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!"