Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Compliant meets the minimum requirements while compelling puts some excitement into a product. Still, I would be satisfied with compliance when it comes to dishwasher delivery and installation.

I ran into the phrase that inspired the title of this post one day last week. We were writing a proposal for a contract. One of the things you want to be in a proposal for a government contract is compliant. Compliance means that you address every element in in the government’s request for proposal. If you are not compliant, you are not considered by the government.

We were compliant in what we had drafted. We were not, however, compelling in our description of what we could do. We had not given the government a compelling reason to consider our services.

First, let’s hear the worth of compliance. A person who arrives on time for a job is compliant. My wife and I recently went through two weeks of pain because a dishwasher installer would not arrive on time; he was not compliant, and we suffered. Compliance is pretty darn good and it seems to be harder to find as time goes by. Perhaps that is the ranting of an old man.

Now on to compelling. That is something that is more than the minimum. Compelling grabs my attention. Instead of daydreaming during television commercials, I awaken and register what is happening when a compelling advertisement appears on the screen.

So now this week we are trying to change our compliant proposal into one that is compelling. I tell people that we need to put the “magic” into the proposal. I’ll have to think of something as clever as “compliant but not compelling.” Maybe something like “from mundane to magic.” Maybe I’ll just go with what I heard last week. It is pretty good.