What I learnt this month… being gracious

By Liz Kentish.

Well, the big night had finally arrived! The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) awards, held at Grosvenor House, and Kentish and Co were a finalist in the

Impact on Organisational Performance category. We had our table with clients and associates and we were all feeding off each other’s excitement.

Drum roll, and the winner is… Not us! We were Highly Commended… but didn’t receive the top prize.

To be completely honest, in the moments that followed the declaration, I had very mixed emotions; each one bubbling to the surface to replace the one before. And what I learned in those moments was that it is right and proper to be gracious in defeat and I wholeheartedly applauded the winners.

For a small company we had done brilliantly to be included with so many large corporates in this category and my feeling of slight disappointment that we didn’t quite get the top prize was replaced with a burst of gratitude that our team had achieved so much.

In the weeks that followed, we received very detailed feedback from the BIFM Awards judges on how they had marked the submissions and the presentations, with some really honest pointers on what we could have done better This constructive feedback has been brilliant because not only will it allow us to enhance the core value proposition of our future submissions, but it has also given us an insight into ways we can improve our proposals for new business.

This article originally appeared in the November edition of Tomorrow’s FM.

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