John Capewell–

Background

I accepted, what I was led to believe, was a typical assignment to be a consulting proposal manager for a Washington D.C.-based, 8(a) company. The reality detail was that the Client company had recently been purchased by a large business, thereby losing their small business status and their ability to recomplete on their own work. And, the Government Customer had merged multiple contracts (including the 8(a) recompete piece), creating a $1.5B multiple award contract vehicle, which generated significant, new contractor community interest and competition.

This bid was also designated as a “must win” by the Client. My job was to help the newly size-challenged client win their first large business bid.

However, I had no idea the storm of issues and levels of unprofessionalism I was running headlong into – thank goodness for that. Sometimes it helps to not know that the building is on fire, as you run into it.

Challenges to Overcome

Once on-site, it became obvious, very quickly that this opportunity was in a state of high anxiety/hostility, most likely generated by new executive leadership snooping around and kicking the tires of their recently-acquired “small business.” The Client referred to those activities as unwanted “adult supervision.” The new executives showed particular interest for the upcoming $1.5B prime bid (largest in Company history), its B&P budget (typically SB small – 40 hrs/week), its Prime bidder win strategy, and its low Pwin. As part of that, I was introduced to the new leadership team as the opportunity lead but was barked at by the local talent and told to “stay away from them and to have no further direct contact with them.” With my typical DoD scowl and under-my-breath cursing, I agreed.

My points of contact at the “small business” were the near-useless VP of Business Development (our boss and contract holder), the current contract Program Manager and SMEs, and an extremely hostile, out-right mean-spirited Proposal Coordinator to assist my team with content, local policy, toolsets, and procedures. My team consisted of a Volume Lead and an Editor/Technical Writer, which meant that I was the Proposal Manager, multiple Volume Leads, and technical writer – pretty typical staffing, so we had no immediate performance issues there.

What I did not initially know was that the client Proposal Coordinator was actually their on-staff Sr. Proposal Manager who was, over her very vocal objections, demoted to Coordinator for this high-visibility effort. She was also instructed to report to me, enflaming her extreme dislike for outside talent, my team of victims, and for the VP’s decision to bring us in on this job.

We rapidly descended into a proposal abyss of low team morale and near-zero productivity with never-ending, ritualistic blood lettings as our Client’s leadership style. We were literally trying to pull a must-win proposal out of slow reacting client personnel in an extremely hostile and uncooperative environment. There was no amount of smiling nor positive attitude capable of fixing this mess. It was time to put on the catcher’s mask and cup – because this was going to get rough.

As the proposal days cranked by generating content and art, the client’s internal proposal manager/now coordinator sabotaged our work that was stored in SharePoint, lost art files we had turned in via email, created false and incriminating reports about our progress and status, and finally brought in her own proposal contractors to compete with us on the same effort. Yep, she really did that. The Coordinator was literally merging two proposals into one. FYI – The other contractors were let go for poor performance. And she logged daily complaints about my team’s performance, which she was actively attempting to destroy.

No worries – I just added bullet-proof vests to our uniform of the day. We built and executed a communications plan for our interactions with the coordinator in attempt to establish some level of professional interaction – it failed….miserably and painfully as we incessantly took multiple shots to the face and back. And I also built a CYA duplicate document trail approach within my team to protect us from the hatchet wielding Coordinator. I was mostly successful in countering her relentless actions against us but truthfully, it did not seem to matter. No one was listening or cared.

About halfway through the job, the client BD VP admitted that we were the third company put into this situation and that the previous two companies had been fired. Third time is a charm? If we throw enough contractors at her, maybe the Coordinator will wear down and become part of the Team?? Contractors are just fodder for blame after they leave anyway???

The Client BD VP also refused to provide us with top-cover or to fix issues as they arose. Plus it was my impression that he was possibly the anti-consultant Team Captain, just doing as HE was told. I never did figure him out, and decided on an “ignore him, maybe he’ll go away” approach to client interaction was appropriate (go ahead and say it – THAT decision was not necessarily the highlight of my career). He was ultimately let go soon after that anyway by the new ownership.

The consulting agency my team worked for also ran/hid when asked to provide us with top-cover in this incredibly hostile and unprofessional work environment. I literally felt like we were left alone on a field fighting a battle that could not be won, with a discover-as-you-go Client enemy, and no rescue mission on the way. WooHoo, how do you spell ABANDONED? Yeah I know, should be boohoo – that’s what I get paid the BIG bucks for, right?

Despite multiple attempts to mend fences with the coordinator, I was unsuccessful. Evidently, her hurt feelings resulting from the demotion to Coordinator (reporting to a consultant) on such a high visibility/important proposal, in front of her new chain of command, overrode her professionalism to the end. We were let go early and the Coordinator produced and delivered the proposal on time.

Lesson Learned

Just keep swimming, even if it’s constantly uphill while taking heavy fire from all sides with no support nor end in sight. This effort provided the opportunity to sharpen my client communications and inter-personal skills in the most hostile and unprofessional working environment ever encountered over 29 years and 140 proposals managed. BTW – their win had virtually nothing to do with the proposal and everything to do with their customer relationships – whew!

Have you had a proposal from hell?! Write to us and we can share it on our blog!