_{How to avoid the Subservience Trap}

Don’t underestimate the impact of this on you, your mental health, your team’s capacity and your ability to prioritise the true value Procurement teams should be delivering.

We’ve all been there.

A senior leader (probably exco) wants some information from you for an important meeting coming up this week.

You hadn’t planned to be working on this ad hoc request and while you know you can help, you know it’s going to take several hours to pull it together.

Of course, I’m not saying you should always say no, that’s just unrealistic, nor is it how the hierarchical structure of most corporate structures work.

But here’s some tips for handling the request, particularly if you’re a line manager or leader of a team.

1. Consider the bigger picture

18 months ago I was asked by my CEO to pull together my thoughts on local sourcing and plans for the business approach to it, so he could present this to the board.

Of course, this wasn’t an immediate priority for me at the time.

But in truth it’s part of the strategy plan I needed to develop for the function. And more than this, putting these slides together helped me to consolidate my thoughts.

I hadn’t planned to do the work that week, but then maybe I’d never have got round to it?

It’s worth considering, is now better than never?

The added benefit of doing this unscheduled work was it also helped ensure Procurement strategy remained aligned to the business objectives.

2. Build all activity items into a planning tool and prioritise

I know it’s obvious. Perhaps it’s the staple of any high performing Procurement team.

But unless you have a planning tool or activity tracker that allows for some flexibility/ reprioritisation, you’ll never be well placed to flex based on these ad hoc requests.

More important that that, when you can to share the activity tracker and updates on ‘numbers of activities’, current renewals, spend being addressed, RFPs in progress, you’ll always feel bound to say ‘yes’ to requests from above.

Confidence comes largely from know we’re doing the right thing and that we’re trying our best.

If you need to push back or ask for an extension it’s so much easier to do so backed by data.

3. Identify your team’s capacity and gather estimates

We underestimate the importance of team communication when these requests come in.

I’ll typically gather the whole team together for a quick 10 minute stand up, even those team members who may not seem directly implicated by the request.

You’re investing time to save time.

By explaining the ‘why’ too you’re helping develop a team mentality, rather than simply delegating.

I’m always happily surprised by how often good team members are prepared to chip in, pull together an help in these situations, thus sharing the burden.

I advocate the ‘tribe’ approach too. Let people work where their strengths are.

4. Review prioritisation and bring work in/ out of scope for the given time period

The worst thing we can do as a manager or leader is to just pile on the requests in a way that increases workload pressure.

Something should always give, unless you know for sure someone is usually under capacity (in which case there is likely a bigger challenge to address).

The best thing you can do for yourself and for your team, is to ask for help but in the same conversation consider what can be dropped or simply delayed to enable completion of the ad hoc request.

Of course, if after all of this you consider your workload is such that you or you team can’t help…

5. Communicate the decision and share the roadmap

There’s a way to do this of course, particularly when it comes to the often firey needs of the execs.

But it doesn’t harm to given them visibility of your current priorities. Let them decide.

It’s most likely they won’t be able to immediately see most of the things you or your team are working on but when they do, they may have a deeper appreciation of your value to the organisation.

Of course there’s a difference between giving a straight ‘no’ to saying ‘no, I’m sorry we won’t be able to complete this in time for your meeting but here’s how/ when we can get this to you by’.

It’s not easy but the key to supporting our teams is to not constantly say ‘yes’ to the requests from above, to be clear on prioritisation and to use these situations to help demonstrate our value (not just our busyness).