Personal Blogs

Between now and May 2019, I'll be studying the next stage in my Psychology (Hons) with Open University - DD210: Living Psychology. Along the way, I'll be trying to write a (short) weekly blog post discussing some of the reading and applications, and trying to frame it in the context of bid and proposal management. I may not always succeed - but I'll try!

For now: week one is the introduction. So I'll start with the course overview and some of the areas I'm most looking forward to.

Between now and November, we'll be considering 'minds'. How do we know the people we speak to have a mind? What evidence is there that the mind exists in animals or even in Artificial Intelligence? And what happens when we experience issues with the 'mind' -specifically autism and psycopathy.

From a proposals perspective, mind is a permanent consideration. We must be practiced mindreaders, understanding both the explicit and implicit needs and desires of our customers. We play with design in an attempt to make our message more accessible. And we engage on a daily basis with wide teams in a highly social environment: how do bid and proposal managers function with challenges like high level autism?

Through to the end of the year, we'll then look at self-esteem. We'll investigate how our actions in the social world reflect in our relationships, and some of the core theories of conflict resolution. We'll investigate what it means to 'belong' - especially from a perspective of nationalism and immigration.

Like any sales profession, bidding is a game of highs and lows placing constant pressures on self-esteem. If you win: you've done your job. And losing can carry multiple connotations. We may avoid blame, or we may absorb it. Conflict of personality, of interest and of method in proposal construction can be rife, and it's what makes the social aspect of our profession so rewarding but so challenging.

In January, we'll investigate our evolving relationship with the natural world. We'll consider how we react to urban, constructed and natural spaces. And we'll start to investigate how we make sense of the world around us.

As a primarily corporate profession, bid and proposal managers are highly used to designed, urban environments. However we evolved in conditions radically different to those we experience on a daily basis. What can our evolved preferences tell us about design, about empathy and about our health and wellbeing? And why do we have such trouble taking positive action to support the global environment - even when we know about the damage we do.

Fourth, we'll consider how we perceive and construct the world around us. We'll look at the filters we put in place, and the mistakes they sometimes drive. We consider extraordinary claims and extraordinary beliefs, sometimes completely irrespective of the evidence visible before us. We'll also consider the psychology of extreme circumstance, and look at how conspiracy theories are constructed and why they become so appealing.

As human beings, and as proposal managers, we construct the world in which we live. Biases of availability, representation, neglect and confirmation all work to mean that the way you see the picture in front of you may differ from the next person. To what extent can we find 'truth' through processes such as debriefs and statistical analysis? And how can knowing about some of these failures help to stop them happening next time?

Finally, we'll consider a number of living psychological issues. We;ll consider some of the roots and impacts of sexuality, and how we adapt to live in an increasingly online world. Finally, we'll look at the self-help industry and scrutinize some of the claims it makes, as well as looking at some of the personalities that it attracts.

Development, learning and bettering yourself should be a core pursuit of every senior professional, and sales and business managers are a core demographic for self-development books. But do they work? In addition, how can we take responsibility for the hours we work, the challenges we endure and the outcomes at the end of the day?

I hope I manage to find something interesting to say each week. If there's anything here you'd like me to dig into as part of the post: drop me a note below. I'd be particularly interested in interviewing bid, proposal or sales managers who work with high-functioning autism disorders to give a perspective on the challenges and the rewards. I'll try and keep everything applicable and approachable and I welcome questions and challenges along the way!