Maybe the customer isn’t always right, but they always need — and deserve to get — your best efforts and service to meet their needs.
“Growing up” as a contract specialist in a large Navy Department, my bosses and mentors drilled it into my head that the program office I supported should be seen as my customer. In a very real sense, they noted, without them, I would have no job. Without the program offices’ acquisition/procurement needs, the Department would not need a contracts organization. As I progressed through my government career, that message stuck with me, was passed on to those working for and with me, and I believe was foundational in whatever successes I enjoyed in my government career — and ever since.
In recent years, there have been some famous cases of large commercial organizations that — seemingly in recognition of shifting political/ideological/societal “realities” — undertook major actions that were perceived as offensive or an abandonment of the interests of large portions of their respective customer bases. Without getting too close in this forum to what I think about the underlying goals, the effect was major losses of business from the “offended” customer bases. The common thread, as I see it, was that the firms seemed to lose track of who their existing customers really were — even if they were attempting to “broaden” their overall customer bases.
But wait, isn’t that a critical difference from how my government contracts operation worked? My program office was hardly going to take their acquisition/procurement needs elsewhere, were they? No, probably not. Limited alternatives may have been available, but not really as a practical matter.
However, just as practically, the reason my job and the contracts organization existed, organizationally, was to support the program offices’ needs by executing those acquisition/procurement requirements to assist in meeting the Department’s mission objectives. That made them my customer — even if they weren’t going to “run off and switch brands” if I offended or failed them. As a result, it was my job to figure out how I could best help fulfill their mission — yes, within law, regulation and sound business judgment.
Sometimes that meant I simply worked efficiently and effectively according to the approach they proposed. But it could also mean working together with them to better understand the underlying mission need, enabling me to craft an innovative alternative approach to meeting the customer’s true mission objectives — within law and regulatory constraints.
Simultaneously, I was the customer — of the program office’s acquisition planning documents. It was their job to give me documents — and understandings about the underlying mission objectives —enabling me to effectively and efficiently meet their procurement support needs. In the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise played the title role as a sports agent; Cuba Gooding, Jr., was a star football player and eventual client of Maguire’s. I will never forget a key mantra that was used often in the movie: “Help me [to] help you.” That is the ideal attitude and role of the program office/requirement owner and the contracts office — and the employees of each organization — in their mutual “customer” relationship.
As the Seventh Sense Consulting LLC (SSC) Director of Acquisition Practice, Mr. Patrick Shields has over 45 years of experience as an acquisition/contracting professional and innovative leader. As a Navy Department civilian, he was a major weapons systems contracting officer and manager. Since his civil service retirement, with 2 firms he has provided subject matter expertise support to numerous Federal civilian and DoD organizations, including acquisition strategy/ documentation support for key acquisitions, policy development, and personnel training. He also managed a subscription “ask the expert” response team and authored numerous topical publications for over 25,000 professional employees of subscribing agencies.
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