Quicksand

One of my favorite movies is “The Replacements” with Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves, not only because it’s about a bunch of misfits that come together to do something great on the football field, but it’s also has some great quotable lines in it. In the movie, Coach McGinty (Hackman) asks the players about their fears, and Shane Falco (Reeves) provides the response of “Quicksand”. Elaborating on his point, Shane defines quicksand as the following: “You’re playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can’t move… you can’t breathe… because you’re in over your head. Like quicksand.”

Sound familiar to you? For me at times it feels like permanent state of being, especially at the end of the Government Fiscal Year or when I’m trying to fix something I know is broken, like implementing new strategies or processes to improve a culture that is resistant to change. Time management aside, the latter example is the one I’d like to focus on. This culture doesn’t have set boundaries, and crosses all avenues of life, from daily routines to politics, government work to the private sector. I’d like to look at the instituting change in the culture of acquisition for the Government.

President Obama once said that leading the Government was like being a captain of an ocean liner, rather than a speedboat. You can make course corrections, but it is very slow to change. This holds true for acquiring goods and services and how we deal with our Industry and Business Partner counterparts. The Government is used to creating the market for services and requirements, rather than closing the gap with the commercial sector. But we, as acquisition professionals, can help close that gap. We are not the character in “Office Space” that takes the requirements from our business partners to Industry because we have “people skills”. And yes, we have regulations, we have Congressional oversight, and yes, there are pockets of resistance to trying new strategies of getting something the Government needs, rather than what it wants. Yet it can be done.

Being in the Government and effecting change is like being Sisyphus pushing his bolder up the hill. If you do something new and innovative, it better work, and it better be in the first go around. If you try and fail, you begin to fall into the quicksand reference above. So what do we do? Just give up and sink into the monotony of the “norms” of the way we do business? Absolutely not!   But how do you get out of the quicksand?

Well you avoid falling in if possible, or if you do get stuck, you stay calm, and obviously grab that conveniently nearby vine that always miraculously appears like in the movies! Now, I’m not trying to wax philosophical, but knowledge is the best vine that you can grab in these instances. As we’re learning in the Cohort, having flexible contracts, sound exit strategies, and following the plays in the Digital Playbook are the good places for us to start.   Communication is another aspect that we as contracting professionals need to utilize more. For instance getting feedback from Industry early may help us to avoid possible pitfalls with contract award or execution. Clearer communication from the Government on our vision of the desired outcomes will help avoid misunderstandings, and may result in higher quality proposals and results for the Government. Remember, knowledge can go both ways, so you can also be a vine to help others out of their quicksand.

So what I’m trying to say we have to want the ball on this one, because as Coach McGinty said, “Winners always do”.