Rebuilding Your Team With “The Core Four”
Doyle Slayton | Jul 23, 2008 | Comments 5
Last week I posted a question from a loyal reader titled How to Bring Your Team Back to Life. Be sure to click on the link to catch-up on the story and to read the fantastic comments from our readers. As promised, here is my take on rebuilding a winning culture. There are four areas of focus for getting a team back to its winning ways!
The Core Four
1. Mind-Set
2. Activity
3. Accountability
4. Leadership
Mind-Set
It all begins with you. You have to suck-it-up and decide that you are the one who will lead your team back to greatness. When teams are down… when they are in a rut… and negative “victim speak” has become the norm. It’s easy for people to get “sucked into the swamp.” The first step is to agree that “we” will no longer think the way we’ve been thinking. If we are going to get back on track, it’s up to us to get our “head on straight.” Regardless of the changes, the challenges, and the frustrations, we will own our thoughts, behaviors, and results from this point forward. We are in this together… Be relentless… Impose your will… Create your own destiny!
Activity
In most sales jobs, the key to exceeding your goals comes from figuring out what works… and doing it over and over and over again… as fast as you can possibly go. Building a powerful pipeline is about “Quality Volume” much more than it is about “Quality Quality.” Top sales performers choose to do the right thing and maximize every minute of every day. It becomes an unstoppable force for success!
Accountability
Some people will hear the word accountability and immediately think “punishment.” That’s not the case. Accountability always begins with coaching, development, and catching people doing the right things. If things don’t improve… if there’s no follow through… if there is a pattern of inappropriate “behavior,” and several weeks of coaching produces little or no change, then you know it’s time to initiate formal disciplinary action. You must deliberately follow the formal HR policy for holding your people accountable “in writing,” with a plan outlining expectations. Your tone throughout this process should remain positive and supportive, “I am going to do everything I can to coach you through this.” Ultimately, those who are performing can stay… and those who are not will have to leave the team.
Leadership
Throughout the process of improving mind-sets, increasing activity, and following a standardized system for coaching and accountability, leaders will begin to emerge. It begins with your management team and flows through your top performers into a unified culture… of “we’re back… and we can do this!”
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Filed Under: Blog • Leadership • Sales • SalesTaxi
Doyle, I usually think you are spot-on, and I was with you up until halfway, but I think this one had a bit too much “rose-colored glasses” going on:
“Accountability always begins with coaching, development, and catching people doing the right things.”
IDEALLY, yes. ALWAYS, in the real world, when VP’s have CSO’s breathing down their necks? Not necessarily, and I’ve seen the scenario your author wrote first-hand.
I feel they were very, very candid with you but that your answer fell short of candid back with them. The comments had some great ones – and you’re correct, it takes a positive leader. We had a whiner (who is gone now), and I had to be Pollyanna Sunshine for the group and address my concerns with management’s misplaced presures on my team – behind closed doors and after handing in enormous contracts.
That kept pressure off the team – MY team – but other teams were not as lucky because I was also fortunate enough to report up to a VP line that trusted me enough to do my thing. The other 2 VP’s did not put that trust down the line and CRUSHED their line. That exact conversation happened with SEVERAL sales managers along those lines (I swear I think it could even be from my company).
This is a real, ugly problem that I have seen here, and in other companies – it’s fear-driven and it stinks. Maybe I’m nitpicking on one phrase, but the reps who are susceptible to that influence are already feeling scared, and were probably looking for some type of silver bullet, so if that line DOESN’T apply to them, they won’t feel like the rest of the post will either.
Thanks for a great article at the right time. In light of whats going on now, I’m going to print this out, post it on the mirror, and read it every morning.
Tiffany,
You bring up some good points! Although I stand by coaching first… supported by discipline… thanks to your ideas… I’ve added this sentence to the end of the paragraph… “Ultimately, those who are performing can stay… and those who are not will have to leave the team” as a statement to clarify the point.
Thanks for making this piece better!
Your article is well taken but I also have to side some with Tiffany. I have been on both sides of that fence and a truly good manager, will assess and pick the best team leader and let them have the reigns. A truly good manager manages, yet does not micro manage. The micro-manager ruins instead of helping a team because the team has no room to venture forth without looking back. It is a very tenuous situation, but that is what separates the true manager from the also rans. This has been a good series and the contributors have given their replies some serious thought. Whether they are correct or not, only time will tell but there is a BIG POSITIVE about it all. Whether you agreed or disagreed with a reply, there was something to be learned from almost all of them. This BlogCast.com feature is really starting to do what it had intended. Lets do something similar again. Lets all spread the word about this site as it is growing not only in members but in quality content and thought provoking commentary. Encourage your counterparts to join. We all need their opinions. Tacoman
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