and
shareholders that he will tolerate the failures that will
inevitably result. That's the only way to change
Coke's traditionally risk-averse culture. And given
the importance of this goal, there's no podium too big
for sending the signal. "Using [the annual meeting]
occasion elevates the statement to another order of
importance," Isdell said in an interview with
BusinessWeek.
While few CEOs are as candid about the potential for
failure as Isdell, many are wrestling with the same
problem, trying to get their organizations to cozy up
to the risk-taking that innovation requires. A
warning: It's not going to be an easy shift. After years
of cost-cutting initiatives and growing job insecurity,
most employees don't exactly feel like putting
themselves on the line. Add to that the heightened
expectations by management on individual
performance, and it's easy to see why so many opt to
play it safe.
Indeed, for a generation of managers weaned on the
rigors of Six Sigma error-elimination programs,
embracing failure -- gasp! -- is close to blasphemy.
Stefan H. Thomke, a professor at Harvard Business
School and author of Experimentation Matters, says
that when he talks to business groups, "I try to be
provocative and say: 'Failure is not a bad thing.' I
always have lots of people staring at me, [thinking]
'Have you lost your mind?' That's O.K. It gets their
attention. [Failure] is so important to the
experimental process."
That it is. Crucial, in fact. After all, that's why true,
breakthrough innovation -- an imperative in today's
globally competitive world, in which product cycles
are shorter than ever -- is so extraordinarily hard. It
requires well-honed organizations built for efficiency
and speed to do what feels unnatural: Explore.
Experiment. Foul up, sometimes. Then repeat.
Granted, not all failures are praiseworthy. Some flops
are just that: bad ideas. The eVilla, Sony Corp.'s
(SNE ) $500 "Internet appliance." The Pontiac Aztek,
General Motors Corp.'s (GM\ ) ugly duckling
"crossover" SUV. For good measure, we'll throw in
our own industry's spectacularly useless flop: the
CueCat. A marketer's dream, the device, which was
launched in 2000 (when else?), scanned bar codes
from magazine and newspaper ads, directing readers
to Web sites so they wouldn't have to go to the
trouble to type in the URL.
But intelligent failures -- those that happen early and
inexpensively and that contribute new insights about
your customers -- should be more than just tolerable.
They should be encouraged. "Figuring out how to
master this process of failing fast and failing cheap
and fumbling toward success is probably the most
important thing companies have to get good at," says
Scott Anthony, the managing director at consulting
firm Innosight.
"Getting good" at failure, however, doesn't mean
creating anarchy out of organization. It means leaders
-- not just on a podium at the annual meeting, but in
the trenches, every day -- who create an environment
safe for taking risks and who share stories of their
own mistakes. It means bringing in outsiders
unattached to a project's past. It means carving out
time to reflect on failure, not just success.
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FAILURE PARTIES
Perhaps most important, it means designing ways to
measure performance that balance accountability
with the freedom to make mistakes. People may fear
failure, but they fear the consequences of it even
more. "The performance culture really is in deep
conflict with the learning culture," says Paul J. H.
Schoemaker, CEO of consulting firm Decision
Strategies International Inc. "It's an unusual executive
who can balance these."
Some organizations have tried to measure
performance in a way that accounts for these
opposing pressures. At IBM (IBM ) Research,
engineers are evaluated on both one- and three-year
time frames. The one-year term determines the
bonus, while the three-year period decides rank and
salary. The longer frame can help neutralize a year of
setbacks. "A three-year evaluation cycle sends an
important message to our researchers, demonstrating
our commitment to investing in the early, risky stages
of innovation," says Armando Garcia, vice-president
for technical strategy and worldwide operations at
IBM Research.
In addition to making sure performance evaluations
take a long-term view, managers should also think
about celebrating smart failures. (Those who repeat
their mistakes, of course, should hardly be rewarded.)
Thomas D. Kuczmarski, a Chicago new-product
development consultant, even proposes "failure
parties" as a way of recognizing that it's part of the
creative process. "What most companies do is put a
wall around a failure as if it's radioactive," says
Kuczmarski.
Intuit Inc. (INTU ), based in Mountain View, Calif.,
recently celebrated an adventurous marketing
campaign that failed. The company had never
targeted young tax filers before, and in early 2005 it
tried to reach them through an ill-fated attempt to
combine tax-filing drudgery with hip-hop style.
Through a Web site called RockYourRefund.com,
Intuit offered young people discounts to travel site
Expedia Inc. (EXPE ) and retailer Best Buy Co.
(BBY ) and the ability to deposit tax refunds directly
into prepaid Visa cards issued by hip-hop mogul
Russell Simmons.
But even hip-hop stars can't make 1040s cool enough
to get young adults excited about taxes. "We did very
few returns" through the site, says Rick Jensen, vice-
president for product management at Intuit's
consumer tax group. "It was almost a rounding error."
Through a postmortem process, the team that
developed the campaign documented its insights,
such as the fact that Gen Yers don't visit destination
Web sites that feel too much like advertising. Then,
on a stage at the Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose,
Calif., last October in front of some 200 Intuit
marketers, the team received an award from Intuit
Chairman Scott Cook. "It's only a failure if we fail to
get the learning," says Cook.
In addition to postmortems, Intuit has begun plucking
insights from its flops through sessions that focus on
failure. Jana Eggers, who heads up Intuit's Innovation
Lab, held the first such "When Learning Hurts"
session recently. There, she recounted the story of
QuickBase, a software application that failed for its
initial market, small business customers, but is now
finding fans among large companies. Eggers hopes
future conferences will feature even more
presentations on failures. She also plans to distribute
"narrative storytelling booklets" about failed projects
so people can "feel the pain."
Unlike Intuit, most companies don't spend enough
time and resources looking backward, says Chris
Trimble, a professor at the Tuck School of Business
at Dartmouth College and co-author of 10 Rules for
Strategic Innovators. That's a mistake. "How do you
learn if you don't examine the past?" asks Trimble.
General Electric Co. (GE ) is trying to do just that.
The company, which is well-known for sharing best
practices across its many units, has recently begun
formally discussing failures, too. Last September the
company set up a two-hour conference call for
managers of eight "imagination breakthroughs" that
didn't live up to expectations and were being shelved,
or "retired," in GE's parlance. ("Imagination
breakthroughs" -- IBs -- are new businesses or
products that have potential sales of $100 million
within three to five years.)
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Such discussions can be nerve-racking, especially in
companies where failure has traditionally been met
with tough consequences. That was the case at GE,
which is now three years into the effort spearheaded
by Chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt to make
innovation the new mantra at the $150 billion
behemoth. "I had some offline conversations with
some of the IB leaders reassuring them that this was
not a call where they were going to get their pink
slips," says Patia McGrath, a GE marketing director
who helped put together the call. "The notion of
taking big swings, and that it's O.K. to miss the
swing, is something that's quite new with Jeff."
Some companies have gone even further, taking a
comprehensive look at all their previous failures.
That was the case at Corning Inc. (GLW ), which
found itself teetering on the brink of bankruptcy after
the once red-hot market for its optical fiber collapsed
during the telecom bust. Following that debacle,
then-Corning CEO James R. Houghton asked Joseph
A. Miller Jr., executive vice-president and chief
technology officer, to produce an in-depth review of
the company's 150-year history of innovation,
documenting both failures and successes.
One of the failed products Corning investigated was
the DNA microarray, or chip, which the company
began developing in 1998. Genomics research was
heating up at the time, with Dr. J. Craig Venter
launching Celera Genomics that year. Corning, which
makes laboratory sciences equipment, saw an
opportunity. Its DNA chip was designed to print all
28,000 human genes onto a set of slides that could be
used by researchers. By 2000, Corning had invested
$100 million in the project and announced a
partnership with Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
"WE WERE LATE"
But while Corning was trying to launch the chip,
another company, Affymetrix Inc. (AFFX ),
commercialized one. "They had the dominant design
on microchips, and they were the first out," says Peter
F. Volanakis, now Corning's chief operating officer.
"We were late." Quality problems plagued the
project, and customers had not been brought in early.
With Corning in a freefall financially, the DNA chip
was killed in 2001.
Still, the experience opened Corning up to a whole
new market. "We had discovered the marketplace of
drug discovery," says Miller. By combining its
introduction to the drug research market with another
failed business, photonics, which manipulates data
using light waves, it created Epic, a revolutionary
technology for drug testing that it will launch this
fall. By using light waves instead of fluorescent dyes,
Epic promises to accelerate dramatically the process
of testing potential drugs and improve its accuracy.
One key difference? This time, 18 pharmaceutical
companies have tested Epic before the launch. By
2010 to 2012, Jeff Mooney, who led Epic's
development, projects that Epic sales could reach
$100 million to $300 million a year, and more than
$500 million annually long-term.
As Corning learned from the DNA chip and with
Epic, getting potential users in before a project goes
too far helps to prove the market for it. But outside
perspectives can also help neutralize emotions and
biases about failing product lines, says Duke
University Fuqua School of Business professor
William Boulding. In research published in the April
issue of the Journal of Marketing, Boulding and his
colleagues contradict the common notion that teams
cling to a project because they want to save face or
salvage the "sunk costs." Rather, the problem is with
the objectivity of the people involved. "Even if you're
not on the hook in terms of financial embarrassment
or psychological embarrassment," says Boulding,
"you did form beliefs, and that causes you to warp
new feedback."
That's why W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. in Newark,
Del., makers of the waterproof fabric Gore-Tex,
recognizes outsiders -- people within Gore but not on
the product development team -- who make the call
on projects that need to be pulled. When Brad Jones
led Gore's Industrial Products Div., which makes
sealants and filtration systems, he handed out "Sharp
Shooter" trophies to these outside managers when a
project was effectively killed. These marksmen, so to
speak, freed from the trappings of familiarity, can
identify potential snags that the team may have
overlooked. "We're effusive in our thanks for that
contribution," says Jones. "We ask them to write up
what they learned from it, and how we could have
made the decision [to kill the project] faster."
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FIND YOUR OWN FLAWS
The mindset that Gore looks for in these outsiders --
the ability to home in on uncertainties -- requires
employees to reframe their thinking. Most people
naturally seek positive outcomes and set about trying
to prove that an experiment works.
But designers, inventors, and scientists, all models
for companies struggling to be more creative, take the
opposite tack. They try to prove themselves wrong.
That focus on potential flaws makes failure, and the
lessons that come with it, happen earlier. Amy
Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School
who has studied how organizations learn from
failure, says managers would do well to think more
like scientists. "Failure provides more 'learning' in a
strictly logical or technical sense" than success, she
says. "It's a principle of the scientific method that you
can only disconfirm, never confirm, a hypothesis."
Failure's capacity to teach is exactly why venture
capitalists often look for managers to run startups
whose résumés include experience with a flop.
Gordon McCallum, CEO for Richard Branson's
Virgin Management Ltd., can point to managers
within Virgin who might have been overlooked by
other companies because of failures in their careers.
He's also quick to note that errors on the job, as long
as they aren't repeated, are not only supported, but
valued.
One example: Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd.'s J2000
seats, a $67 million investment made in 2000 to
create new sleeper seats that reclined at an angle for
the airline's "upper-class" seats. Although sleeper
seats had long existed in first class, airlines had not
yet adopted them for business class. Virgin was the
first to announce it would be offering "a bed in
business," says Joe Ferry, Virgin's head of design,
who led the design of the J2000 seats. Within a year,
however, Virgin's idea was one-upped by its chief
competitor, British Airways PLC (BAB ), which
rolled out a truly flat bed. While customers were
initially enthusiastic about the J2000, some
complained about sliding and discomfort. In the end,
says McCallum, it "was wildly unsuccessful.
Everybody acknowledged that it was not as good a
product as our principal competitors'." Agrees Ferry:
"We were an also-ran, which didn't really sit well
with us."
But Ferry didn't get the ax. In fact, Virgin entrusted
him to take on another extraordinary risk, committing
a huge $127 million to an overhaul of the airline's
upper-class seats years before the traditional product
life cycle would have ended. And the company stuck
by its investment even after September 11. The new
version, launched in 2003, has been a solid success.
Called the "upper-class suite," Ferry's makeover
made a design leap beyond merely being flat. Flight
attendants flip over the back and seat cushions to
make the bed, allowing for different foam
consistencies for sitting and sleeping. While Ferry
hoped the new seats would eventually improve
Virgin's business-class market share by 1%, they've
already exceeded that goal.
TREMORS AND THRILLS
A company's reaction in the face of intelligent
failures, whether it's Virgin reinvesting in a pricey
design revamp or Intuit giving an award to its
marketing team, can send tremors or thrills through a
culture. If top executives are accepting, people will
embrace risk. But if managers react harshly, people
will retreat from it.
That's something Eric Brinker, JetBlue Airways
Corp.'s (JBLU ) director of brand management and
customer experience, wants to make sure doesn't
happen. Last year, JetBlue, which tries to limit its in-
flight snack mix to keep costs low and reduce
complexity, began hearing that some of its customers
wanted a healthier choice. Brinker and his team
decided to replace a popular but hardly healthy mix
of Doritos chips called Munchie Mix. "It's the
ultimate junk food," says Brinker.
The junk food fans revolted. "The tribe had spoken,
and these guys wanted Munchie Mix," Brinker says.
"People wrote really spirited letters, saying: 'This is
the only reason I flew JetBlue!"' Brinker realized he
would have to reverse course, but he didn't want his
team to think change wasn't encouraged.
So he decided to make fun of himself to keep the
reaction lighthearted. On the company's intranet,
Brinker started up a "Save the Munchie Mix"
campaign that read: "Some pinhead in marketing
decided to get rid of the Munchie Mix!" He invited
employees to write in poems and stories about why
the snack should return to JetBlue. The point? By
keeping things fun, he hoped employees wouldn't
hesitate to make their own creative decisions. "If we
don't have people willing to risk something, then
we'll really end up like our competitors." And that, of
course, would be a failure indeed.
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Agency Description The Arizona Department of Transportation was established in July 1974. It is the State agency responsible for planning,
developing, maintaining and operating transportation facilities for the efficient movement of people and products by surface and air throughout Arizona. The Department is also the statewide agency that registers motor vehicles and
aircraft, licenses drivers, collects revenues and researches new transportation systems. It serves its customers through geographically dispersed facilities. Ten district offices oversee roadway construction and maintenance, twenty-two ports of entry check commercial vehicles for compliance with size and weight laws, and sixty-one Motor Vehicle offices provide
title, registration and driver license services. The Mission
To provide products and services for a safe, efficient, cost-effective transportation system that links Arizona to the global economy, promotes economic prosperity and demonstrates respect for Arizona’s environment and quality of life.
The Vision The standard of excellence for transportation systems and services.
The Values The principles and philosophies that describe how ADOT will conduct itself in carrying out its mission and vision.
INTEGRITY: We are truthful, honest and open. We obey the law. RESPECT: We treat people with respect and dignity. People are the foundation of ADOT’s success. ACCOUNTABITY: We are accountable for our actions. CUSTOMER SERVICE: We serve our customers. Their satisfaction is our focus! SAFETY: We are committed to a safe and secure work environment. TEAMWORK: We work together. COMMUNICATION: We strive to maintain clear, concise and timely communication.
EMPOWERMENT: We make decisions – we grow from our mistakes! LEADERSHIP: We provide clear direction and recognize outstanding individual and team efforts
Source: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene - Process Improvement Plan Purpose: To establish a structured mechanism to ensure the achievement of the vision and mission of DHMH by continuously improving processes to meet the needs of customers, employees, and stakeholders. This plan provides guidelines for the Department to follow to successfully implement process improvement throughout Part 2: Alignment Alignment Key Question: Does the leadership have a vision and strategy for innovation and promoting learning and growth? ALIGNMENT: Leadership Yes 1 - 5 Senior leaders set, deploy and communicate values, direction, and expectations. The organization empowers and enables staff at all levels to play a meaningful role in decisions that affect their work. Senior leaders inspire confidence among various stakeholders. Management is not afraid to tackle tough issues that may be politically unpopular but nevertheless further the mission and objectives of the organization in the long-term. Senior leaders encourage an open dialogue about how to improve the organization and are not afraid to recognize and learn from their mistakes.
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What is Resiliency? Resiliency is the ability to spring back from and successfully adapt to adversity. An increasing body of
research from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology is showing that most people–including young people–can
bounce back from risks, stress, crises, and trauma and experience life success.
Our favorite definition of resiliency, in fact, was given by a 15-year-old high school student who, after a semester of resiliency
training, described resiliency as:
"Bouncing back from problems and stuff with more power and more smarts."
Researchers are concluding that each person has an innate capacity for resiliency, "a self-righting tendency" that operates best
when people have resiliency-building conditions in their lives.
************************************************************************************ Resiliency and change. At the center of the cycle of change are two key features: resiliency and resistance. Both are
important to the change process. In the modern whirlwind of change, resiliency is needed to survive. Resiliency refers to your
ability to quickly recover from change or misfortune. It is a buoyancy and an ability to "bounce back." Human beings have a
naturally resilient nature but it must be nurtured or it will be lost.
It is as if we have a reservoir of energy that must be replenished as it is used. Picture a lake behind a dam and you have an
image of your resiliency resources. The water in the lake represents your energy to put into life. When change and stress enter
the flood gates of the dam open and some of the water is drained away. Small changes and challenges drain away some of the
water. Bigger changes drain way more. A rapid series of changes or a traumatic event can open the flood gates wide and the
lake will run dry. Resources are depleted. No energy is left for life and you experience "burnout" or fall into a depression.
There is a lack of motivation and life seems dreary. To avoid such a situation you must replenish the water in your resiliency
lake or learn to control how much energy is used up. SOURCE: http://lessons4living.com/resiliency.htmReference: Conner, Daryl R.
Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail. New York: Villard Books, 1995.
Features of Resiliency * Darryl Conner in his book, Managing at the Speed of Change, lists five characteristics of resiliency.
These features are to:
Be Positive - See life as challenging, dynamic, and filled with opportunities.
Be Focused - Determine where you are headed and stick to that goal so that barriers do not block your way
Be Flexible - Open yourself to different possibilities when faced with uncertainty.
Be Organized - Develop structured approaches to be able to manage the unknown.
Be Proactive - Look ahead, actively engage change, and work with it.
These resiliency features can be mapped on to the Cycle of Change and show us how resiliency helps at each step of the cycle.
Being proactive enables you to prepare for what might be coming. It helps you to scan for signs of change at the step of
sensing "something’s up." Focus is needed to clarify the situation and clearly identify the problem or opportunity. Organization
enables the development of a comprehensive and detailed plan of implementation. A positive outlook facilitates the actual
beginning of the work of change as plans are put into action. Flexibility will be needed as adjustments are made and you begin
to sense that "this will work." From the position of having gotten through change you once again need to be proactive as you
look ahead to what might be next and prepare to go around the cycle once again. Surviving change will depend upon being a
resilient individual. And resiliency will be needed because change always brings resistance.
Page 9
Slide 1
PURCHASES GONE WILD!
…Tales of Failures -- and redemption! from the trenches
of public procurement.
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Slide 2
WHY, WHY, WHY?
WHY ARE THERE FAILURE STORIES?
WHY DO WE SHARE STORIES?
WHY DOES THIS HELP?
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Slide 3
INFORMATION IS GROWING AT AN ACCELERATING RATE.
WE ARE MORE INTERDEPENDENT THAN EVER BEFORE IN HISTORY.
THERE ARE MORE REGULATIONS, POLICIES AND PROCEDURES.
THERE ARE FEWER WORKERS.
MORE CAN GO WRONG IN A GIVEN PROCUREMENT THAN CAN GO RIGHT.
Why are there failure stories?
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Slide 4
Significant events
contribution
Celebrating Failure
by James Dyson
Why do we share stories?
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Page 10
Slide 5
An organization uses information strategically in three areas:
to make sense of change in its environment;
to create new knowledge for innovation; and
to make decisions about courses of action.
Source: The International Journal of Information Management 2009
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02684012
Why do we share stories?
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Slide 6 NPR MORNING EDITION ARTICLE
BUSINESS WEEK ARTICLE
Why do we share stories?
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Slide 7
Why does this help?
Developing
Resiliency!
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Slide 8
Resiliency!
WHAT IS RESILIENCY?
RESILIENCY AND CHANGE: USE IT!
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Slide 9
IT WAS A DARK, AND STORMY NIGHT….
The specifications were, well,
WILD!The table; well almost.
The 40,000 lb. beam breaking machine; heavy
The Tank Room; tanked
The discount or premium; er, whatever
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Page 11
Slide 10
In the m ean tim e, at the of f ice…
Correspondence was,
well, WILD!The “Selection” Letter
The copies, and how to count them
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Slide 11
Later, there w as NOagreem en t……
The contracts were, well,
WILD! Air computers
$2 million dollar positioning system
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Slide 12
AND SUDDENLY, IT WAS YOUR TURN…….
Please gather into groups of 6 or less.
Introduce each other
Select a reporter
Each person shall share at least one story about a mistake (change the names to protect the guilty.)
Have the group determine which story will be shared with all participants
Have the reporter OR the story owner tell the story when called upon.
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Slide 13
AND THEN, IT WAS TIME TO SHARE……….
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Slide 14
AND THEN IT WAS TIME TO SAY “GOODBYE”
Barbara R. Johnson,
MPA, CPPB, CPPO
THANK YOU!
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