People underperform in sales (and other roles) for several reasons, in this podcast we explore the environment we create.
Sales can be easier than other roles to spot when people underperform given the metrics available but identifying the factors behind underperformance is not so easy.
What do we mean by environment? It may sound obvious; in our experience, it’s not, which is why Mark Davies and Ricky Muddimer explore the topic in more detail and what we mean by creating an environment for your people to perform.
People underperform in sales (and other roles) for several reasons, in this podcast we will explore the skills aspect of the role.
Sales can be easier than other roles to spot when people underperform given the metrics available but identifying the factors behind underperformance is not so easy.
What do we mean by skills? It may sound obvious; in our experience, it’s not, which is why Mark Davies and Ricky Muddimer explore the topic in more detail and what we mean by skills and why looking at skills more broadly is so important.
A quick run-through of 12 signs your culture is broken. Culture is the single biggest factor in your success, a broken culture will have a dramatic impact on productivity and results.
Peter Drucker once said “culture eats strategy for breakfast”.
We have broken the 12 signs down into these four bite-size videos; you will find three in each. The first three signs of a broken culture deal with misalignment, self-interest, and focusing on the wrong stuff. Each of the 12 signs is supported with a question or two to help you think about improving your culture.
We’d love to hear which one you’re facing right now and what impact it is having.
For more on our take on organisational culture, check out the Culture Blueprint
An HBR article suggests that 70% of change fails to achieve its intended outcomes.
Of course, change is a cost; the question is – when we embark on change, do we help our people to come on the journey, or do we add to the cost by creating disengagement – a sense of unfairness, lack of control, build-up of resistance, these all add up to a hidden cost of change, that will never appear on your balance sheet. You are losing valuable time that will escalate if not managed correctly. What’s your cost of change, and more importantly, what’s your cost of doing nothing?
How much is your current or most recent change costing you?
Add your numbers to the calculator to determine how much change has cost you so far and how much it will cost if it goes unresolved:
Cost of Change Calculator
Cost of Change Calculator
This is not a scientific calculation, just a quick indicator. It may not be the total you arrive at, but it won’t be zero either; your instinct and judgment will tell you where you believe it to be on the scale.
Want to talk about how to reduce your cost of change?
When you’ve worked out the cost of change for your business, call us, and we’ll help you cut the cost whilst engaging your people as you go. Download the Change Blueprint for our take on organisational change and how you take people on the journey.
… you’ve volunteered to do a parachute jump. It’s for charity, so it’s all in a good cause.
You turn up on the day, terrified but rationalising that many people do this, it will be fine.
You get a short briefing, watch a safety video and a quick demonstration of how to land, then one of the instructors throws you your chute and says, off you go, get on the plane!
What are you thinking?
Besides the colourful language in your head (or maybe you’re even saying things out loud!) I imagine you’re probably thinking, “is that it? Where’s my training? What if my chute doesn’t open? How do I land when…? Where’s my practice jump? I wanted to have a go at jumping from a reasonable height to test my technique!”;
Undoubtedly you will have loads more questions, and probably a whole host of other thoughts too!
Let’s face it, we only know, and I mean really know, that our people can do what we’ve trained them for when they choose to do the right thing in that moment of truth.
Take the customer service agent that sticks to the rules when the customer just wants that bit of empathy and flexibility.
Take the team member who knows a colleague is stretching the boundaries of acceptability, and they know in their heart of hearts they should say something but choose not to, for fear of repercussion.
Take the new starter who has been trained but still lacks the confidence to take the step and do what is required, only to pause and do nothing for fear of failure.
Brené Brown, author of Dare to Lead, asks how can you expect your people to jump if you don’t teach them how to land first?
On reading this, I realised that this is precisely where ‘What Would You Do?’ fits into someone’s development journey; it creates a safe space where peers can learn to jump and land in a safe space. First, they get to test their theories and assumptions, surface issues and unhelpful thoughts with their colleagues. Then, through sharing experiences, they work together to create a shared pool of meaning and understanding, which prepares them for the ‘jump’ when they handle those moments of truth that define your organisation.
‘What Would You Do?’ is a social learning experience for groups to come together to discuss moments of truth and test and explore how they would handle a given situation. Each session is facilitated, group coaching if you will, where the group calibrate to a shared understanding of what it means to do the right thing and what ‘good’ looks like.
It’s no wonder why this has proved to be an award-winning tool and has served organisations to deliver in four distinct ways:
Embedding new rules and levelling up behaviours
A leading financial services organisation positively moved their cultural needle across four out of five areas, including trust, collaboration, inclusion, and involvement in just three months!
Their regulator tasked them to level up their understanding and application of conduct rules across 1,500 people. We worked with them to create a suite of content that they could use to teach their people to land in a safe space.
The feedback was terrific, with 100% of people who took part (98% of the total workforce were involved in sessions) reporting they felt better able to apply the rules in their job. The feedback from the regulator was very positive too.
Embedding company values to build a stronger organisation
A leading pharmaceutical business engaged with us to embed their new company values across their EMEA region. The goal was to bring the values to life and explore living them in the wide and varied divisions and departments. The solution was customised, aligned to their values, and adopted internally by the learning team to facilitate cross-functional groups.
Again, the feedback was remarkable for both the process, which teaches people how to land, safely exploring assumptions, testing courses of action, and working through potential consequences in the safety backdrop of ‘what if’.
Embedding new skills to prepare the next generation
A top-four, professional services firm adopted ‘What Would You Do?’ for their annual development session. One hundred apprentices were brought together for a day-long, online session purposefully designed to be very interactive. Included in the day was an escape room experience, among many other activities and workshops. ‘What Would You Do?’ was woven into the day to provide a space where apprentices could safely test their knowledge across topics such as business skills, wellbeing, social styles and inclusion.
The feedback was extremely positive; the apprentices really valued the opportunity to discuss and apply their learning in a practical context. In addition, they were able to test and explore, giving them greater confidence going back into the workplace. As a result, the apprentices felt better prepared in their role.
Building knowledge, testing understanding and values-based education to create winning behaviours
A leading sporting body approached us to see how ‘What Would You Do?’ could help elite athletes avoid the daily traps they face with what to eat and drink and how to train. They need to be on constant alert as to what is safe to consume.
How can they be sure of the proper process to follow in any given situation? What are their rights? Both of these challenges are further complicated if they are competing overseas.
Failure to comply or do the right thing can affect themselves and their teammates. For some, there’s the prospect of losing their medal if they make a wrong choice, however unintentional.
The organisation is building on its values-based education programme and want to engage athletes in a new and interactive way. ‘What Would You Do?’ enables athletes to engage with other athletes and explore and test ‘what if’ against typical situations they face all the time. They can test understanding, surface issues, concerns and play out situations against the practical challenges they face.
Every athlete needs to focus as they work towards and prepare for major events without fearing they could fall foul of application of or changes in the rules. They face personal challenges and moments of truth all the time; they may see others testing the boundaries of what is allowed, which brings enormous consequences for the sport and its broader perception.
So, we’ve found four different ways ‘What Would You Do?’ can support organisations to deliver results and engage their people. And each time, we’ve taken the social learning concept and adapted it to meet specific needs with great success. So, how many more might we find? Well, we don’t know, but we’re confident there will be more, and we’re excited about finding them!
‘What Would You Do?’ is about teaching people to land before they step onto the plane for real. It’s about taking knowledge and embedding it through reflective learning. ‘What Would You Do?’ creates psychological safety, which removes the fear when testing understanding, exploring ‘what if’, and assessing the consequences of a given course of action. This means your people are better prepared for the situation when it presents itself.
People underperform in sales (and other roles) for several reasons, in this podcast, we will explore the knowledge aspect of a role.
Sales can be easier than other roles to spot when people underperform given the metrics available but identifying the factors behind underperformance is not so easy.
What do we mean by knowledge? Mark and Ricky explore what we mean by knowledge, discussing why knowledge is more than just job knowledge and exploring why it’s important. What is the knowledge requirement by your team, if you expect them to perform?
Creative thinking techniques and tools for success
Tune in if you want creative thinking techniques and tools for success.
If you want to boost your creative thinking to help you solve problems and achieve smart goals, then we probably have the simplest and most effective creative thinking tool!
Creative thinking is an essential skill, whether you are working on a project, pursuing a personal smart goal, or solving a problem. It is about thinking differently and getting outside the box.
The secret to this comes with three key components
Context, a focus or a problem statement. Of course, it could be all three.
Purpose – reason to want to do something about it.
Imagination comes from asking the right questions, and for this, you need context and purpose.
O ideas is one of our most powerful mental models, tools, or techniques, depending on how you want to describe it.
O ideas provide a cognitive shortcut. We’ve taken some of the most commonly asked questions when problem-solving, goal-setting or tackling a project.
The principles are consistent. So to save time and make people more effective and productive, we created o ideas to help.
Creativity is about asking the right questions and freeing your mind to allow it to find solutions, but creative thinking is not about judgment, qualifying and committing. Not yet, at least.
First, open your mind, explore the superhighway of your imagination, and wander through the after of the possible.
We have many critical thinking tools (check the link) to use after, but only after you’ve wandered into the creative sphere ( yes, I made that up), but it is a real place we all have tucked away in our brains.
New Year’s resolutions will be on the minds of lots of people; if that’s the case, if you’re serious, you need to get goal setting.
A lot of the time, New Year’s resolutions focus on feelings and confidence, and SMART goals don’t work for something subjective, not until now, that is. SMART goals are great for goal setting, when you know how to set goals using SMART they’re awesome, but what do you do when the subject of your goal is a feeling, a perception or a judgement, something subjective, well we have the perfect solution with benchmark goal setting.
You can take something that is hard to measure and turn it into something that will work with a SMART goal. SMART goals are essential to the Thinking Focus Toolkit for Team Leaders and Managers.
Need to define Smart goals? – before you do, are you doing them right? if you want to achieve what you want that is!
Smart goal-setting works, which is probably why no one has managed to reinvent them. Smart goals are the staple diet for team leaders, managers and leaders. Without smart goals, you have no idea what you’re working on, what your people are working on, or what your organisation is working on. Your future is at risk and left to chance.
In this video, Graham walks you through the smart goals process and gives a practical example. We also shared why we think most are getting it wrong, at least the order that is.
This is the last of our podcasts around our leadership model. This time we explore the leader’s role in process.
Leadership creates stability and change, and this dichotomy shines through when it comes to process. How do leaders deal with the dual roles of creating efficient and consistent approaches, while at the same time continually improving to make them better, or occasionally transforming them to create competitive advantage?
Doing both of these is something many leaders find difficult; Rob and Paul consider why this is and what you can do about it.
This podcast is part of a series about the role of leaders, exploring the nuts and bolts of what leaders need to do. It is based on a model (we created) to help aspiring leaders work out what it means to be a leader.
