Blog

Compliant Reporting Doesn't Improve Performance

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:25:00 GMT

With every downturn in economic activity, there is a correlating upturn in required reporting. CEO's need to report more- and more often- to their boards. Consequently, senior executives are required to report more to the CEO- and so on down the line until we get to the field sales team. Typically if the numbers aren't looking good, the reporting really falls on the sales team to see where the revenues are and what the trend is. So lots of detail about opportunities, new markets, short-term, long-term, anyone that can give us an order now- is required in sales reporting. Since the job market is also thin, the sales team- motivated by fear- complies with the reporting.

But just what is compliant reporting and what does it do to performance? With the fear of keeping their job by by being "compliant", people will start to fill in the "right" answer- even if in reality they did not perform the task or the information is inaccurate. The emphasis for many is to keep their job for another month through compliant reporting. But in reality their performance is suffering because they are more focused on keeping their job instead of doing their job- and the information channeling up to the CEO is ultimately inaccurate at a critical time when accuracy is paramount.

Four Questions to Ask About Whether or Not Organizational Change Worked

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:46:00 GMT

Four questions about whether or not organizational change worked

Were the key stakeholders vested in a successful outcome?
Did the necessary commitments to action by the accountable parties take place?
Was there a noticeable improvement in performance?
Has the performance improvement been sustained?

The Bridge Between the People We Want and the People We Have

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:31:00 GMT

Training is the bridge between the people we want and the people we have.

Whose Back Are You Covering?

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:58:00 GMT

There is a lot of talk about “the lack of trust”- in corporations, Washington D.C., Wall Street, the media, and so on. Nobody can be trusted. But how can we reverse the trend of trust lost? How do we build trust?

Have you ever had a situation where you needed someone to “have your back”, to stand up and support you when you spoke up at a meeting- but when the time came for them to cover you, to support you, they sat silent and did nothing? They left you standing alone, spinning in the wind. They were lobbying the whole time in the background for you to say something- to do something, yet when it came time for them to support you with the same conviction they lobbied you with- they folded up like a cheap chair.

It’s refreshing when someone does stand up and cover your back, isn’t it? Too bad it’s so rare. But doesn’t that give you faith in your fellow person? Think about this: Whose back are you covering? More importantly, are you willing to stand and deliver when they need your help? Building trust starts at home.

Good Meetings

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:54:00 GMT

Ever heard the term “that was a good meeting”? Just what does that mean? Everybody is happy? Everyone got to say something? There was a “aha!” moment? A new idea came out? But isn’t there that gut feeling that says “We’ve seen this and done this before, and nothing happened”?

Let me ask you this: Wouldn’t you rather have meetings where you talk about what you did accomplish instead of what you should accomplish? Then it’s not a meeting- it’s a celebration. Your comments appreciated.

Tom Peters and Alan Weiss on Customer Driven Organizations

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:11:00 GMT

Is your organization customer-driven, or driven from the top-down? Here are quotes from two business books, “In Search of Excellence” (Tom Peters, Robert Waterman, Harper-Row, 1982) and “Best Laid Plans” (Alan Weiss, Las Brisas, 1990)

“A simple summary of what our research uncovered on the customer attribute is this: the excellent companies really are close to their customers. That’s it. Other companies talk about it; the excellent companies do it.”

Tom Peters, Robert Waterman; In Search of Excellence

“There is a fundamental difference between an employee who says “My job is to be at my desk by nine and answer the customer- service phones” and one who says “My job is to convince all customers that we will provide them the finest service they can get anywhere.” The first person is innovative about how to stretch the coffee breaks; the second is innovative about how to get a customer an out-of-stock product.”

Alan Weiss, Best-Laid Plans

These are rather old- but nevertheless, timeless- statements. Why is it that even today- after all these messages and case-studies about how the organization chart should be turned upside-down- there is this pervasive top-down management-by-directive (don’t tell us what the customer wants- we know better!) approach in business?

Sales 2.0: The Next Silver Bullet in Sales Management

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:38:00 GMT

Sales 2.0. That’s the latest buzzword for sales management. It’s the next silver bullet. It’s going to solve all of our problems we have managing and directing a sales force. Or will it?

Back in 1990- twenty years ago- before the advent of the modern information highway, Michael Schrage, author of Shared Minds wrote:

“ . . . the very existence of electronic communication has perpetuated the myth that it will lead to better communication. Managers think that if they put in e-mail and Lotus notes, there will be better communication. That is propaganda. If you are not a good communicator without electronic technology, you won’t become a good communicator just because you use the technology. Changing how you dispense information does not change behavior. Managers first need to rethink how they manage communication and understand that they need to learn how to structure relationships, not information.”

The CEO of a cancer treatment facility was asked if the advent of robotic surgery was helping surgery outcomes. His response was, “We find that it doesn’t improve outcomes the way we hoped- the better surgeons still have better outcomes and the others are still not quite as good. The robots don’t improve bad surgeons, because it’s basically garbage-in, garbage-out (as scary as that sounds).”

The results of implementing Sales 2.0 will probably be the same- the better salespeople will still be better and the others will still struggle and constantly be hit with sticks and carrots to conform. It’s the same old battle- just a new thing to fight over- in this case, Sales 2.0.

The fundamental flaw in this management thinking is the latest fad will solve “the problem”. But why didn’t the previous fad solve the problem? Probably because many executives don’t understand the real problem, as Michael Schrage pointed out: “ … they need to learn to structure relationships, not information”.

"Fake Work" Peterson, Nielson: Why so many organizations are working hard but getting nowhere.

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:18:00 GMT

“Fake Work”, Brent D. Peterson, Gaylan W. Nielson; Simon Spotlight Entertainment (Simon and Schuster), 2009.

The premise of “Fake Work” is that people, managers, executives, and organizations are busier than ever, but getting nothing done. Here is a quote from “Fake Work”:

Causes of Fake Work Cultures

“Many factors help create fake-work cultures. Many corporate processes, like decision-making, change management, communication, and operations are rife with fake work. But leadership and management are the standard-bearers for fake-work cultures. Below are some common characteristics of fake-work cultures:

Autocratic leaders. Autocratic leaders have launched entire ships of fake-work cultures….
Cavalier leaders. ….When they fail to establish the environment for success and aid alignment and execution, they enable the wrong behaviors.
Unclear business and strategic plans. Writing and communicating strategic plans is worthless if employees remain clueless about strategic direction….
A lack of clear company values. Values are the navigational stars in a company….
Being removed from the customer. Cultures that don’t stay close to customer needs create fake work by guessing incorrectly about those needs…..
Short-sighted thinking…. Every other strategy becomes a victim to short-term profits….
Arrogance and complacency. Some companies don’t imagine that competition will ever catch up. Those companies are monuments to fake work because they don’t listen to their employees, their customers, and the trends in the marketplace.
A constant influx of new systems, structures, and procedures…. In an effort to improve effectiveness, companies target process change without ensuring that they are linked to the business goals…..
Old-school performance management processes. In most companies, the way they manage, review, and reward performance is totally ineffective….
Failure to train and build managers. The investment in managers and the insistence on managers of high quality and high value are minimal in too many companies.
A tendency to hire people without clear expectations tied to competencies and company goals. People are hired all the time to fill a position rather than focus on a problem or to bring a set of competencies to a role.
Fast growth without controls…. Fake work isn’t just what you are doing, sometimes it is what you are not doing….”

Perhaps some of these points hit a nerve. Your comments appreciated.

Work as a Social Environment vs Work as a Productive Environment

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:21:00 GMT

It’s uncanny how large business organizations have the ability to beat employee excellence into compliant, blind, mind-numbing submission. It’s equally uncanny how organizations can reward mediocrity, poor performance, and bad behavior because they don’t want to confront the issue for fear of hurting the perpetrator’s feelings.

The net result is an organization that can’t grow in a growing economy and whithers during a bad economy. It seems that most organizations are willing to die for their concern of the workplace as a social environment rather than thrive as a productive environment. Your thoughts?

Are Sales Managers Born Or Made?

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:11:00 GMT

The question is often asked, “Are salespeople born or made?” With few academic institutions offering curriculums in sales, and fewer and fewer corporations investing in the development of their salespeople, it appears that successful salespeople today are born. In the very least, they are self-taught. Isn’t the same true of sales managers? Managing salespeople requires an entirely different management/ executive skill set than is taught in MBA programs. While the title of the subject matter is “Are Sales Managers Born or Made?”, maybe the question ought to be “What are the attributes of an effective sales manager?”

Respectable comments appreciated.

Trust- Letter to editor published in Sep 09 HBR

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:53:00 GMT

Trust- The following comment was published in the September 2009 Harvard Business Review:

The cover of the Harvard Business Review is titled, “Rebuilding Trust”, and is chock full of articles about what executives have to do to learn and earn trust. While it is a novel concept to promote trust as something executives should focus on- it is not a skill set that can be taught in an MBA or any executive education program. By the time someone is interviewed for an executive position, either they are trustworthy or they are not.Maybe the weeding/ qualification process should be first about character and last about credentials. Maybe they should have to play a round of golf to see if they count every stroke, play every lie, and maintain composure as they hit a poor shot. Executive education programs, coaching programs, and anything else trying to “fix” the “trust problem” are already too late. Trust is who someone is, not what they have learned at business school.

Executives Who "Get It" Managing Sales

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:18:00 GMT

When it comes to understanding the role of sales and how to maximize sales performance, not too many business cultures “get it”.

Here is a recent email from Dick Benbow, Vice President of sales, Walters Wholesale Electric Company. Here is an unedited email from (with permission) from Dick - an executive who clearly “gets it”:

Paul, you mentioned managers "governing" from afar. They have their people filling out sales call sheets, contact reports, expense reports, projections, marketing reports, etc. Nothing but stumbling blocks to success. They do these things because they don't trust the system. They don't trust the people they hire. We are fortunate when our competition goes to market that way. I contend, hire the right person, get accounting people to make out all the reports you want.

Have your salespeople on a commission program that rewards high achievers, SUBSTANTIALLY. You can't be afraid of overpaying them. A sales manager is lost as soon as he feels no one salesperson should make as much or more than he does. I pride myself in claiming I have a number of salespeople that have higher incomes than we V.P.'s of our company. The more they make the more we make. For the life of me, I don't see how one manages people by not being with the people you are responsible for. How can one manage people when you aren't in the field seeing first hand what they are up against. How many of these managers woke up one morning and found out that one of their high achievers just left the company. Probably wouldn't have happened had he/she had been out there in the trenches with that individual, at least it would not have come a surprise to that manager.

There is an associated article (Executives Who Get It Managing Sales) which gives more examples- Russ Lesser, President of Body Glove, and Los Angeles Business Journal CFO of the Year for 2008, Dennis Eder, CFO of SCAN Healthplan. Also, there is an article on Richard Teerlink, CFO mastermind turn-around artist of Harley-Davidson with a similar theme.

Here is the fifty-cent question: Why do so few executives and managers “get it” when it comes to how to manage a sales force effectively?

Harvard Business Review- "Rebuilding Trust"

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:37:00 GMT

The cover of the Harvard Business Review is titled, “Rebuilding Trust”, and is chock full of articles about what executives have to do to learn and earn trust. In Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, the (then) new General Manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, and some of his old school scouts disagreed about whether or not to pick a baseball prospect because the player had great athletic ability, but wasn’t a good hitter. The discussion went like this:

Scout: “The swing needs some work, but he’s a great athlete.”
Billy: “Baseball isn’t good at fixing swings.”

Bottom line: The athletic “tools” someone has will do them no good if they don’t know the difference between a ball and a strike or can’t hit a curveball, and by the time they are twenty-something years old, they have ingrained habits about hitting that cannot be changed at that point. Isn’t this also true about executives and “trust”?
While it is a novel concept to promote trust as something executives should focus on- it is not a skill set that can be taught in an MBA or any executive education program. By the time someone is interviewed for an executive position, either they are trustworthy or they are not.
Maybe the weeding/ qualification process should be first about character and last about credentials. Maybe they should have to play a round of golf to see if they count every stroke, play every lie, and maintain composure as they miss a three-foot putt. Executive education programs, coaching programs, and anything else trying to “fix” the “trust problem” are already too late. Trust is who someone is, not what they have learned at business school.

Gaining Sales Mind Share

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:38:00 GMT

How do we know our salespeople are out there selling everyday for us?
In the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s, J.A. Sexauer used to require that his salespeople fill out a daily call report log and mail it in to his office in New York. Then, he expected a weekly summary report.
In the late 60’s, he stopped requiring the daily reports because his 75 salespeople were apparently out selling- and he could tell by the continuously growing sales numbers.

Some sales managers require reporting to “know what is going on” or to “make sure they are doing their job”. Others use reporting to force “good sales habits”- the forms of the reports requiring salespeople to gather certain pertinent prospect and customer information that can only be done by doing the “right” sales activities.
But does reporting ensure that salespeople are “doing their job”? Likewise, does the lack of information imply that they are NOT doing their job?
What we really want as sales managers is the mind-set of the salesperson to think of sales as a profession, selling your products for your company is a commitment, and selling for you is beneficial to their income. That, ultimately, is what getting their mind-share is all about when they are out in the field.
The question for this blog is- how do you earn the mind-share of your salespeople?