Stop Giving People a Second Chance
James was a close personal friend of Rick, who had created a small services company in New York with two partners. Rick hired James to be the first salesperson for the company.
James succeeded in his first three years landing several large contracts, mostly due to his affability and skill in developing relationships with chief executives. His effort was rewarded not only with sales commissions, but also with an informal bonus that he enjoyed as one of the early hires in the company.
As the company added other salespeople, however, James’ shortcomings began to become more evident. His cordiality disguised a deep sense of entitlement that unfortunately was reinforced by several unwise moves by Rick.
First, Rick (quite rightly) passed James over for another person whom he made sales manager over the sales force of eight people, including James. To ease the blow of not choosing James, Rick let James report to him directly. Furthermore, he negotiated a special compensation package for James whereby the bonus was still paid to him, but not to the other salespeople, including the new sales manager.
James’ work was inferior to his colleagues. While he kept ‘wining and dining’ executives and talked about big plans that would soon be sizeable contracts, he generated very little business.
Rick kept making excuses for his friend, alternating between threatening to let him go and giving him yet another chance to prove he could still deliver the goods. Rick knew that James had ability, so he kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, thinking another shot would make things different.
Well, it didn’t and this went on for five years. The ripple effects of this ‘special case’ treatment was like poison to the rest of the team.
There are two types of non-performers: those who are not trying and those who are. We hope you know what to do with the first group! It’s the second group – the ones who appear to work hard but are still not performing – who cause angst in a sales manager.
They’re the kind of people whom you want to succeed. They come into work early and work hard, they play well on the team, and they’re genuinely likeable. They listen to your advice, put it into action, submit reports on time, fill out the CRM, and spend lots of time in the field.
You think they’ve got what it takes or else you never would have hired. You want them to make it. They’ve got families depending on them. But they’re still not cutting it.
You think, ‘If I can just get them over this next hurdle…’ You’ve given them tips and you’ve taught them the tricks. You’ve even closed a few too many sales for them, just to keep them from losing hope.
You don’t want to lose them because then you will have to recruit, induct, and start all over again with someone new. And you probably don’t want to be unpleasant and have the hard conversation to let the guy go. It feels like you’ve got too much invested to pull back now. You’ve got to give them a second chance.
Or do you?
The problem is that a second chance usually leads to a third, a fourth, and a fifth. It doesn’t fix anything if it merely gives people another opportunity to do the same thing, expecting a different result. It's a set-up for failure.
Unless you firmly and directly address the issues that hold your people back, they – and you – are going to keep getting the same result.
You probably weren’t trained how to do this. If you’re like most sales managers, you weren’t sent to ‘management school’ – you were promoted because you figured out how to succeed as a salesperson and your supervisors thought you could naturally teach others how to do what you did so well. You probably have discovered that (a) selling and (b) teaching others to sell are two distinctly different skill sets!
The good news is that, if you’re willing to put in the time, and apply the same brilliance to the latter as you did to the former, you can get very good at it. Here are some ways to improve the skill of developing other people.
Apply your common sense. Understand fully the problem your team member is trying to solve before you start exploring what they should do next. You’d be amazed how few managers actually do this!
So, instead of just giving someone a ‘second chance,’ tell him not to keep doing what he's doing. Instead, immediately set up a face-to-face meeting. Travel if you have to. It's worth it.
At that meeting, listen carefully for half of your planned meeting. Don’t offer advice or solutions. Be quiet, listen, take notes, tell him what you’re hearing, and ask the occasional question to help him identify what's really blocking his performance. Lead him to examine his attitude, his competence, and his execution.
This investment of time can have four significant payoffs:
He will discover things he didn’t know. He will start solving his own problems and come up with ideas about what to do.
You will discover things that you didn’t know. This creates more ways that you can be of help. You’ll know how to target your feedback, suggestions, and requirements.
He will listen to what you say because you listened first.
He will actually commit to the agreements he makes at this meeting.
You no longer have to put yourself in the situation of taking the soft line of giving second chances or taking the hard line of no more chances. Have a different conversation with your salesperson, get a commitment to change, and follow through to see that it happens.
This really gives your team member a ‘second chance’ that probably won’t lead to a third and a fourth chance. Over time, your conversations will be about bigger and better problems for him to solve – and that's progress.