Domain 4: Proposals
Posted by Communications2 on Oct. 13, 2025 / Member Resource / Subscribe 0
Pursuit Management: Think Like a Team
By Heidi Nielsen, CPSM | FFKR Architects
Building strong teams is a key element in a marketer's role. To build a strong team, we need to start by thinking like a team.
This scenario should be familiar. We've conducted our proposal kick-off, developed a solid strategy to win the work, and made assignments for a client-specific narrative. We concluded the meeting confident that everyone understood their assignments and would send content on time. But a key item has been missed, your project lead forgot to tell you that they'll be on vacation starting tomorrow and won't be back until the day before the proposal is due. And you learned this through an "out of office" reply.
Scenarios like this are frustrating, with both sides thinking, "I have a lot on my plate. Don't they understand what it takes for me to do my job?" In our sprint-like, deadline-oriented world, we may get task-focused and miss the opportunity to think like a team by creating a shared mental model.
Creating a Shared Mental Model
Shared Mental Model is "a representation of shared knowledge regarding the team, the team's objectives, and information of team processes, communication, coordination, adaptation, roles, behavior patterns, and interactions (Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994)." 1
What does this mean in practice? Let's return to our proposal kick-off meeting, where thinking like a team begins. Creating a shared mental model for pursuit management starts with understanding the bigger picture regarding people's task loads and project deadlines. How do we do that? We ask and talk about it when we set deadlines. Consider the following internal and external factors that affect the team's task load:
INTERNAL FACTORS
- deadlines on current billable projects
- meetings already scheduled
- deadlines on other pursuits
- immediate attention (pop-up) items
- business of running the business
EXTERNAL FACTORS
- unexpected illness
- PTO and that well-earned vacation
We are all working on multiple projects, and understanding someone's total task load will help the team plan more effectively. Encourage continued open communication and ask people to share changes in their task loads so the entire team can revise the plan. This communication is a two-way street; marketers need to share as well. Through sharing internal and external factors, we can more effectively distribute proposal assignments amongst team members who may have the availability and expertise to contribute.
Thinking like a team and creating a shared mental model helps people feel heard and respected as team member. This approach will help set realistic deadlines and build an understanding of what it will take to accomplish our shared task–submitting a proposal that knocks the clients' socks off.
Heidi Nielsen is a Senior Associate and Marketing Director at FFKR Architects. Heidi appreciates the culture at FFKR, the trust she's been given, and the value seen in her opinions. As the Marketing Team leader, she considers the department to be collaborative partners and trusted advisors in project pursuits. She is passionate about the collaboration process and strategy phase, using post-it notes of all sizes to discover the endless "what-ifs". Seeing all the efforts compiled together in a beautiful proposal is the icing on the cake.
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