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Comment on articleI start my sales coaching program by asking the group of sales managers, “what would you like answered during this workshop?”
The typical answers are: “what can I say to win my point?” or “how can I get my sales representatives to do things my way?” or “how can I convince my sales representatives to do it the right way?” or “how can I get them to understand …?”
When I ask why those particular questions, the managers explain that typically sales coaching centres on some aspect of “improving” a sales representative’s ability to sell. The manager notes some “deficiencies” in a sales call and afterwards, they sit down with them to rectify the situation.
And I ask, “tell me more?”
They then talk about the pressure they are under. And it comes from a variety of sources.
On one level sales managers need to drive the interests of the company and on another, the interests of the sales representative team. And always, the pressure of achieving sales goals. Add to those limitations in doctor access, following the industry code of conduct and the competition from other bigger, stronger and wealthier pharmaceutical companies. Plus the competition between time spent coaching and the other tasks associated with sales management. Phew!
Sales coaching then, occurs in a context of expediency or urgency in getting results.
This creates a tendency for sales managers to coach by “jumping to solutions”. Coaching sessions contain a lot of talking, telling and offering of solutions. Getting them to “understand”
After all, the manager was once a sales representative and has “been there and done that”, experienced the challenge so is full of solutions. “Coaching” to them is akin to “passing on my wisdom”.
What’s surprising is that they then report that performance improvement by the representative is slower than expected. Often that need to “get them to understand”, etc comes from the coach’s perspective and can drive the discussion into a dead end. Why?
Peter Drucker, a business thought leader, addressed this kind of dilemma in a Harvard Business Review article, “What Makes an Effective Executive”.
He wrote that the best managers he has worked with had a huge variety of personalities, attitudes, values, strengths and weaknesses. “They ranged from extroverted to nearly reclusive, from easygoing to controlling, from generous to parsimonious.” So it wasn’t their personalities that determined success.
The thing that Peter saw was a shift in CONTEXT. The particular context they had for the sales coaching after, or before, a sales call was established by asking 2 simple “big picture” business questions:
“What needs to be done?” and “What’s right for the business/ enterprise?”
In other words, they establish a business context for the coaching conversation first. A context that focuses on the business issues rather than their personal issues. Jumping to solutions never happened. They talked “big picture” before they talked about implementation.
Excellence in sales coaching starts with an agreed context of the representative’s performance; the “why” before the “what”.
You know you’re getting there when the representative asks, “How do I get that?” “Will this work for me?” “Is that really possible?” “Who else has done it?” “How do I start?”
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An obvious necessity?
I don't work in a pharmaceutical company, so I'm sure this is very easy for me to say. But in order to get people to do anything (apart from the most basic or repetitive of tasks), surely giving people an understanding of why they're doing it, then trusting them and giving them responsiblity for doing it (we're assuming only intelligent and motivated people were hired in the first place) is (a) nothing new and (b) common sense that appears to have been lost in an attempt to standardise? Most people would surely agree with all of the above? Or maybe the companies are too big/unresponsive to allow reps to see their impact directly on revenues and therefore this understanding isn't regularly implicit?
Is it that the numbers of reps are too high for this type of management and coaching? (I would argue that it allows for more efficient management. Much better for somebody to understand why they're doing something, and feel motivated to do it, and can get on with the job without supervision. Then you don't need to constantly be checking and cajoling every few minutes, but can simply review progress at thorough but less regular intervals.)
My question is therefore: what needs to change in higher management to reinstate what to me seems like an obvious necessity?
obvious necessity
Surely this focuses around the area of empowerment and management of complexity at the level of the inividual? For me the main issue here is that corporate processes are being developed to fit a one size fits all to address the complex fit between empowerment and legal processes around employees and performance management etc. This environment has knock on effects for individual development as well as minimising innovation opportunities in most pharma companies form an internal perspective. Balancing this is the external environment which is increasingly more complex and critical of the industry as well as the need for coproate governance and what some people may view as onerous compliance procedures.
To answer the question of what needs to change in higher management one area may be to recruit executives with more leadership traits - which is evidenced through an increase tolerance of failure, something which goes hand in hand in an innovative culture.
It can't be all about context though?
I agree with you Paul and I am not sure I can answer his question however one problem I see and especially in some of the emerging markets like China is that the best reps, don't always make the best managers. Unless each individual is trained and coached into being the right kind of manager that suits their personality, they won't blossom and become an "effective executive". Perhaps I am being short-sighted but I just can't understand how personalities can't matter, even when everything is put into context.