Post by Geoff Rayner

In The Advance Consultancy | Certified B Corp™'s line of consultancy, it's tough to go through the day without seeing how things outside infrastructure & project delivery still apply directly to it.   The World Cup has been no exception. France Spain was a good watch, and full of insight applicable to the world outside of football.   ITV's commentary from Sam Matterface, Lee Dixon, and Ally McCoist kept coming back to one of those ‘teachable moments’. France have a phenomenal squad who without doubt can play beautiful football, but they're perhaps a group of star individuals playing together rather than a cohesive team. And when your stars aren’t firing, nothing clicks. Spain, by contrast, have been a totally unified team. Yes, fewer individual superstars, but noticeably far more unity and togetherness. And ultimately, that's what won them the game. Having superstars is all well and good, but a genuinely cohesive team can be worth even more. As Neil Johnston BBC Sport writes, Spain's win was a team beating brilliant individuals. Luis de la Fuente has had this group together for the best part of ten years, with several key players coming through the same youth side. The team was built over time. We see the same thing when working with teams bidding on and delivering in complex operational and delivery environments across the UK and Canada. We call it suitability and eligibility. On paper, France were the more eligible team, with better individual past performances and bigger names on the sheet. But Spain were the more suitable team, still highly eligible, but with a level of cohesion that let them deliver the better outcome.   When it comes to collaborative procurement and project delivery, eligibility is fairly straightforward to check with track record, resources, capability, all there in black and white. Suitability, however, is a lot harder to see and achieve, but it's what actually determines whether a team delivers. For asset owners, that means finding better ways to test for suitability, not just eligibility. And for the supply side, it means building genuinely collaborative teams and finding authentic ways to communicate and demonstrate that suitability throughout the entire pursuit and into delivery. And for both, remembering the cost of collaboration is time. Cohesion like Spain's takes time.   Tonight's England vs Argentina game will be another test case. Will we see Kane & Bellingham vs Messi, or England vs Argentina? We know England have the eligibility. The question is whether they have the suitability too. https://lnkd.in/e2V87-cZ