Since The ASBC is focused on providing the knowledge, skills, and tools to guide public sector stakeholders to greater clarity in decision-making, let’s begin with a clarification.

By definition, a decision is a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration. The term diligence is about careful and persistent work or effort. So if we bring them together, decision diligence is persistent efforts for arriving at conclusions, following careful consideration. This installment of Go-To-Guy’s Visionary Blog is about building the processes necessary for making good decisions in federal contracting.

Here’s why. The inability to make good decisions kills growth. [Insert prolonged and uncomfortable pause here.] That’s not for me, but for anyone reading this who is struggling with making good and timely business decisions. That’s one area of upskilling celebrated by alumni of our Ethical Stalking for Government Contractors® Bootcamp. The results they report achieving speaks volumes. With improved decision diligence, our alumni tell us they are:

• spending fewer dollars and less time finding opportunities

• being more intentional in establishing and achieving goals

• experiencing increased morale

• seeing more viable opportunities

• having greater market awareness

It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s not too shabby, right? Beyond results like these, what’s the big deal about decisions? According to a December 2023 Harvard Business Review (HBR.org) article, the average adult makes 33,000 to 35,000 total decisions each day. If you think about it, this is an incredible feat you’re accomplishing every day. The article continues, many of these [decisions] happen automatically and simultaneously through the information we’ve subconsciously stored about what is “good” or “bad.” This means throughout your life, you’ve acquired enough information-in-context to effectively, and efficiently execute simple to sophisticated decisions, with little effort.

Now, consider three questions.

1. How long have you been leading your company? This speaks to how much time you have had to acquire instinctive knowledge for making those business decisions.

2. How many years of federal contracting experience do you lean on as you make decisions today?  If you are leading an organization for the first time, and are new to federal contracting, you are now making decisions in multiple areas where you don’t have the depth of knowledge to support decision-making.

3. How easy do customer, opportunity, go/no-go, teaming, and bid/no-bid decisions come when much of what you are seeing and hearing is unfamiliar? The extra time it takes to research and render decisions reduces your attentiveness to other important aspects of working in, and working on your business.

From the day you start pursuing federal contracts, until your succession event, you are making decisions about activities less familiar to you. Additionally, you haven’t developed the knowledge or skills to recognize and capture the information needed to make those decisions. This means knowing up from down and good from bad in federal contracting, is an immature ability. This creates a significant disadvantage when you are new to government contracting. It also makes it easy for many to fall victim to the many self-proclaimed experts who are dangling carrots of middleman strategies, fast money that is plentiful, and very little knowledge needed to claim your fortune. They contribute to the belief that doing business in this part of the public sector is nothing more than a money grab. Yes, there is money to be made, but most of us are willing to do it by increasing the ability of federal agencies to conduct business operations supporting public health, homeland security, economic security, national defense, and national security. This is the side of the story minimized, if not avoided completely, by many of the faux experts.

The saying “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is,” has never been more relevant, and important. If you are willing to put in the work, we will help you achieve the clarity and insights needed to achieve your goals, while helping civilian, defense, and intelligence agencies, achieve their goals.

Peace, Health, and Success,

Go-To-Guy Timberlake