Since leadership in procurement is a results-oriented concept, it is vital for procurement directors to know how to get things done.
They need not necessarily act themselves, but they must be at least able to facilitate the progress of actions of others and be able to recruit those who can act effectively.
Procurement people must avoid appearing to be a know-it-all but must enjoy apparent command of the situation.
No single person in procurement is expected to know everything, but must appear to understand the organization that he or she leads and the problems that confront it.
While no one need have all the answers at hand for every problem that arises, they must be the kind of person who can come up with an answer. It is not sufficient to be able only to identify problems, it requires the understanding of how to solve it as well.
One could say that knowledge is the accumulation of information and facts, while wisdom is the ability to draw insight and understanding from knowledge and to make wise judgments, such as to select the soundest course of action from a range of opinions.
The people that have been in procurement for many years will have most likely seen a specific type of situation in the past and be able to draw upon the options they faced during that instance.
It also includes the ability to put knowledge to use, that is, to act upon the basis of the knowledge at hand. So conceived, the difference between wisdom and knowledge may be easily illustrated. Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes is dangerous to your health. Nevertheless, some people still smoke. Those people have knowledge, but they lack the wisdom to use it.
I have always had a great interest in this topic so I will explain it in my own way.
Conceptually, there are four different aspects of wisdom that are germane to any senior management role. I would have them labelled and explained in relation to my many years as a Canadian karate champion in the following way:
“Book wisdom” being in the possession of knowledge of facts (e.g., the history of fighting and karate, and the theoretical aspects of the sport);
“Street wisdom” being in possession of knowledge and understanding of methods (e.g., the ability to throw and take a punch, thus the kind of knowledge of fighting that one only acquires through participation in several tournaments);
“Business wisdom” being in the possession of knowledge and understanding of the commercial and financial inherent risks in each situation, such as the opportunity of opening karate studios;
“People wisdom” having the ability to anticipate adverse consequences of action in terms of interpersonal relationships (e.g., when it is time to retire, the sense to buy a ticket to watch the fight, rather than to participate in it.)
Spending much of my life both in procurement and karate I have found may similarities, such as great discipline. While wisdom will be most profound when based on sound and comprehensive knowledge, a wise person can act intelligently even where knowledge is limited.
Indeed, generally it is better to have some wisdom and a little knowledge, than all knowledge and no wisdom.
Knowledgeable people can sometimes say some very unusual things. For instance where they are unable to relate their knowledge to situations outside the context in which that information was acquired, or where their pride causes them to offer opinions where important facts are unknown or their understanding of those facts is limited.
In contrast, illiterate people may sometimes say or do some very profound things. They may not know much, but their understanding of what they do know is deep, and they are able to relate the understanding of things that they know to the world at large.
Stephen Bauld is a government procurement expert and can be reached at swbauld@purchasingci.com. Some of his columns may contain excerpts from The Municipal Procurement Handbook published by Butterworths.
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