The other day I was speaking with the Senior Manager of Organizational and Leadership Development at a major corporation, and this is what she had to say:
Why would someone want to improve collaboration and cross functional effectiveness?
It’s easier to get things done
You don’t have to spend time trying to “sell” your idea or influence people
You have alliances with key stakeholders and know what you are doing is important
Your stakeholders understand the value
In a recent study of senior leaders around the globe, 91% of those surveyed saw strong leadership capability as critical to their firm’s continued growth, yet only 8% considered their own leadership teams to be “excellent.”
This difference between the need for strong leadership and the current lack of it has been referred to as the ‘leadership gap.’ By some estimates, this gap can influence bottom-line profit margins in an organization by as much as 47%! How does leadership, or a lack of leadership, cost your organization?
How should leadership, coaching, management and the 6 Pillars be viewed and acted upon within a sales department? Understanding and communicating this to your managers is critical to the productivity of sales teams.
If you don’t believe Sales Managers have the biggest affect on revenue, greater than your sales producers, stop reading and find another role within your organization.
Without that belief, without that mentality, you won’t likely take the necessary steps to help your team reach their potential. Great leaders and coaches believe they not only impact their teams, they also believe they control their productivity and hence, results.
So, why is it important to understand the role leadership, management, coaching and the 6 Pillars play? Because they have the most significant impact on sales team productivity. All those in sales management get paid for one primary, yet very critical objective-to drive productivity-and very few would argue that statement. How this is accomplished is where it seems to lack clarity for Sales Managers.
I learned an important lesson from my attempt to ride the Etape du Tour. When I told my sister that I didn’t finish the ride, she said “that’s ok, goals are overrated anyway”. I agree with that, but I want to amend it to “goals are overrated, unless you don’t have them”. What do I mean by that? Having a big goal like riding a stage of the Tour de France provided me with incredible motivation and focus to do things I would not have done otherwise. I would not have done all the training I did, I would not have ridden mountains in Las Vegas, California, Tuscon, I would not have had the incredible rides in the Pyrenees of France, and I would not have rediscovered my passion for cycling. Finally I would not have lost 25 pounds and gotten into better shape. At work we always say that going through a solid process of training will result in a powerful and lasting learning experience. That’s what I got out of this.
The decision to ‘approach what is difficult’ (what I call a micro decision of leadership) has immense impact on the important people around us. We are so worried about how we appear – something called ‘impression management’ – that we completely miss the power of admitting a mistake to everyone around us. Do you think being vulnerable makes others more open to admitting their own mistakes and their contribution or less open? I think it is obvious…
In the course of my travels, I meet interesting business leaders from around the world who want to build great companies. They say that people are their most important asset. They say they will stop at nothing to improve the potential of their people. They say they are ‘committed.’ Then they ask if we can help them create ‘real change’ in a two-day leadership training program, and I tell them to go fly a kite … well, not exactly….
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