Optimistic storytelling or pragmatic realism?
An article in The Atlantic early this week described Boris Johnson as an ‘optimistic storyteller’ (insert raised eyebrow emoji), in an article that I felt had parallels with the bid development process.
Getting the balance between an optimistic, positive and forward-looking solution and a grounded, realistic mobilisation approach is something I think we do pretty well at 50 Degrees. I’m less convinced anyone would say that about the Prime Minister.
Many, many years ago a former colleague described a bid tender as a ‘sales document’, going on to say that ‘it’s someone else’s job to make it work in reality’ (insert another raised eyebrow emoji). What may have been true then, I think it’s safe to say, is definitely not true now, as commissioning organisations give increasing credence to the importance of mobilisation.
As I currently work on a BIG mobilisation solution, it occurs to me that it’s my job to be the pragmatist… even the pessimist on occasion. While other members of the 50 Degrees team get creative, fire ideas back and forth and come up with brilliant ideas for the delivery solution, I sit back and think ‘will that work, can we do that, is there time, how do we assure that?’
It’s my job to ask questions, but I suspect it must be a bit annoying.
That said, what good is a solution that doesn’t work in the real world? Through close engagement with operational teams; learning from experience; drawing on best practice and, yes, innovating and being creative now and again… then the job of the mobilisation team is to make sure the solution actually works. No bid would be successful without this.
Collectively at 50 Degrees we work together to ensure that our clients develop the best possible solution, while making sure they don’t cross the line into overpromising and underdelivering… getting the balance right between optimistic storytelling and pragmatic realism.
We need to come up with a term that describes that…
John Ashworth
Managing Consultant
50 Degrees