Acknowledgements
This book has been shaped by many years of discussion, challenge, collaboration, and shared thinking. My sincere thanks go to the colleagues, analysts, clients, leaders, and thought leaders who have generously shared their perspectives, challenged established thinking, and helped turn conversations into better questions and stronger ideas.
I am particularly grateful to the many clients who placed their trust in me and openly shared their challenges, opportunities, and difficult decisions. These conversations were always treated with the confidentiality they deserve. But the openness, trust, and constructive exchange behind them have profoundly influenced how I think about procurement, leadership, technology, and transformation.
People Who Made a Difference
Ian Mariott — for trust, encouragement, and perspective - and for keeping the metrics out of 'our' way when it mattered
Tonnie van der Horst — for inspiration, and for showing me through your own example that insights are worth sharing
Juergen Schmidt — for friendship, candour, unwavering support, and for being my right hand for more than a decade — including through difficult times. And, importantly, for always giving honest feedback
Yanni Karilis and Joanne Spencer — for intellectual curiosity, countless great discussions, and the many workshops in which we challenged each other's and client's thinking.
Steve Briggs — for being someone you simply want on your side. Together with Peter de Meester, part of what became our own “Three Musketeers.”
Harald Wehnes— for your persistence in fighting for the right cause, and for the drive and intellect you bring to it
Jan Brecht— for demonstrating what great leadership can look like, and the art of communicating and aligning business and IT strategy
Richard v. W and Dennis S. — for loyalty, drive, openness, and for being trusted right hands when it counted.
Gerhard Hietel— for listening to me, your challenging and insight, AND your encouragement.
Gartner 'SPVM' Executive Partner Community / global — for the commitment to doing the right things for our clients, and for the extraordinary collective experience that was always there to draw upon.
Gartner Analysts — for sharing expertise so generously and for countless discussions that made my own thinking better. Particular thanks to Bart Willemsen, René Buest, Katja Ruud, Yoann Bianic, Tobi Bet, Luis Pinto, Fabio di Capua, David Groombridge — who probably deserves a double mention — as well as JoAnn Rosenberger, Neil Barton, Luke Ellery, and many others.
And, most importantly, the many clients — for your openness, your trust, your willingness to share difficult challenges as well as opportunities, and your readiness to debate constructively. I will mention only a few first names; you will know who you are: Paul, Christofer, Gaute, Regina, Adam, Daniel, Olaf, Peter, Nicole, Maher, Asa, Helmut, Ingo … and many more. You stood out.
My thanks also go to all the great sales colleagues who challenged and supported me, and to the Client Success Managers who so often made the difference — including Lee, Katja, and many others. And to everyone with whom I have had the privilege to work, debate, negotiate, learn, and occasionally disagree: thank you. Great ideas are rarely the work of one person. They emerge through exchange. This book will be no exception.
Select Thoughts That Guided Me
Certain words stay with us. Some come from famous speeches, some from books, and others from people we happen to work with at exactly the right moment. These are a few that stayed with me.
“Nothing is more rewarding than seeing someone saying, ‘This can't be done,’ being interrupted by someone actually doing it.”
— Ron Whitehand. I heard this while we were changing the end-to-end delivery model for Desktop Managed Services at DuPont around 1995. It stayed with me ever since: challenge assumptions, and don't confuse “we haven't done it” with “it can't be done.” That does not mean breaking rules. It means having the courage to challenge conventions while respecting the boundaries that genuinely matter.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— often attributed to Winston Churchill. The attribution may be doubtful, but the thought has stayed with me for decades. Sometimes learning comes the hard way. What matters is learning from mistakes, not repeating them, and getting back up when things do not work out. For many years, I carried these words with me on my laptop.
“You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.”
— often attributed to Winston Churchill. Again, apparently not Churchill — but no less meaningful to me. I have been fortunate in life: blessed with health and with the opportunity to spend much of my career working on things I genuinely enjoy. At some point, taking needs to become giving. This book is part of that.
“If you are on fire, people will walk miles to watch you burn.”
— source unknown. Be all in. Genuine conviction is difficult to fake — and people feel it. Passion, when combined with substance, has the ability to bring others with you.
“Connect the dots.”
— inspired by Steve Jobs. Connections often become visible only with time. Experiences that seemed unrelated suddenly begin to form a picture. The challenge is to recognize those connections — and, where we can, to leave a trail in the sand for others to follow.
Perhaps this book can leave a small one.