How Procurement can apply the lessons learnt from Jimmy Wales, the Founder of Wikipedia

Taking lessons learnt from the best in the world and applying them to procurement

Procurement professionals are always looking for ways to improve their processes and outcomes.

At least, that’s what I’m always doing, and I know many of you in the World of Procurement Community are the same.

One source of inspiration could be the lessons learned from the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, as discussed in a recent podcast with Lex Fridman.

This is one podcast I’d recommend to learn new ideas and concepts quickly.

A mixture of dog walks, trail runs, and weight work let me get through these podcasts pretty fast.

2x Speed also helps!

Here’s some ideas Jimmy shared that I thought we could apply to Procurement to help you out.

Collaboration and Openness

Collaboration and openness are key values in the Wikipedia community, and as procurement professionals we can benefit from these values as well.

In fact, I have this big, hairy, goal, that over the next decade (or two), perhaps World of Procurement will transform, in part, and have an open-source library of knowledge.

Anyway, back to the lessons.

One way to foster collaboration and openness is by working with cross-functional teams to identify and mitigate supply chain risks.

By involving various stakeholders in the process, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the risks and develop more effective strategies to address them.

We get no where in a silo.

Think of it like building an internal procurement community.

It takes a lot of time, effort, and the end result is going to be something special.

Another way to promote openness is by building relationships with suppliers to encourage transparency and mutual benefit.

I know we could be moving into the Supplier Relationship Management world here but let’s keep this simple. Bringing in some of your suppliers is possible and it will help you. It doesn’t have to be a massive undertaking. We are in place to work with suppliers to get a good end result for our customers (real customers - not our colleagues/stakeholders).

So we should put the effort in here.

Experimentation and Adaptation

You can also benefit from adopting an agile mindset and being open to experimentation and adaptation.

Adaptation was a big point Jimmy raised.

He mentioned the need to pivot when required. You just need to figure out when something isn’t quite working and changing direction.

One idea is to seek feedback internally and with the above point of building an internal procurement community, you’ll have honest people around you to let you know when things aren’t working.

Authenticity and Depth

Authenticity matters and you can aim for authenticity in your voice, and the depth of your content when communicating with stakeholders.

By providing meaningful insights and analysis, you’re gonna demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about.

This leads to trust.

This could involve focusing on providing detailed reports or presentations that go beyond surface-level information.

I’ve been in too many procurement led meetings (usually my managers…) where they just reel of stats and what’s happened.

No one really cares. What people cares about is what’s next, and why are we doing that. Let’s switch this up and get proactive rather than reactive.

See how this is all tying together to create a internal community from across the business to further procurement. This could be the creation of a vendor management office or a collective group.

Whatever it is - it could be special.

Neutral Point of View (NPOV) Policy

Finally, you can apply the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy to avoid bias towards certain suppliers or products.

By ensuring that you are not biased towards any particular supplier or product, you can make informed decisions based on objective criteria.

This means you can take an objective view during the sourcing evaluation process - e.g. when you’re evaluating an RFP response.

You’re there to ensure the process works. Your colleagues are the experts, and you can guide them through their buying objectively.

Well - at least until you bring in tech that automates the sourcing process (and yes, this exists).

Career Advice you need to Hear

Be persistent.

It sounds so simple. It’s incredibly hard to live by.

Not to be confused with being patient. The two can be a paradox. With persistence, you’ll be able to pursue the goals you want to regardless of how tough or difficult that is.

Pivot when you need to. That was the second piece of advice.

It felt like a contradiction in many ways to “staying persistent”. But it isn’t. You may need to change things up when what you’re doing isn’t working. Knowing when to stay the course, be persistent, or to pivot isn’t easy. Master than and you’ll be okay.

Closing Thoughts

Firstly - how was this? Did this do anything for you? I pick up a lot of insights in my day-to-day life and I know that many of these will help you.

I’m gauging whether or not the delivery was right. Let me know in the comments.

Learning from people outside of procurement is my number one priority. I’m trying to think from a view outside of that perspective.

How can we do this better.

Jimmy had some wonderful insights here - I really hope you benefitted from them.