Why do our procurement resolutions fail?

January 4th, 2022

Heading into 2022, how many of your New Year Resolutions are going to fail and do you know why?

 

With the New Year here we tend to use the occasion to set resolutions for ourselves surrounding changes we want to make in our lives. These changes are not isolated from the workplace, in fact millions of 2022 resolutions will directly apply to people’s jobs/careers. Many procurement professionals will look at their decisions and direction and begin to plan changes in those processes as well. Unfortunately for as many people who will try to make changes, many will fail to reach their goals and in today’s blog we will look at a few reasons why that happens.

People don’t know how to get there: There are many places in this world I want to go, some of them are not that far from my home, and yet without preparing directions, or in today’s world, loading a GPS device, I would have no idea how to get there. I may be able to head in a general direction but in time I would get lost and frustrated and head right back home. New changes to your procurement processes are no different. They require a plan of action, directions on where you are going, in order to get to where you want to be. This, of course, assumes a knowing of where you want to be and how to measure whether you actually got there which is all part of the plan.

People forget to take the baby steps: So many resolutions fail because people set goals of losing 50 pounds by June or quitting smoking or managing stress better with the perception that getting there is just a matter or wanting it bad enough or having enough willpower. Willpower like anything that is exercised takes time to get in shape you wouldn’t get off the couch and run a marathon the first day and neither should expect lofty goals and resolutions to be achieved on the first day. Starting with short term achievable goals that can provide momentum is the key. Instead of focusing on a lofty reduction of costs by 20% this year, focus on how you can reduce the time from project start to actual realized savings by 3 days or on including one extra supplier in the process to help you make better choices leading to higher value for the company.

People don’t really want to change: Some resolutions fail because we subconsciously want them to fail. The truth is many of us like to eat food that is bad for us and indulge in habits that are bad for us. Many others are afraid of bettering ourselves in our career because it may someday mean stepping out of our comfort zone into a world with different responsibilities and expectations. This can be especially difficult for people with more introverted personalities. One of your goals may be to increase new projects with new departments within the organization by 15%. In many cases this is going to require selling your department’s service and expertise to those departments and this can be a scary place for some professionals who are fine taking orders. To be successful in types of goals start by knowing where your strengths and weaknesses of your team are and whether you will be able to do the things necessary to achieve the goals/resolutions you are creating.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help you with your projects, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

We look forward to your comments.

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