I’m joined on the pod this week by Odelle (Brown) Bell, Managing Director of 8 Consulting. Odelle is well known within procurement across Australia and New Zealand, having previously owned and led the procurement recruiting firm Evolve People. Now at 8 Consulting, Odelle is focused on helping her clients cultivate workplaces that enable greater employee engagement – and ultimately more impactful teams.
Our conversation spanned the topic of workplace behaviors and effectiveness. Odelle is a big believer in the power of choices, and our ability to create our own paths rather than wait for others to show us the way. We discussed in detail about self-awareness and the importance of understanding both our surroundings and how we are perceived as the cornerstone of our personal growth, and of our ability to drive change. Odelle also shares what a “typical” procurement professional looks like from a behavioral perspective, and highlights the blind spots that we need to overcome if we are to have the impact we desire.
Odelle is very engaging, and I really enjoyed our conversation! Odelle provides a ton of actionable advice on how we can identify opportunities for growth – if you are prepared to be vulnerable and seek to understand your weaknesses.
“If we want to be taken seriously in procurement, if we want to be the change maker, if we want to challenge thinking, if we want to add value if people aren’t seeing that and we don’t know why they’re not seeing that which a lot of us don’t how are we going to make that change? We can’t control the CEO. We can’t control our boss. We can’t control our team. We can’t control stakeholders. The only person who can make a change to how others see us is us.” – Odelle (Brown) Bell
