The Government Did Something Good

In these days of criticizing our civil servants, we forget when they do something really terrific.

Imagine, for a moment, the gargantuan size of our U.S. Government. Consider all the departments, agencies, divisions, sections and subsections – each trying to fulfill their own mission and all looking to buy just about every product and service under the sun. Now imagine the size and staggering cost of managing the tens of thousands of contracts involved, each one of them unique. If you picture the complexity as a truckload of warm spaghetti spilled all over the freeway, you’re not even close.

A while back, someone in the much-maligned GSA had the brilliant idea of bringing all these contracts and suppliers together. The plan was to come up with categories that could fit all the suppliers, centralize the supplies like a giant Sears catalog, and make them all bid competitively ONCE. Instead of giant seething morass of a half a million constantly-competed and constantly-evaluated, dismally duplicated bidding wars, the GSA would end up with a big book of the best suppliers and best value in the nation – saving the taxpayer billions. It was dazzling.

How do I know this? Because after two years of hard work (and wasting business time and taxpayer dollars competing for and winning a grab-bag of random contracts, all much the same) our company, Team Results USA, has finally won a place on the GSA Schedule. For us, it means more time doing what we love and less time typing the same old proposals. For the taxpayer, it means that you only pay for us to be rigorously evaluated ONCE, and then centrally checked and rated every year.

More government should be like this. GSA chief Dan Tangherlini – who didn’t invent the GSA Schedule but is its strongest advocate in years – is an example of a public servant who deserves applause. The same applies to the men and women of the GSA Schedule, working hard to save us taxpayers time and money every day.

Want to see what a GSA record looks like? Click here.

About John Kolm

Team Results USA's CEO John Kolm is an innovator of 21st century team productivity programs, a best-selling author, and a former intelligence officer. Originally from Australia, John formed Team Results in 1996 with retired business partner and decorated veteran Peter Ring as the end result of an experiment that began in 1993. Driven by frustration with the team development options then available to business and government, and with encouragement from early clients, they applied their academic training and practical leadership experience to build the unique approach to team productivity improvement that eventually became Team Results. The company grew rapidly, expanded to a wholly US-owned branch in the United States in 2005, and now operates as a very successful business in both hemispheres. In 2004 John and Peter wrote the global bestseller “Crocodile Charlie and the Holy Grail” (Penguin, available on Amazon.com), consolidating ten years of work with peak clients into a compelling story about team productivity, leadership in business and government, and happiness at work. The book has been re-published in seven languages and fourteen countries, and a sequel is in the works. John is also the author of numerous articles and papers on team dynamics in the modern workplace, some of which can be found in the News Room at www.teamresultsusa.com . John is qualified in Psychology from the University of Melbourne, and in mathematics and statistics from the U.S. National Cryptologic School, where he also taught on the faculty. Email him at John.kolm@teamresultsusa.com .

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