Unlocking Processes Through Independent Thinking With Artin Vaqari
By: Skot Waldron
Tags: Company Culture

Skot Waldron:

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My next interview with Artin Vaqari from the purchasing and procurement center. First of all, this interview caught me little bit off guard. I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t know much about procurement. How many of you know a lot about procurement? Well, the only thing I know about procurement is that they’re very systems-oriented people. There are the people that vet me, that don’t know me. That don’t really care about me as a person. They just want to know my numbers, and if I’m fair and if I’m doing things the right way. But what I learned in this interview is that procurement people are people too. They have feelings, they have emotions, and they have brains that actually work, and that want to make the best out of a situation.

Artin brought a lot of good perspective about the way he thinks about procurement and the way it should be run. Yes, we’ve got processes and systems, but we also have some other things that are needed, and you’re going to learn more about that. In order to unlock the potential of our people and our organizations, we have to use something that is very important for us in our daily lives, and you’re going to learn what that is. Are you ready? Let’s do this.

Okay, Artin. This is a really interesting angle that we’re about to take, because I don’t know much about the procurement industry. I’m just going to say it. Right? I just don’t know a lot about it, but you have been in it for a very long time. You’ve train individuals, you instruct them, you build people up in that way. Tell me a little bit more about first of all, what you do and how you do it.

Artin Vaqari:

All right. Again, to introduce myself, my name is Artin Vaqari. I’m the chief research officer for purchase and procurement center. Now, what do we do on our side is that we provide let’s call it real life and practical training certification program, for procurement executives. Whether they are junior or very senior as in directors or senior vice presidents, and so on. Now, in terms of the things that what we started doing uniquely is that what we realized is that people go through their trainings and development… Like, should I say, zombie? Going to classroom two days, three days, go back to work, do the same things. There is no change. So when we talk about real life training, we’re talking more not just knowledge being gained, but also how to use this knowledge. Again what we do on our side, especially with our scenario-based e-learning that there’s a lot of aspects and tools and technologies that can be used that help people actually use and apply what they learn in their day to day basis. So that would be in brief what we do and what I’m involved on a day-to-day basis.

SKOT WALDRON:

Very cool. You’ve mentioned in our discussion earlier that it’s about helping people achieve their potential. You used those words, and I love those words. Because Unlocked is a show about unlocking the potential in our people and our businesses. So tell me about your perspective on that. What do you do about helping people achieve their potential?

ARTIN VAQARI:

All right. I mean, you talk about unlocking and achieving potential. There are two things it’s internal and external. So when it comes to I’ll start with the external. That is if people look externally, that is we go back to the training. So right? People can learn everything that they need to know but what I see the biggest difference… and I’ve been doing this for the past 20 years, it comes essentially what an individual feels internally about himself or herself. So if the person feels that “I have what it takes and I’m confident that I can do this.” The second part the learning, and development, and training and so on comes naturally. Those people will naturally continue learning and developing themselves.

So again, if we’re talking about unlocking potential, most of the time I believe is that it comes from within. Where people actually know that they’re worth something… Let’s call it like that. And know that they can do whatever they need to do, if they need to find something they’re going to find. Even working with my people for example, what I realized, and what I want to hire for especially is not the hiring people for the experience they have, but more for this trait that’s called the finding the answer when they don’t know exactly what is the answer. So for people who actually have that trait and attitude, are going out, researching, finding out what is there, what is not there. Then one way or another getting the job done.

SKOT WALDRON:

Okay. So it’s about understanding that the internal and the external, right. It’s, you’ve got the skills, you’ve got the hard skills-

ARTIN VAQARI:

Right.

SKOT WALDRON:

… but we also need that belief system that we can achieve something that. That “I can do this, that I have the ability inside to bring that thing to pass.” Right?

ARTIN VAQARI:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

SKOT WALDRON:

So when we in our business world have problems with our culture, have problems with the people inside of our organizations, and you deal with procurement, mostly. Talk about the world of procurement. Talk about the problems you see inside these organizations, where communication is a huge factor.

ARTIN VAQARI:

All right? I mean, you see if people are familiar with procurement, procurement people are more like, let’s call it middle people. What I mean by that is that they connect their internal customers, that is their people in their organization with external suppliers. Let’s say there’s a project manager, they are running a big project on… I don’t know, getting a new product or service. They can be on the IT side, on the marketing, or probably on the manufacturing. So the procurement acts as a function where they actually get the requirements from these people and communicate this to the suppliers. So in a way it’s like they do both the internal and the external. The big problems there is that the internal users or these people that are within the organization, wants something as they see fit, what they feel is best for them. Procurement on the other side says, “We have to follow up processes and procedures within their organization?”

That’s where the conflict happens is that sometimes let’s say the project managers are in a way saying that, “You know what? I need this stuff to do my job. I don’t care about the policies and procedures.” Procurement is saying that, “Well we need to follow those things.” At the same time what they’re saying, that’s not right or wrong but it means that procurement also doesn’t have the… I can say flexibility, but full professionalism. Where they can assure to their internal customers, or end user as they call them, that they are fully qualified to do the job. That’s where the conflict happens.

Because it’s a matter of not just knowing, but showing the competency that procurement has. Again, dependent on organization, like I remember a few years back we were working with a large oil and gas company in the Middle East. The procurement managers were complaining that their project managers were kind of going over their heads, and were buying materials that we’re increasing the project costs. The whole idea behind it was the project manager would say, “Well, that’s a cost of doing business. We need to do this project. So you have more materials than we need, we’ll just keep it there.” The term in the profession itself is, obsolete inventory. So they were having a lot of this. It was because of the project managers that were not actually fully confident in the procurement. Again, it’s goes not just in the Middle East, it goes in Asia, probably in North America, it’s less Problematic and Europe. But in most of the other areas is that there is no large development in terms of how do these two different parties communicate together.

Just to give you an example so it becomes clear. I know it’s a very crude example, but it makes the point. Let’s say an internal person wants to buy a printer, and the guy says, “I want to buy Dell printer that prints in black and white, is this model.” Now procurement cannot do the job like that because there’s only one provider. So on the other side, sometimes people who are not knowledgeable who cannot communicate effectively, they just get stuck there.

I know it’s very basic example. But they get stuck and don’t know what to do and say that, “Oh, you know I’m stuck with my end users.” At the end of the day, what the procurement should communicate effectively is, “Sure will get what you want to buy, but then we have to look what do you want the thing to do for you? What do you want the printer? You want the black and white? Sure. That’s our requirement, black and white. Secondly, do you want it at this speed? Yes. Do you want it to have one year, two year warranties or whatever else?” So there’s a lot of this kind of… I don’t know whether I can call it communication or miscommunication internally. But there’s just that how people can talk and get through each other. Because at the end of the day, both want the same thing. They want let’s say something that’s reliable. But it’s not happening because both parties see things differently.

SKOT WALDRON:

How do we fix that? Have you figured that out yet?

ARTIN VAQARI:

Well, one of the things we’ve talked about that inner confidence then becomes the external knowledge. Definitely, you can have the inner confidence and [inaudible 00:11:47] but it’s like we talk about this things about self-affirmations and self-motivation. Like you can keep on saying like, “I’m happy. I’m happy. I’m happy.” Or “There’s no weeds. There’s no weeds. There’s no weeds in the garden”, when actually there is. So it’s not just like saying to yourself, it’s actually doing something and getting the knowledge about it that makes a difference for you to have become the real… let’s call it confident professional, wherever you are in the job and in life. Of course, for me, it’s like there is no difference between your job and your life because we spend more than half of our life, or probably three quarters of our lives in a job, excluding sleeping.

SKOT WALDRON:

Very true. Why should we be miserable in that thing? Right?

ARTIN VAQARI:

Yeah.

SKOT WALDRON:

A lot of people are. A lot of it comes down to communication, and communication problems, and misalignment, and not understanding one another, and that can cause problems. We talked about some of the biggest problems with culture is understanding people and that alignment. You talk about it, earlier we talked about it being about companies investing more in their processes and systems, rather than their people. Now you’re a process and systems guy. Procurement is process and systems. There’s a process you have to follow in order to do the job that needs to be done, and make sure everybody’s staying in their lane, and make sure that all the rules are followed, and that we’re doing things appropriately. How do we still invest in the systems and processes because we need those, but also make sure that we’re investing into people?

ARTIN VAQARI:

All right, now it’s funny you mentioned that. Just like half an hour ago I was working with something, developing some short promotional materials in terms of exactly what you’re talking processes versus people. What we were saying is that with AI artificial intelligence, robots, Industrial IR 4.0, is that soon this processes, if not even now, they are being taken over and done by… let’s say, machines. So what they’re talking about is not much about the process. It’s about the people behind the process because at the end of the day, you can have the best process in the world, but people are going to execute that. Lots of time, you’re correct, is that yeah, those processes needs to be in place, but then people need to have that thing that all of us have the capability, but sometimes we don’t use and that’s called thinking.

Because when there is a process in place it’s like people might follow it blindly, even though it doesn’t serve the objective for which the process was put in place. I mean, I’m just thinking I don’t know where I read this but it reminds me of something I read in a book. Okay. Let me just get quickly through that. Where the wife is when she bakes the chicken, cuts always the end of the chicken feet, and puts it in the oven. So then the husband has, “Why do they do that?” “Because my mother did it.” They go and ask the mother. “Why do you do that?” “Because my grandmother did it.” They go and ask the grandmother. “Why did you do it?” “Well because that time our oven is very small. So the feet couldn’t fit in, so I cut it off.”

So in a way that’s sometimes the idea when it comes to the process is, “Why did we have the process in place? And what’s the objective behind it?” So again, while we talk about the process what we do on our side, and especially if it comes in terms of how people can build their skills, knowledge, and communication when it comes to understanding the process. Then putting that into perspective. Does it do what we’re supposed to do? If it doesn’t, then we’ll change the process. Or quite often you probably don’t need the process at all. What comes to mind right now is something that I believe Peter Drucker has mentioned. That’s Peter Drucker is the godfather of modern management. When he drew the distinction between effectiveness and efficiency. Where it said, “There’s a difference between doing the right things and doing things, right.” So at times there is no point in doing something with great efficiency when that things should not be done at all.

SKOT WALDRON:

That is very insightful. I can tell you’re a big believer in independent thinking and action. Yeah. Am I right?

ARTIN VAQARI:

Correct.

SKOT WALDRON:

Okay, good. Because it sounds like even as a systems guy, even as somebody in procurement that has a lot of check boxes and things you need to make sure happen and believes in the process believes in systems, you believe more in the people behind that system, that’s executing that system. To be a free and independent thinker in order to sit there and say, “Okay, the systems in place for a reason.” But is it the right system for the right case, the right scenario, the right end user, the right… Yeah. It’s making sure our brains are still functioning. That AI doesn’t all of a sudden make us all just completely brainless, but that we’re still using what we have in our heads in order to execute something in the best possible way. Beautiful insights. Thank you for that. You wanted to offer something to the listeners going forward, which is super generous. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

ARTIN VAQARI:

I mean we’re right now coming up with a procurement video series. Essentially, which is about exactly what I talked. How to ensure that AI, robots, IR 4.0, is not going to replace procurement people in their jobs. So essentially we’re thinking three lessons, mini lessons from one of our products, and actually, making them available for people out there. So what people going to learn, of course, they have to be on the procurement profession to make full use of that is actually understanding what are three things… And that’s why it’s three videos that procurement people need to understand. This is more internalized.

We give a bit of a learning there, but it’s more on the what we call mindset that procurement executives need to build to actually be resilient for whatever changes come through. Because once that mindset is there, no matter what happens is just that you focus on what makes the difference. Rather than just on the day-to-day details, minutia and so on. So for that what I would say to people, I can give you a link where people can take advantage. I’m not sure yet how this is going to be made available to the people, or I could give you a web link-

SKOT WALDRON:

Yeah that’d-

ARTIN VAQARI:

[crosstalk 00:19:41] here.

SKOT WALDRON:

Send me that link. I’ll put it in the show notes. We’ll put it on the website and the YouTube channel.

ARTIN VAQARI:

All right. Yeah. I’ll put that into writing after this.

SKOT WALDRON:

Awesome. Well, this has been great. I’ve learned a little bit more about the procurement industry. You know, a lot of people think of the procurement industry is just the people that go out and make sure that everything’s priced accordingly, and sourced, and fair and all these things, right? But there are people behind all of these systems and processes. That’s what’s important for us to remember, is that the people are what make these things happen.

ARTIN VAQARI:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

SKOT WALDRON:

You’ve added that insight, and I really appreciate that.

ARTIN VAQARI:

Just to add on that. I mean, one of the things I’ve realized for example, I have some very good friends actually, who are my clients. I’ve noticed is that this people actually, they are procurement heads. What I’ve realized is that they are great communicators. I’ve become good friends with them, and I would say maybe because of them, because personally I’m not a very people person. But they are so great at managing the communication, and relationship with people that not only have they become my friends, I’ve become their friends. But I’ve noticed internally that their team actually is kind of glued together behind these people. You can see the difference how they talk and how they communicate, whatever they need to their people. You can see that there are people actually do go beyond what they need to do on their day-to-day. I realized it myself, that I also do things that I’m not being paid to do. I’m supposedly a supplier but because of the relationship we’ve built, I help them providing things that is not necessarily that we’ve been hired for.

SKOT WALDRON:

It all comes down to the relationship. You’ve noticed the difference?

ARTIN VAQARI:

Right.

SKOT WALDRON:

So thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us today, it’s been fantastic. I hope you have an awesome, awesome day. We’ll talk to you later. Free thinkers, people that can think and act for themselves. When you think of procurement, you don’t really think about that, right? You don’t think these people are free thinkers. They think and act for themselves. No, we think no they’re just following a checklist of a thing, a process, a system. But what Artin said is basically, we all have systems. We all have processes that we follow in life and in work. But we have to be free thinkers. We have to use these things in our heads to say, is this the right time, the right place, the right system for the right situation? That’s what we are needing to do.

Yes, robots may take over the world but we’re always going to have a person behind the robot. There’s always going to be us, the person that is there to implement and to build and to help everything thrive as we go forward. Thank you, Artin, for that insight. You can find more of these episodes on my YouTube channel. You can also find them on my website at skotwaldron.com. They’re all there as well. There’re links here in the show notes. I’ve got a lot of free resources on my website that are going to help you unlock the potential of yourself and your team. So go there, there’s a bunch of free stuff just for you. Okay. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next time.

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