"I wasn't built for comfort—I was built for speed." — "Bad for Good"
Serialized from The Trifecta of Effectiveness: How a Badass Cubicle Dweller Optimizes Tools, Mindset, and Relationships, by Lorna E. Tedder The Trifecta of Effectiveness is a powerful conceptual framework applicable in all facets of life, not any particular professional discipline, although it fits the Acquisition career field perfectly. Envision it as a three-legged stool, with […]
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FAFO—an acronym for “F*** Around and Find Out”—is the idea that actions have consequences, often in unexpected ways. But so can inaction. Several times in my life, I’ve been the victim of relentless bullying that lasted for years at a time. Each time almost broke me. First as a kid for being too churchy, later […]
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How often have you heard me say that the cool thing about getting older is that you’ve lived long enough to recognize certain longer-term patterns? That’s the advantage of age and experience—that you have a larger quantity of data, so you start to recognize recurring structures. Some patterns, I haven’t lived long enough yet to […]
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Multiple small businesses with recently terminated contracts are telling me today they’re getting stiffed by the U.S. Government for work these small businesses have already done. Smalls are being told they cannot get any relief—the usual final negotiated costs (for costs not yet invoiced, for example) or equitable adjustments, etc. A few months ago, I […]
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I’m in a funk. That’s an announcement, maybe a warning. It’s NOT an apology. Integrity in my profession has always been a huge deal to me. My word meant something to me, and to others. As a Contracting Officer, I signed on behalf of my country, and that carried with it a lot of responsibility. I didn’t sign and […]
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For almost four decades, I’ve watched the ebb and flow of Federal Acquisition. I’ve stalked the patterns and cycles enough to be considered a visionary, or a psychic, or just an old-timer of a human archive who remembers all the struggles both the Government and Contractors have faced in that time and all the ways […]
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I’m hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks that “deferred resignations” or anything from the new OPM’s “Fork in the Road” initiative for civil servants is well-thought out—unless the plan was for utter chaos with a side of cruelty. I say this as a swing voter who was a public servant under 10 administrations and saw reductions […]
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If you and I have never had a Life-Death-and-the-Universe discussion all night about Acquisition, ethics, and/or the law, consider this article a taste. There are a few things in life and business that really bother me, and I wish they bothered more people. It’s about principles, and the key to knowing whether you or someone else follows the principles […]
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I’m tired. No. No, I’m weary—bone weary. I will seriously, totally, completely lose it if one more person asks me if they should choose an Other Transaction agreement or a FAR-based contract. No, I mean it. Part of me doesn’t want to be so negative, but I’m just at my wit’s end. Why does this […]
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I haven’t been able to look at a jar of peanut butter in years. Ever since a certain PEO turned peanut butter spread into a verb. Not that the Program Executive Officer was a bad guy. Not at all. But as a Contracting Officer, I hated how he handled budget cuts. I don’t think he […]
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In preparing for 2025, I’ve been working on “DOGE”ing my personal and professional lives. See what I did there? Turned “DOGE” into a verb so I can talk about efficiency tools. Except in my own life, the acronym is for “Department of Goal Efficiency.” Or maybe “Department of Genius Efficiency” if I’m in a mood. […]
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I’ve seen some misconceptions floating around about Government contracts—specifically, the idea that the Government can cancel or defund contracts whenever it feels like it for the sake of efficiency. Spoiler alert: It can’t. Not unless some laws get changed first. I’m not writing so much to educate my Contracting colleagues as I am to enlighten […]
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I was asked how different presidential administrations have affected my rapid acquisition mindset. The short answer is: they haven’t. I’ve always been this way. Administrations come and go, but they’ve never affected how I think about acquisition, streamlining, or how I find my motivation to create faster, better, more efficient, and more effective ways to […]
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Efficiency in the Federal Government is a hot topic since the Election. Without weighing in on politics, I do have a concern that I think we need to keep in mind. Especially those of the “doing more with less” philosophy that I’ve heard for my entire career in Acquisition. Maybe we should be “doing less […]
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I was at my favorite restaurant recently, just chilling over a solitary lunch and writing a blog post in their off-hours. There were maybe five other patrons in the entire place, all seated at the bar, so naturally, the next diners were seated about two feet from me, with only a screen separating us. I […]
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We all live our lives to our own default, and people who think their default is the ONLY way may find others’ different individual and collective defaults to be nonsensical. Maybe even threatening. Both a conclusion of nonsense or threat can create a lot of animosity as well as resented by the one whose default […]
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Having spent an entire career in Acquisition, I’ve heard the word sustainability more than most humans I haven’t worked with. Now I’m hearing it more outside of Acquisition than ever before. Isn’t it funny how we can apply the word sustainability to weapon systems and forget to apply it to people? How often did I […]
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I’m all for leaning into your strengths and doing what you do best in Contracting and Acquisition. I don’t believe you have to be “well-rounded” and work in areas that aren’t suited to your work personality or strengths, but you do need to be open to the very real fact that there may be other […]
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I’ve taken for granted how incredibly lucky I was when I was a Contracting intern and brand new Unlimited Contracting Officer as a GS 12 with barely 4 years’ experience. Eons ago. Back when dirt was new and fire was an emerging technology. I’m stopping to think about it only now when I’ve left the […]
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Warning: AI and Contracting analogy I haven’t seen yet. If you’ve been online with others in your field for longer than 5 minutes, you’ve probably seen colleagues arguing over how wrong different AI models are. Some won’t do math for you, none will give you 50,000 words of perfection in one click, some won’t give […]
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I see a lot of Government organizations who don’t understand that they need Acquisition expertise, let alone Contracting expertise. It’s funny how often I hear them say later that they didn’t realize how much they needed to consider Acquisition/Contracting in their planning. I also often see people who’ve merely touched a contract in some capacity, […]
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Between my rented lair and one of my favorite lunch spots is a quiet side street. It’s a charming little stretch, shaded by a canopy of oak trees so thick it feels like a tunnel. The street is narrow, just wide enough for two cars to pass, with on-street parking usually occupied by landscapers and […]
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I learned something new about myself today, which is always cool because learning about what makes ourselves—and others—tick helps us navigate our world better, whether in our personal lives or in our acquisition-related careers. A lot of Contracting Officers I’ve worked with, and especially Procurement Analysts in Policy, can’t seem to get enough data to […]
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If I were a supervisor or division chief again, one thing I’d do for my workforce is to push CliftonStrengths harder. I did give a similar concept a try around 10 years ago with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is a personality assessment tool based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types. It identifies […]
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That metric may not be what you think. How often do I see that with lead times, particularly where Contracting gets the blame for how long it takes to get from need to solution delivery? I got a parking ticket last week—in front of my house. I don’t have a driveway, so I have no […]
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For my Govvies, you’re probably not even aware of this bc people won’t say it out loud to you. Small businesses, consultants, board members, employees, etc, have to mind their tongues or maybe suffer financial consequences. That’s why I haven’t really talked much about this in the last 5 years–bc I might hurt organizations I […]
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