Perhaps several pregnant questions can be posed in a constructive way. I'll need to retain my composure. Pretend not to care. Be an on-the-payroll voyeur. Like Dilbert. Waste a few years maybe. Play the fool. And, if any of these questions capture the attention of this company, then maybe I'll have an opportunity to suggest some possible answers. If someone asks, I mean... If they don't ask, then we'll just participate in a masquerade party where we are pretending to sell things but we're really just going through the motions. Delay reality. Isn't that what the 90s were about until the Big Event came to Santa Monica? Until the Asian Flu epidemic broke out... How would these questions be answered in your company?

Are proposals being written as an exercise in corporate narcissism? Are themes, word choices, whole sections being included because Mr. Big wants to see it in there? It's great if Mr. Big's needs and preferences happen to fit with the needs and preferences of the prospective customer, rather than with the definitions of what constitutes irritation and/or superfluous content that are embraced by the customer. Even worse, are we writing these proposals to please somebody further down the pecking order?

The themes, content, and style selected for each proposal should be tightly connected to the wants and needs of the marketplace. Write for the reader. And, make sure that the reader is a qualified, paying customer. If Ms. Importante and Mr. Big want a proposal for internal playtime, then let them get their own checkbooks out and we'll have an old-fashioned game of nuthouse on their dime.

Or, is some proposal writer off in a corner, slamming the keyboard, making it up as she/he goes along? This often happens by default, because (1) no sales person has really connected with the prospect to discover their hot buttons, or, (2) the sales person has, to her credit, discovered this information but expects the writer to use mental telepathy to figure it out. Or, there is the third, unspeakable alternative: The Sales Representative's Attention Deficit Disorder has reached an advanced untreatable state such that he honestly believes that he has shared an encyclopedia of knowledge about the prospective customer with the CEO, the VP of Marketing, the Sales Manager, the Proposal Manager, and most of the regulars down at the Broken Spoke Bar and Grill. The systematic cultivation and incorporation of customer-specific content into standardized proposal templates is critical to building proposals that are as effective as they are efficient.

Busy. Busy. Busy. Yeah, if you think that this is an unreasonable question, then you haven't worked many places or perhaps you haven't been paying attention. Don't confuse smoke with fire. Don't confuse process with results. Don't confuse Shinola. Lots of folks can put together a lengthy screed. However, proposals are not judged by the pound. Honest. Even at the Pentagon. They are judged by the clarity of their content.. Multiple authors working together on a proposal need to resist the urge to play "my way or the highway." The idea is to talk together about the requirement, the competition, the key themes, the subtleties which, when introduced, might create unease concerning choosing a competitor, the confidence-building that will lead people in the prospect's organization to conclude that choosing us is the only safe and responsible decision. There are other valuable topics: Call Strategic Futures®. Once we have talked together, and have a plan for writing including an annotated outline, timeframes for first and second drafts, and other shared frameworks for working together, then it's time to start writing. Not before...

Or, are we just running up and down the hallways looking important? Maybe staying late into the night drinking coffee in hopes of getting noticed for the next round of promotions or bonuses...a late-evening dalliance, maybe even, making for halter-skelter rather than helter-skelter. No, helter-skelter late hours are rarely evidence of genuine corporate heroism. It's more like genuine corporate zeroism, unfortunately. High-adrenalin action is usually evidence of an undefined process for developing and finalizing a winning proposal. The absence of explicit expectations and methods for creating a winning proposal creates a certain amount of manic panic. Then, to inoculate against being associated with a losing proposal team, each member strives to engage in individual heroics to protect his or her career. The heroics are adrenalin-based rather than vision-based and the result is lots of perspiration and a failing enterprise. "We worked so hard, how could we have lost?" Because masochism is more fun than thinking? Because it's easier to flagellate ourselves than it is to communicate with one another and devise a plan for winning? Because we are better prepared to do theater than we are to do business? You tell me, Crispin.

Or, are we going to play Groupthink Gridlock where everyone-is-in-charge and no-one-is-in- charge, but see we're all working as a flattened team and everything will be right in the end because it's so modern isn't it and it works real well unless you really need to bring in some revenue and then it gets to be a problem because the sandbox doesn't really have that great a profit margin does it? Maybe the ideas are getting as flat as the team but it wouldn't be right to say that... Or, would it? Crispin resents Dilbert's success because Dilbert wouldn't be anything without an abundance of foggy minds that can escape accountability. Dillie-Boy is banking on it, and it's too cute by half.

Sometimes people want to put something into the proposal at the last minute which introduces more room for potential error and confusion than it contributes to added value and a strengthened selling proposition. Someone needs to have the authority to say "No, if we had more time we might entertain this content, but it is too late in the process to include it. I'm not going to slow down the circuits to install a low-wattage bulb because it just doesn't add enough illumination."

Or, "I want you to get Mr. Hollywood on the flippin' phone right now because he said that his first draft would be here 24 hours ago and it isn't. We're going to burn his tights until he screams for mercy. We are not going to abandon the whole flock to chase him around. These deadlines are as serious as a heart attack." You know what serious is, don't you Crispin? But you are so alone. The others don't seem to understand.

Please reread No. 1. And, please ensure that your proposals don't contain redundancies because you can offend your reader. On the other hand, always assume a lazy reader and you will be right more often than you are wrong. Do you know stylistic and formatting tricks for engaging the lazy reader? Do you know how to help the lazy reader reach the conclusion that you want him or her to reach and to feel secure in the ability to defend this conclusion? Strategic Futures® can teach them to you and then you will be better than your competitors... at least when it comes to proposals.

Ugly colors detracting from a high-density wall of words can be off-putting to many readers, except for the ones whom you don't want to meet without fire-retardant clothing and a bullet-resistant vest. Pride of authorship is not where it's at. Let's create a climate and a method for making continuous improvements in our proposal templates.

Crispin, boring is worse than ugly, but you'd better not get dwelling on that again. You remember what happened the last time ...

If every contributor to the proposal is writing with the idea that s/he just needs to put down the big ideas and someone else down the line is going to finalize the text so that it "reads," then the final proposal is going to look like a "crazy-quilt" with an emphasis on the crazy. Or, here's an old favorite: Author 1 is marking up Author 2's text with "aren't-I-smart" questions scribbled in the margins. No altered text, mind you. No, just a few pregnant questions to demonstrate how clever I am and how I would have enhanced this text had I been writing it but I am too f*%!!@ busy to write that text because I am so very important, mais oui. So many meetings, so little time. But even better, Author 1 does these Amateur Markups on Author 2's text and then lobs it over to Author 3 who, because s/he has a modicum of literary energy usually lacking in the others, is somehow expected to transmute this garbage-input, magically making a cow out of a cow-pie.

Crispin, you need to accept the fact that strange rewards are meted out to those who can read and write. Don't attempt to understand these dynamics because they are zen-mystic. Do hold your nose, however.

Achtung! If you see these games being played, the proposal process is revealing something about your corporate culture and its personnel that does not augur well for your career. Change this corporate culture or run for your life! You could say that such behavior does not augur well for the long-range success of the company either, but one thing you learn as a management consultant is just how long an organization can enjoy success in spite of itself. The good news for pragmatists is that eventually such luck does run out on the unworthy. It can take a remarkably long time, however.

Crispie, don't take this stuff quite so seriously, please.

One sees it regularly. Lacking guts, interest, or both, no one really asks the direct questions about what benefits we are selling to whom, why, and using what strategic positioning? And so, when the proposal is written, this disagreement, or unmanaged agreement, or complete confusion is handled by finding out what the Cult of Personality wants this week and then we get into the politics of being in-the-know about what Mr. Big prefers on Tuesday morning. But, guess what, Mr. Big wants sales more than he wants clever and cute hallway politics. So does Ms. Importante. All of this dysfunctionality finds true manic expression when the Proposal Crunch is going down. See also the question about thinking before we write.

I've given you some "cyber-free" and I hope you had some fun. Maybe put this on Ms. Importante's desk anonymously. She might laugh. Mr. Big might laugh so hard that he hurts himself while he helps the company grow more prosperous.

Anyway, you'll need to pay me if you want to learn more about Writing an Effective and Winning Proposal. If you pay our standard rates, we promise to remove all sarcastic humor from our products and services. If you pay our premium rates, we will leave the humor in.

Ron Gunn, management consultant, specializes in strategic management issues related to matrix management, business competition, business process reengineering and human resources. His work has been published by the American Management Association, The Futurist magazine, and in several trade association magazines and newsletters. He is a frequent speaker and trainer who consults to both business and government. Strategic Futures® is located in Alexandria, Virginia (voice: 703/836-8383; fax: 703/836-9192).