Stop Being ‘Understanding’
We coached Valerie for 18 months. She was CEO of her company, and, after a few weeks, it was obvious that she had a consistent complaint about Thomas, the finance manager, who was incredibly annoying and obstructionist. Valerie tried to be accommodating and understanding with Thomas; but, as he remained difficult and polarizing, Valerie simply ignored him and spent as little time around him as possible.
We had to facilitate sessions with the two of them to address the issues dividing them. Valerie told Thomas that he had to back up his resistance with facts and data or stop talking. It took a while, but Valerie developed the backbone to tell Thomas not to just criticize but to offer solutions. After this confrontation, it became painfully clear that Thomas just wasn’t capable of doing this, and within four months, he left the company.
Most of the managers we’ve worked with genuinely want to be effective and successful, but to do so in a way that is congenial. They know they don’t want to be bullies and tyrants like people they have worked with in the past.
But when their salespeople aren’t performing well and are filled with reasons why sales aren’t happening, many managers just swallow hard and hope for the best.
Sales managers experience all types of grinding heartache. They listen to the stories of what isn’t working, day in and day out, all in the name of being patient and understanding:
‘Sure deals’ in the pipeline keep slipping month after month.
Your best recruit is floundering and keeps coming up with reasons why people aren’t buying.
Another person is allowing himself to get sucked into doing service’s job instead of selling. He's completely convinced he can’t sell until the conditions are perfect.
Someone else shows up late to every meeting with yet another creative excuse.
Your latest hire keeps asking the same basic questions, over and over again, under the guise being new.
You tell yourself that you mustn’t show your impatience or irritation, and certainly not your anger. Your mantra is, ‘Be patient and they will change.’
But they rarely do.
Just being ‘understanding’ with people will not change them. In fact, it helps perpetuate the problems that exist in the first place. And paradoxically, you will increase the chance they will take advantage of you.
The problem here is that being understanding only works well with people who are already self-motivated, uber-responsible, and love to rise to a challenge. These people have an innate sense of ethics that keeps them on true north in their behavior toward customer, competitor, and colleague alike.
Not everybody is like that.
Furthermore, being understanding – over and over again – can weaken a manager’s capacity to confront reality when it is needed. It can create internal anxiety instead of resolve, and it causes the manager to indulge bad behavior in his people. It is similar to a parent who allows his underage child into the liquor cabinet in order to prove how cool he is.
And, to top it off, if you are the “understanding” manager you can turn into one of the people you’re managing! You start developing many excuses, stories, and explanations to give to your manager about why results are not happening.
The truth is that unless and until people are surprised by someone confronting their excuses, they can’t and won’t change. The pattern of non-performance will continue until someone has the authority to calmly say, “You have to change now, for your own sake and for the sake of the team.”
What we are not saying is that you need to become a heartless jerk. But when a person comes to you with their reasons and excuses, you must realize that these need to be confronted as they arise and not ignored. Because at the end of the year you’ll either have the results you were seeking or a whole raft of reasons why you don’t - but you won’t have both.
If you want results instead of reasons, it’s up to you to lead in a way that makes them happen. This requires being direct with the people whose behavior is blocking the progress you seek, and being direct in a way that leads them to change their behavior or get off your team.
Being direct requires being prepared. Empathy is important, but on its own it simply isn’t enough. You need data: data about their outputs and data about their inputs – their sales behaviors.
For each person on your team - including your high-performers – start by gathering the following information:
Their targets - exactly what are they aiming to produce?
Their outputs - their actual sales results, and their history over the past year.
Their inputs:
Focus first on their competence - identify the specific skills required to succeed and list examples that demonstrate what they do well and what they don’t.
Examine their execution practices - identify the ways they need to spend their time to succeed and list examples that demonstrate what is effective and what isn’t.
Perceive the attitudes that drive their behavior - identify the mindsets required for sales success and list examples that demonstrate the ability to motivate, discipline, and free themselves to succeed in sales.
Choose the three most important changes that you think they need to make in order to succeed and remain as a member of your team.
You will find that you have gaps in your knowledge. Good. Now you know what to ask them about when you sit down with them, one-on-one.