The 1,006-Day Decision That Changed Everything

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Hi readers,

I hope you had a great weekend.

Last week, a new pope was elected. In the last century, this happens about every 12 years on average.

Fortune 500 CEOs? They are replaced every 7 years on average (4.8 years if you look at the median).

Democratically elected heads of state? Replaced every 4-5 years.

So tonight, I thought it would be interesting to look at the decisional process in the organization that chooses some of the longest tenured leaders out there.

• How is it structured?

• Why?

• What can we takeaway from it as procurement professionals?

Onwards!

📰 In this week’s edition:

• 🎫 Win a Free Ticket to DPW NYC (sponsored)

• 📋 5 procurement jobs that caught my eye

• 🌙 The 1,006-Day Decision That Changed Everything

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👀 In Case You Missed It…
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The 1,006-Day Decision That Changed Everything

When it comes to making important decisions, most of us want to be thorough. But there's thorough, and then there's what happened in the small Italian town of Viterbo between 1268 and 1271.

After Pope Clement IV died in November 1268, the Catholic Church faced what would become the longest papal election in history. For an astonishing 1,006 days (nearly three years) a group of cardinals remained deadlocked in their selection of a new pope.

The deadlock wasn't simply indecisiveness. It reflected a profound power struggle between two major medieval factions: one aligned with French interests and the other supporting the Holy Roman Empire.

The College of Cardinals was almost perfectly divided between these two camps, with neither side willing to concede ground for a candidate to reach the required 2/3 supermajority to win the election.

What's particularly striking about this medieval conclave is how dramatically it differed from today's streamlined process.

In the 13th century, there was no formal schedule of voting. Cardinals would meet irregularly, sometimes going weeks or months between formal ballots. Many cardinals even left Viterbo for extended periods, returning to their homes or traveling elsewhere before reconvening for another attempt at agreement.

This lax approach contrasts sharply with modern conclaves, where cardinals are completely sequestered from the outside world and follow a strict voting schedule: one ballot on the first day, then four ballots daily (two in the morning, two in the afternoon) until a pope is elected.

Today's process virtually guarantees a decision within days, not years. It's been nearly 200 years since a conclave took longer than a week, with modern conclaves typically taking two to three days.

But in 1268, the French aligned cardinals, supported candidates who would continue Clement IV's policy of French influence in Italy. The Italian cardinals fiercely resisted this French dominance, having just enough votes to prevent a French pope from being elected. With each side requiring a two-thirds majority they couldn't achieve, they remained in a stubborn stalemate for months, then years.

The situation grew so desperate that local authorities in Viterbo eventually took drastic measures. They locked the cardinals in the papal palace, reduced their food to bread and water, and even removed the roof to expose them to the elements. According to historical accounts, Cardinal John of Toledo sarcastically suggested they "uncover the Room, else the Holy Ghost will never get at us."

Eventually, in September 1271, the cardinals broke the impasse by taking an unprecedented step: they agreed to cede their authority to a committee of just six cardinals, a compromise that finally produced results. This committee included two cardinals from the French faction, three Italians, and one neutral cardinal.

This committee selected Teobaldo Visconti, who wasn't even a cardinal but rather an archdeacon serving on a crusade in the Holy Land. As a relative outsider to the factional politics, Visconti became Pope Gregory X.

His first major act?

Creating the "conclave" system (literally meaning "with key") that forces cardinals to remain sequestered until they reach a decision. This system is still used today, with modifications to prevent such extended deadlocks.

What This 750-Year-Old Story Tells Us About ProcureTech

As I reflected on this remarkable historical episode, I couldn't help but see striking parallels to challenges facing procurement teams today:

1. Decision Paralysis and Creating Your Own "Conclave Conditions"

Those medieval cardinals were paralyzed by competing political factions and outside influences, with no structured process forcing resolution. Sound familiar?

Today's procurement leaders face their own version of decision paralysis amid an unprecedented array of technology options, with multiple stakeholders from across the organization demanding input.

Finance wants ROI guarantees, IT raises integration concerns, Legal worries about compliance, and Operations fears disruption.

Just as Pope Gregory X eventually created a structured, time-bound process with escalating consequences for delay, your procurement team needs similar guardrails.

With the procurement technology market projected to grow from $9.82 billion in 2025 to $15.75 billion by 2030, your competitors are already making critical technology decisions while you deliberate endlessly.

You can't afford perpetual evaluation cycles.

Create clear decisional frameworks: set non-negotiable milestones and deadlines with consequences for delay, establish decision authority versus advisory input (RACI), and sometimes, metaphorically "remove the roof" by forcing stakeholders out of their comfort zones, perhaps through an offsite decision-making retreat where key executives are sequestered until they reach a conclusion, just like those cardinals in Viterbo.

When standard meeting formats fail to drive decisions, changing the environment can break the deadlock.

2. The Danger of Status Quo and Focusing on Directional Correctness

For nearly three years, the Church operated without clear leadership while cardinals maintained a broken status quo until external forces compelled action.

Similarly, too many procurement departments cling to familiar but outdated tools like spreadsheets and email chains. Procurement teams still using these legacy approaches are falling significantly behind competitors embracing digital transformation.

The cardinals don't seek the "perfect" pope (an impossible standard) but someone who could effectively lead the Church forward.

Likewise, there is no perfect procurement technology solution. Focus instead on creating a clear digital roadmap aligned to your strategy and objectives first, then filling it out with appropriate technology solutions (not necessarily the "perfect" ones).

Aim for directional correctness, making decisions based on contextual elements like current opportunities to execute, available budget, timeline constraints, and organizational readiness.

The right solution is one your organization will actually implement and use, not one that remains perpetually under evaluation while you search for an elusive perfect fit.

3. Crisis-Driven Change and Compound Transformation

The extraordinary length of that 13th-century conclave led directly to fundamental reforms in how popes are elected.

Similarly, the most effective procurement transformations often emerge from recognizing that the pain of staying the same now exceeds the pain of change.

Be opportunistic! Use significant events in your business as catalysts for initiating technology change conversations. A leadership transition, merger or acquisition, competitive market shift, new regulatory requirement, or strategic pivot can create the perfect opening to propose procurement technology changes that might otherwise face resistance.

These moments of organizational flux often temporarily lower the barriers to change, creating windows of opportunity for meaningful transformation that would be impossible during business-as-usual periods.

The conclave system created in response to the Viterbo deadlock has evolved over centuries into today's efficient process.

Your procurement technology journey works the same way: initial implementations create learning that informs subsequent improvements. The key is getting started. Even imperfect action generates more progress than perfect planning.

Your Next Steps

You don't need to wait 1,006 days to make progress 😅:

• Craft your digital roadmap, establishing a long term vision

• Evaluate the current organizational context. Where is the leadership’s focus right now? What major events are playing a factor?

• Identify one roadmap area where technology can deliver immediate value to the business and help you move towards your long term vision.

• Create your own "conclave conditions" to communicate opportunity (The “old pope’s death”!) and and route decisions through a structured process that produces an outcome (Electing a new piece of ProcureTech 😅).

And remember that in technology adoption, as in papal elections, the biggest risk isn't making the wrong choice… It's making no choice at all.

What technology decision has your procurement team been delaying? What "conclave conditions" could you create to move forward? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Let me know in the comments 👇

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