{"id":3053,"date":"2011-04-29T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T16:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/2011\/04\/29\/improving-your-procurement-teams-skills-requires-this-commonly-forgotten-element\/"},"modified":"2021-07-10T20:05:02","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T00:05:02","slug":"improving-your-procurement-teams-skills-requires-this-commonly-forgotten-element","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/improving-your-procurement-teams-skills-requires-this-commonly-forgotten-element\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Your Procurement Team’s Skills Requires This Commonly Forgotten Element"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here at NLPA, we train the procurement departments of the world\u2019s largest companies as well as plenty of mid-sized and small companies, too. Having the large client base that we do \u2013 1,000+ companies as customers \u2013 we see a lot of patterns between the companies that maximize their skill development efforts and those that leave room for improvement.<\/p>\n

Do you know what one element is a common difference between those two groups?<\/p>\n

Leadership.<\/p>\n

Are you wondering what leadership has to do with procurement training?<\/p>\n

A lot, actually.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about those companies that leave room for improvement first. Beware \u2013 these traits may apply to you and you may have no idea how self-defeating they are!<\/p>\n

These companies typically commit to having their team members trained in a given year, just like their more successful counterparts do. That\u2019s noble.<\/p>\n

But those companies that leave room for improvement neglect their leadership responsibilities. They fight for an annual training budget, sure. But then they send a soft message to their people to \u201cgo out and use\u201d that training budget. And how that budget is used is left up to each individual team member.<\/p>\n

There are no topics strategically selected by leadership to ensure alignment with corporate objectives.<\/p>\n

There is no timeline set forth.<\/p>\n

There are no efforts to keep progress visible and team members accountable.<\/p>\n

And you know what happens?<\/p>\n

The training budget doesn\u2019t get used. At least not until the last minute when everyone crams procurement training into their busy end-of-year schedule when the environment is far from conducive to learning and implementing new strategies. Procurement team members don\u2019t improve their skills. Results never get better.<\/p>\n

In these cases, the problem is clear: the leader didn\u2019t lead. Despite the best intentions and knowing that better skills equals better results, the leader didn\u2019t lead.<\/p>\n

A former co-worker of mine used to say \u201cIf you\u2019re leading and no one is following, you\u2019re just taking a walk.\u201d So, Mr. or Mrs. Director of Procurement: when it comes to improving your team’s skills, are you leading or are you taking a walk?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what leading looks like\u2026<\/p>\n