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: brjohnson@columbusairports.com

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!

Page 2

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.

PURCHASES GONE WILD!

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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.

PURCHASES GONE WILD!

Page 4

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.)

PURCHASES GONE WILD!

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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."

PURCHASES GONE WILD!

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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.

PURCHASES GONE WILD!

Page 8

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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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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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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