Effective proposal organizations include built-in mechanisms (both formal and informal) to continually develop and refine individual and team capabilities. This post offers a handful of tactics for leaders to consider in the long-term growth and sustainment of their proposal team.
1. Enable Continuous Learning
As a leader, driving continuous learning is essential for the development of new personnel in the proposal development field. The industry is constantly evolving, and it’s essential that your team stays up-to-date with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices to remain competitive. To drive continuous learning, consider the following actions:
- Encourage a learning culture: Create a culture where learning is encouraged and rewarded. Recognize team members who take the initiative to learn new skills and knowledge related to proposal development. Consider a rotating “lunch and learn” session presented by a different team member each month.
- Provide training opportunities: Provide your team with opportunities to attend formal training sessions, conferences, and other learning events related to proposal development. Even attending the same training every other year can help bring fresh perspective, ideas, and energy to the “daily grind” of proposal development.
- Provide resources: Make sure your team has access to the necessary resources to facilitate their continuous learning. This includes internal training materials but also access to external best practices coming from industry publications, research papers, and subject matter expertise.
2. Delegate with Support
Very few learning methods stand up to the tried-and-true “On The Job” training, where individuals are forced to overcome challenges in real-time. This will happen on its own of course, but leaders can foster a culture and environment where this tactic is employed intentionally and with long-term purpose. Consider taking the following actions to enable your team to take on increasing levels of responsibility:
- Rotate Assignments: Give team members a chance to take on different roles in proposals. Consider a planned increase in responsibility that includes coordination roles, reviewer responsibilities, writing roles, volume ownership, and proposal management.
- Assign Mentors: Ensure new assignments are accompanied by a strong expert – someone to answer questions, offer suggestions, and help diffuse stress. In a large enough organization, a dedicated subject matter expert can mentor multiple team members at the same. There are also a myriad of consulting options available externally that can help.
- Trust, but Mitigate Risk: For each assignment, collaborate to identify areas of potential weakness and ensure schedules and workloads allow for an appropriate learning curve. Consider having a backup resource available to jump in if/when things go south.
3. Manage Workloads
In the proposal world, it can be easy to overload team members, causing a stifling effect on learning – not to mention leading to reduced productivity and turnover. To ensure team members aren’t taking on more than they can handle, consider taking some of the following actions:
- Monitor workload: Check-in regularly with team members to identify any areas where they feel overwhelmed or may need additional support. Night/weekend activity should be the exception, not the norm!
- Prioritize tasks: Prioritize tasks based on their importance and urgency, and delegate tasks accordingly. Consider assigning a combination of “administrative” and “critical thinking” tasks to allow time to breathe between challenging assignments.
- Provide flexibility: Provide your team with flexibility to manage their workload, such as flexible schedules, remote work options, or time off when needed. Let them leverage their most productive hours for their hardest tasks.
These are only a few tactics for developing proposal capabilities within your team. What are some best practices you’ve seen in your career?
