The Trifecta of Effectiveness: Mindset (Part 3)

Serialized from The Trifecta of Effectiveness: How a Badass Cubicle Dweller Optimizes Tools, Mindset, and Relationships and from Contracting for Rapid Acquisition: A Practical and Personal Guide to Disrupting the Status Quo for a More Responsive Future by Lorna E. Tedder

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced the Trifecta of Effectiveness—a three-legged stool consisting of tools, mindset, and relationships. Now it’s time to explore the second leg in depth: Mindset.

The Mindset Imperative: Second Leg of the Trifecta

As my younger daughter once brilliantly observed when I felt stuck and just needed more to make a major life decision, “Honestly, you probably don’t need more information. You need to apply what you’ve already learned.” I feel that way about innovative Acquisition and Contracting techniques. All the tools in the world don’t matter if you don’t have the right mindset about using them.

The Risk Spectrum

You will be second-guessed. Promise. It will happen from people who aren’t in your shoes, and it may be years from now. I was the Contracting Officer on the original bunker buster contract. There were parades in the street for what we accomplished, but a few years later, I had auditors telling me I should’ve been more conservative in my Contracting approach. That’s when my mentor said, “Lorna, auditors—and critics—are the ones who come in after the war is over and bayonet the wounded.” That will happen to you, too. From strangers. Future bosses. From people who know only the world at some future point in time and aren’t living with your current constraints.

That’s okay. Do what you must. Make sure you’re legal. Make sure you can look yourself in the mirror in the morning. When you doubt whether something a little risky is worth doing, use my guideline: will it matter in 100 years? Will it matter in 100 years if the yellow tri-cut tabs in your contract folder are perfectly aligned? Nope. Will it matter if you don’t get critical equipment to people on the front lines? Absolutely.

One person dying today changes the timeline. The world 100 years from now looks different without them and their bloodline or contributions. When you push a piece of paper over the goal line, you’ve changed the future.

The Fractal Effect

In my Division, I purposefully created what I call “fractals” of mindset. I put the right people and tools in place and gave them top cover to push the limits. They got the glory for good work, and I took the blame for any mistakes. I very deliberately chose employees based on enthusiasm and team harmony rather than super-experienced prima donnas or ladder climbers. I packed their resumes and helped them get promoted after they worked super hard for me for 6 to 15 months.

This workforce—these fractals—can either look very conservative or like innovators. I realized this when I saw how bosses looking to fill vacancies tended to hire people who either looked like them or thought like them, sometimes even dressed like them.  Conservative policy chiefs hired conservative employees and promoted conservative employees into top leadership positions.

Later, when I began hiring new employees, I found myself drawn to the ones who had the “Rapid Acquisition” mindset.  I didn’t care, as other bosses did, if they had a dozen visible piercings, tattoos, or pink and blue hair.   I cared about whether they would fit the mindset of my organization. Fractals take on the psychological structure of the organization, then go out into the world with that mindset. I brought my mindset to the organization I created, turned my workforce into lookalikes of that mindset, then sent them into the world to teach it to others.

The Power of Top Cover

Top cover is incredibly important. It allows you to spend energy on getting things done, not on fighting bureaucracy or reviewers or people who just want to do everything the way they always have because that’s where they’re comfortable. If you get top cover, give top cover. That allows energy to be directed not on convincing hesitant middle managers but on empowering people who are willing to do the hard work.

Remember, you’re pushing paper, not dodging bullets. Understanding risk means balancing the risk of getting something not quite perfect against the risk of not getting anything done at all. Typically, the closer you are to the front line, the more risk you take on.

And if you’re fortunate enough for a boss to give you top cover, milk it for every ounce of speed and productivity you can get out of it because you never know if the next boss will give you top cover or insist on micro-managing every breath you take.

Rethinking Our Standards

As Acquisition increasingly focuses on game-changing technologies, traditional metrics become less relevant. About two decades ago, services contracts began shifting away from rigid educational requirements toward results-oriented approaches, and it was a tough paradigm to shift.  Many organizations still cling to outdated mindsets. Past performance is ineffective when evaluating something that’s never been done before.  

I’ve seen evaluation criteria that heavily weigh a principal investigator’s academic credentials, overlooking the fact that many pioneers in emerging fields lack traditional degrees. Some of these innovators developed groundbreaking technologies in their basements, driven by passion rather than formal education. Imagine what kind of solutions you’re missing if you stick with an outdated mindset.

A Balanced Approach to Risk

This broader understanding of risk is where significant progress can be made. While updated regulations would certainly benefit Contracting Officers, much can already be accomplished within the existing framework, provided there’s justification, creative thinking, and a tolerance for risk.

To better balance risk with the impact of long lead times, we can issue blanket waivers, delegate authority to lower levels, allow sequential reviews, reduce oversight for lower-dollar procurements, design risk reduction matrices based on thresholds and complexity, and create templates to streamline processes.

The key is striking an appropriate balance on the risk spectrum and redefining risk to include technical obsolescence. If it takes years to award a contract, we’re likely buying a solution that’s no longer cutting-edge. This technological lag was less critical when many current regulations were established.  Too many Contracting Officers and policy reviewers  view risk as cost risk or the risk of public humiliation if they get it wrong, and they completely ignore the risk of not having a current, working technical solution fast enough for it to do any good.

Innovation vs. “Innovation”

Innovation has become a dirty word—or at least overused and misused. I had a colleague who won a major award for “streamlining” the solicitation process. He reduced a large request for proposal—literally cut it in half. How? By printing it on both sides of the paper. Half the pages. Wow, how innovative, right?

True innovation in Contracting isn’t about performing the same processes with minor tweaks—it’s about fundamentally rethinking our approach to achieve better outcomes. It’s about having the courage to use multiple tools in combination when they make sense, not hoarding them out of fear or convention.

You can fix experience, given some time, but it’s a lot harder to fix mindset. And mindset is what transforms available tools into extraordinary results.

The Multiplier Effect

So now we have the tools and the mindset to use them effectively. But if we really want to create an exponential impact—to truly revolutionize acquisition outcomes—we need the third leg of the trifecta: relationships. This final element acts as a multiplier, amplifying everything we’ve discussed so far. In the fourth and final part of this series, we’ll explore this critical component that turns good contracting into transformational contracting, allowing us to deliver capabilities that genuinely matter when they matter most. 

I’ll see you in the Part 4 of this series, or you can find more of my writing at my Rapid Lorna – Agile Acquisition Blog.