I recently attended an online training focused on
bidding for tenders. Towards the end of the session, one of the participants
made a request to the trainer who had over 25 years’ experience in this field:
“Are you able to assist us with a standard/best
template which we can use when working on any future tender?”
I concurred with the participants question and looked
forward to the trainer assisting with request.
However, the feedback was not what I was expecting:
“Why are you looking for a template that was done by
others?….. That is why we are teaching you so you can learn the key
fundamentals and then create your own ‘best’ template according to the
requirements of the tender……. There is no perfect template to suit all situations.
It is your job to create the best one based on your assessment of the
situation.”
His response didn’t resonate well with me. I am one
person who likes making use of existing work and modifying it. In my university
days, whenever I had an assignment, the default setting would be to look for a
copy of solutions of a similar assignment done by the seniors and use it as a blueprint
for answering my assignment. We used to call this as ‘crooks’ and if it were
missing, doing the assignment was terrifying though we ended up performing just as
well if not better than with the aide of ‘crooks’.
As I delved deeper into this subject, I realized that
this scenario plays out beyond school or work assignments. This is a life
struggle.
Rather than creating our own template to suit our
circumstances, we tend to look at what another person has done and copy them to
the later albeit with some few changes to their plan. We simply copy and paste
other people’s templates when it comes to our work, businesses, marriages, etc.
The trainer was asking us to learn about life as much as we
can from those we admire and look up to (‘best templates’) and then based on the
knowledge acquired; create our own template. He was telling us not to copy and
paste, to plagiarize our lives.
When the trainer challenged each one to come up with an
original template for tender preparation, he was advocating for originality, creativity,
imagination, individualism in our work or life. To understand our tender (life
situation) before coming up with a plan of action with which to respond to the
situation rather than starting with a solution (copying) before understanding
the problem.
To Trust ourselves and create our own best template for
life!
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