CIPS L3M4 Personal attributes required to support overall organisational success

The first assessment criteria of CIPS L3M4 TEAM DYNAMICS AND CHANGE requires you to be in a position to identify the personal attributes required to support overall organisational success

Everyone who works for an organisation is responsible for its success or failure, this part of your studies will consider how every staff member in supply and procurement has a part to play in ensuring their organisation thrives

And that means specifically looking at things relating to;

• Personal knowledge
• Personal values
• Self-development and awareness
• An understanding of the procurement and supply process
• Further the aims of the procurement and supply profession

WHAT IS ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS?

The first thing you need to know is that different organisations have different ways of looking at success

In public sector organisations, since they are funded by tax payers, the goal is to use the money effectively to provide the services to the required standards

In private sector organisation the goal is to generate profit in a sustainable manner

Third sector organisations (TSOs), are local, national or international voluntary, charity or community organisations that aim to provide a social benefit but are independent of government.

In short, an organisation’s definition of success will depend on the type of organisation and their objectives.

PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE VS GROUP KNOWLEDGE 

The first thing you need to understand here is that there are two kinds of knowledge, personal knowledge and group knowledge

• Personal knowledge is gained first-hand, by seeing things (observation) or doing things (experiences).

For instance, you travelling into other countries makes you exposed to other cultures.

• General knowledge is gained by listening to others and taking their opinions into account

In short…

Personal	Group
Comes from experiences	Contributed from people within a group
Comes from natural abilities	Changed or influenced by an individual with a group
Comes from education
Formed from memories

 

Clearly, group knowledge may influence and add to an individual’s knowledge and vice versa

How do we go about gaining knowledge?

According to Robert Lambert’s theory on gaining knowledge, the process contains the following stages;

1. Capture- the teaching process, observation or experience. This can take the form of attending a college or taking an online course and in the process taking a lot of notes
2. Curate- in this case, storing, ordering and filling the observation or experience. In this case you are going through you notes and putting them in the order that works for you
3. Crunch – analysis and understanding what has been presented. This involves re-reading you notes
4. Contribute – putting the knowledge into action. At this stage you are resharing what you learn and what you know with other, basically putting it into practice

How does personal knowledge help with organisational success?

For an organisation to succeed the people within the organisation have to keep improving on the hard skills and soft skills

• Hard skills are specific skills that have to be taught, such as learning to use a new software or gaining some professional skills like accounting
• Soft skills are skills that may be taught but are more likely to be developed with time and practice for example, good communication skills and team work

Continuous professional development is also something that many organisations focus on

CPD, continuous professional development involves undertaking training or attending courses to develop knowledge

PERSONAL VALUES

Personal values are values that are important to the individual. They are based on a person’s belief and affect their attitude, action, behaviour and decisions

Example of personal values include;

Loyalty, perseverance, respecting privacy, professionalism, respect, honesty, trust

What role do personal values play in work environment?

Think of it this way, if an individual’s values do not match with those of an organisation, it is unlikely that the partnership will survive

If a procurement professional values respect and feels that their manager doesn’t respect them the individual will be unhappy and could end up leaving the organization

Similarly, an organisation that values honesty, trust and professionalism is likely to treat its staff well and expect the same from the staff

SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND AWARENESS 

Self development entails gaining more knowledge. It is the process in which one’s knowledge and abilities improve

Both personal and group knowledge can help with this

Continuous professional development is another example of how individuals can work on their self-development

Example of CPD include;

• Work-based learning e.g mentorship
• Professional activities like presentation and attending conferences
• Formal education
• Self-directed learning such as reading relevant publications or websites

Awareness 

In as much as self-development is important on the pathway to success, one has to also be self-aware

Self-awareness is an understanding of our personal values and personality, such as our habits, strengths, weakness etc

From a business angle this means understanding our motivations and how they affect decision making

UNDERSTANDING THE PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY PROCESS 

Now let’s bring in procurement and supply, and obviously we need to know exactly what it is that we are talking about so…

What is procurement and supply?

These two are not the same thing

In general terms procurement is the process of getting products or services into the company, and supply is the process of getting products or services out of the company to an end point, for example, to customers.

The procurement cycle can be summed up by the following stages;

Stage	Tasks
Determine requirements	Taking action based on the need that has been generated by the end user or customer
Determine sources	Obtaining the specification and researching suppliers
Select venders	Selecting the most suitable vendor or supplier based on your selection criteria
Process order	Raising the order, including all of the required details
Monitor orders	Checking the order acknowledgement and monitoring the order’s progress until it arrives
Receive goods	Receiving the order and booking it into inventory
Verify invoices	Checking the invoice to make sure that it tallies with the order that was placed and order acknowledgement
Pay supplier	Pay the supplier or the vendor

 

FURTHERING THE AIMS OF THE PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY PROFESSION 

A procurement professional with strong values, and in this case, we are talking about values such as trust, respect and success is likely to do a good job.

But the good job will also depend on the aim of the procurement department, and generally the aims of such department should include;

• Being a strategic and integral part of an organisation
• Ensuring good value for money
• Ensuring supply is continuous
• Buying ethically and sustainably
• Striving for continuous improvement

Promoting an ethical and sustainable approach

A procurement function should aim to buy ethically and sustainably.

Sustainably in this case means in a way that avoids the destruction of nature and helps to keep a good ecological balance

Example of how you can go about this includes;

• Negotiating the terms of contracts fairly and honestly
• Building trusting relationships with suppliers, for example, telling them straight away if any changes will have an impact
• Being aware of implications of cultural differences, such as the different meaning of body language
• Looking for unacceptable practices in the supply chain such as child labour, very low wages, fraud or corruption
• Generally being aware of your own personal responsibilities and acting with integrity

Adding value

As a procurement professional you will be constantly looking for ways to improve and add value to the organisation you work with.

This could mean seeking;

• Further cost saving
• Better supplier relationship
• Innovative systems such as new technologies or software that will make process more efficient

At times cost saving may appear difficult to achieve but an individual with strong positive values, good self-development skills and a high level of self-awareness is likely to uncover possible areas for reducing costs

An example here would be someone who prioritises CPD and reads trade journals or studies currency is likely to be aware of market changes that could benefit their company and they could implement this knowledge to negotiate a reduction in supplier costs

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