How form and data pollution negatively effects team morale and stifles production – by Joshua Cook

Many sales organizations from car dealerships to software companies have some way of tracking their goals and sales. Some managers particularly are obsessed with numbers, forms, spreadsheets, white boards, posters, signs, digital gadgets all to do about the same thing. The danger of using all this data and ways to track different metrics is that communication becomes redundant and loses its effect on goals, production and creativity. What is worse than pollution? Maybe noise? Music can be great, but when one plays multiple songs at the same time, it loses its enjoyment and becomes annoying noise to the listener. This is the same effect with too many forms, sales metrics, and goals to the sales team. When managers demand sales teams to compile too many numerous forms of numerous data it becomes very tedious, redundant, and lacks any meaning and does not motivate. It becomes a task instead of a tool. Tools are made to help teams succeed in tasks, motivate and coach. Many team members feel that when they are given tasks to fill out any form with information that they already have is utter punishment. There are a few concepts that managers can take in mind to develop winning teams pertaining to forms, sales goals and sales metrics; (1) Managers hire sales experts, not secretaries. If managers want someone to fill out forms and spreadsheets all day, they need to hire an office assistant from a local temp agency. Successful managers hire skilled professionals that are passionate about selling, therefore, successful managers do not stifle the fire by giving their people clip boards and sticky notes. (2) Empower your team as unique individual leaders. As the philosopher Martin Heidegger, so aptly highlighted, is that humans are not machines or computers, but unique beings, "Dasein," designed to be aware of their own experience, and to treat them as robots that can be programmed is a futile task. (3) Coaching your team to success. Many managers coach all day about numbers and metrics but never show their team how to achieve sales results. Successful managers will coach on behaviors; if the behaviors and actions are there—results will come. Here are five secrets to team success:

1. Goal setting. Goal setting is great but many managers do all the talking and make imperative statements, jot down some notes, and bid the sales professional a good day. Successful managers will have the sales professional design his or her unique strategy to succeed. Manager may then ask questions to help the sales professional exceed their goals. They find out what their goals are, what is his or her dream, does the sales professional want to be promoted, make more money, if so, how much? If they want to make 100K, do they have a daily strategy to achieve that goal?
   
2. Give Real time coaching feedback. Let them know that they are doing a great job and ask them to do it again.
   
3. Behavior enhancement; "Teachable moments." When sales professionals make mistakes or fall short, what is the approach? Show them "what right looks like" and hold them accountable. Give them the tools they need to be successful in the next opportunity.
   
4. Inspect what you expect. After managers have communicated the team's tasks and empowered the team to lead the organization, it is imperative to be involved with your team. The manager should make his or her own goal each day committing to help team members that need help the most and add value to the identified sales professional's day.
   
5. Don't duplicate yourself. Managers use this phrase all the time. Encourage them to reinvent themselves to become better. The idea of "existence proceeds essence," that Jean Sartre coined, means humans are free to choose who they want to become. They are not pre-programmed machines that have no real choices in life. They are determined to be free. Therefore, managers should encourage their team to flourish into what is possible—a team without vision can never be a "dream team!"
   

Awesome Introduction to Martin Heidegger.

An Introduction to Martin Heidegger.

The philosopher Heidegger is really becoming more and more popular again. Especially in the age where digital technology has become such as prominent "synthetic phenomena" in our culture. Heidegger brings us back to a place where we can just "Be." Heidegger shows us insights on the "human experience" and really helps each of us discover how special our lives are. He makes us more aware of the things we take for granted in our daily lives. In business, Heidegger's thought is a focal point in leadership, management, and training. For example, Hubert Dreyfus, from UC Berkley, postulates a 5-stage model of effective skill acquisition, novice / competent / proficient / expert / master; He derived this concept from Heidegger and submitted a paper to the US Air Force as the theory behind the training program for its pilots. Many other industries have adopted this model in other fields [i.e. Nursing, management, sales.]. Heidegger's philosophy has made a major influence in theology as well. The famous theologian, Rudolf Bultmann, uses Heidegger as a tool for understanding human nature. On the foundation of Heidegger, Bultmann finds that to be human is to "stand out from the rest of the world." Man is the being who, to exist, must have understanding that he exists. Man is not a "thing" with fixed characteristics, man transcends the material world in which he finds himself, even transcending his given nature, reason, emotions, etc. In this man finds his true freedom, his power to choose what he will be. In popular culture, it spawned influence in the existentialist movement. The idea of "existence proceeds essence," that Sartre coined, and was derived from Heidegger, meaning that humans has no fixed human "nature," on the contrary, humans are free to choose who they want to become.

There are great videos by Bryan Magee that is a great introduction to Heidegger's thought.

Watch Videos Here

 

Press Release: My new blog www.TheoryintoPraxis.com launches today!

The purpose of this blog is to promote and inspire the best thoughts and ideas in the topic of leadership for small business owners who are interested in leadership development. My desire is for the content of this blog to be smart but not dry. I want it to be funny at times and at other times thought provoking and life changing. Many of the thoughts will be derived from best practices from top universities and MBA programs to inspirational authors and speakers. There will be many original ideas and commentaries from myself and other local professionals who will have thought provoking insights. The topic of leadership is such a powerful and broad subject that I want to narrow the topic to small business leadership. However, I may deviate a little and submit article that is important to me and tie it into small business leadership. Theory into praxis? What is the concept behind the name? First, in philosophy, theory (from ancient Greek theoria, θεωρία, meaning "a looking at, viewing, beholding") refers to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action. Second, Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted or practiced, embodied and/or realized. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. It is a practical and applied knowledge to one's actions. Therefore, this blog is not just subject matter about leadership but an activity and process. I want my readers to engage the content as an activity that inspires change and adds value to the reader's daily life and praxis.

Free E-books and Audio books. I just saved $420.

If you are like me and love reading books for enjoyment, entertainment, and knowledge, Kindle and librivox.org is where you need to go. First I downloaded the free Amazon kindle app on my PC and went ballistic in downloading the books that I have wanted to buy. Many of these books I had on my wish list collecting cyber-dust. However, today my chubby fingers were clicking away downloading these wonderful treasures for free. Now granted most all of these books are philosophy books before 1929. But still that's $390 I didn't have to spend and 26 FREE books that I downloaded in a matter of minutes. Another jewel I found is www.librivox.org. I downloaded a few free audio books: Karl Marx's, Das Kapital, Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Works of Love. [Just a word of caution on Das Kapital, the file size is 1 gig and when Marx started talking about the proletariat and bourgeoisie both working as laborers I said, "Hey, this is not for me. This fat boy isn't working in a rice field, where's a Milton Friedman Audio book?"] Now I imagine that these books are not on your top ten lists, but you can find many classics for free on both sites. These sites have a wealth of knowledge and I encourage everyone to turn your television off for a week and digitally curl up to a good E-book or audio book and learn to dream again—be inspired!

How to transform your sales team from “going through the motions” to becoming passionate climate changers.

Most companies in retail put their basic sales process and coaching model in the forefront of daily work life. They always seem to be acronyms on back rooms filled with posters or in countless emails and on the tip of every manager’s tongue. Mainly newly hire sales associates are trained on this in their first few weeks as a process of assimilation. Sadly, many are trained this same process for years of their employment until they leave of are terminated. Hubert Dreyfus from UC Berkley postulates a 5-stage model of effective skill acquisition, novice / competent proficient / expert / master; however, many companies require a blanket model for all sales associates that are on different levels of skills. Many standard sales process and coaching models are more geared to the sales associates that is at a "novice/competent" level. For newly hire sales associates this can be very effective, but in a situational leadership method, there should be a more advanced coaching for sales associates that is at a more advanced "proficient / expert / master" level. For advanced sales associates, their required daily activities and sales process becomes a process of "transparent coping" where they do not think about the activity, they become the activity, and the activity becomes second nature to them. The problem with this is sometimes they get bored with many tasks because they are no longer challenged. They feel some tasks are pointless, sometimes view them as punishment, and are not helping them to advance their skills. Furthermore, they feel the required forms, scripted talking points and company platitudes have almost succumbed to mechanistic and impersonal procedures. If managers implement a more intuitive model that promotes human creativity and ownership it may create a type of Hawthorne effect that would spawn more passion and self development that motivates the sales associate to use an inquisitive approach to learning. For advanced sales associates, managers need to focus on a comprehensive coaching and incentive plan that presents advanced skill acquisition that embodies exciting and challenging goals. The focal point of this plan should encompass rewards and recognition which increases team morale and commitment. Managers are looking for something they can implement that is juxtaposed with the "best place to perform and grow" value, not just a blanket universal strategy for all sales associates that are on different skill levels. I believe that the roadblock from going from good to great is not an employee problem, it’s a process and motivation problem and we need to find a better solution to clear the road to in order to form sales associates into authentic sales leaders that will become organizational climate changers.

There is an interesting idea from Mark Murphy in his book, Hundred Percenters. Instead of SMART goals, he advocates HARD goals for the advanced sales professionals. HARD goals are:

Heartfelt — My goals will enrich the lives of somebody besides me—
customers, the community, co-workers and managers.
Animated — I can vividly picture how great it will feel when I achieve
my goals.
Required — My goals are absolutely necessary to help this company.
Difficult — I will have to learn new skills and leave my comfort zone to
achieve my assigned goals for this year.

This is a winning approach because of its creative progressive approach but this approach also has been statistically validated through regression analysis. What ever the approach, I would like a model that would include a progressive style, backed by quantitative method, and promotes T-Mobile values, such as, (1) Sales recognition and incentive, (2) New learning and skill acquisition for RSA competencies, (3) Fun is good principal, (4) Self managed goal setting, and (5) 360 degree performance appraisals.

Putting these ideas and philosophies in place should promote sustained growth and cultivate a spirit of creative innovation within the organization. The measured result show reflect a sales staff that is self motivated and empowered to lead change and thrust the organization into being a good company into a great company.

The next big political idea

I watched Fox News Sunday this week where Juan Williams, a political talking head, was talking about political strategy. He stated essentially that Obama had a better economic plan than the Bush economic plan. He continued to assert that the GOP wanted to hold on to old ideas of the past and had no new ideas for the future. The first thought that came to me was the question, “do people not see through this flawed line of thinking? Why do people follow certain assertions as true ideas and drink the coolaid of popular thought? Then I ask, “why can't I look through the political noise and find the next big idea that will solve our nations problems? The truth is that Juan’s statement is an attempt of a political red herring to avert the focus on Obama’s failure as an agent of change. Obama’s mantra of “spreading the wealth around” is nothing “new” at all and his strategy of raising taxes is something that we Americans have heard from democrats before. Both parties have failed to bring genuine or original ideas that can bring real solutions to our economical dilemma. No the answer is not Glen Beck. I’m not offering any answers, but the answer will come only if we emerge from the cave of distraction and begin to regain clear thinking and critical thought. How can you tell if a politician is lying? His/Her lips are moving.

Trip to Maui

"One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple."

Psalms 27:4

If you want to know what heaven will be like--Go visit Maui.