Focus on the right problem. That common-sense advice seems so intuitive that it requires little repeating. Yet, many people, including procurement executives as well as procurement journalists, need to be reminded occasionally.

If you are wondering what kind of gift you can give to your staff this holiday season, here is a suggestion: Give them the gift of freedom. Not political freedom, but freedom to try new strategies for bringing in value from procurement efforts. Encourage them to think big, and let them know that if they occasionally fail their world will not end.

Anyone familiar with American-style football probably knows who Bill Belichick is. For those who don’t, he is the head coach of The New England Patriots, and has taken his team to the American Superbowl five times, winning three of those contests. Probably the most-often quoted utterance of this famously laconic manager is that “it’s all about the team.” Despite the talents and individual celebrity of some of his players, in his mind there are no stars. The team itself is the star, and that’s the culture he has cultivated. While the analogy might be a slight stretch, there may be lessons here for procurement, particularly in the realm of category management.

Recently, in a conversation with a group of procurement professionals who were discussing the future of the profession, I asked how many of them practiced category management or category knowledge management, the institutionalizing of the lessons and best practices from the process throughout their companies.