I found out last Friday that I lost an important piece of business. We competed with one other firm and went into the selection process reasonably well-positioned. I made the decision to disclose to my potential client that we might be making some changes in the composition of the firm over the period of the contract. I was very confident that no changes would affect our ability to perform the desired services.
When the CEO called last week, he told me that my disclosure had swayed them in favor of the other service provider. Over a couple of back channel conversations that followed, everyone acknowledged the irony that I had acted in a way that they all appreciated and would hope that a service provider in that position would behave. They punished my firm anyway.
The stronger message is that we did not distinguish ourselves sufficiently to overcome a relatively mild potential obstacle. We are looking a lot more like a commodity than I would like and that is something I need to fix immediately if we are going to continue to provide these services.
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