This was not my first rodeo. I had led teams before. But this was a brand new industry for me and my first time leading a sales organization. I was also a member of the family that owned and operated the company, so I felt like I had something to prove.
The company needed more sales, and the pressure was on. I got to work.
Immediately, we put a recruiting plan in place and hired new team members with plenty of drive, contacts and industry experience.
I implemented key performance indicators and key results areas and set personal goals with each of the members of the team. I painted a crystal clear picture of what success looked like, not only in terms of final sales metrics but also in terms of leading behavioral indicators that would produce the sales we were after.
I implemented a training program that clearly identified our key target markets, geographies and decision-makers and hammered out prospecting plans and strategies for each of them.
We identified pain points, worked out pain indicator questions to use in our prospecting efforts, and identified the major industry events and trade shows to attend, putting together followup plans for the prospects we met there.
I revised the compensation plan to make sure we were incentivizing the precise results and behaviors that we wanted replicated by the team.
I implemented a brand new CRM that was fully integrated with the operations database of the company, so the sales team could have real time fulfillment visibility into their accounts and management could have real time visibility on our progress.
After months of intense implementation of my improvement plan I took a look at the numbers and couldn’t believe what I saw.
Absolutely nothing had happened. We were still hitting the same performance numbers as before, without even the slightest bit of improvement.
I was frustrated and angry. I felt like I was being ignored. So I started confronting my team members on their performance metrics. That’s when the pushback started.
I was suddenly inundated in what seemed to me like a torrent of excuses from every side — which only fed my growing frustration. Things were spiraling downward fast.
Finally, I got wind that one of my strongest team members was looking to leave the company and move to a competitor. BAD NEWS.
We had a heart to heart, and she admitted that she felt underappreciated. All I ever focused on were the numbers and what she was not doing. Every time she heard from me it was all about what was wrong and what needed to improve, but never about what she was doing right. It seemed that conversations with me brought my team members to tears.
Then something changed.
Deep down, I knew this was not the kind of leader I wanted to be: constantly harassing my people and pointing out deficiencies and “growth areas.”
I knew that if every time I spoke with my team they came away deflated, defensive, frustrated and disengaged then they were not the problem; I was.
I decided to change. And quick.
I got humble. I apologized to my team members and owned the fact that I had been failing as a leader. I recognized my responsibility to inspire and encourage them, not the opposite. I asked them for help; I asked them to hold me accountable to becoming the kind of leader that would help them succeed, not blame them for failure.
Most importantly I OWNED the problem: we weren’t selling enough because of me, not them. I asked them to help me solve MY problem, and stopped treating them like they were the issue.
No matter how big your team is, there is only one person on this planet that you have direct control over: yourself.
If you are struggling to get a team of people to perform at a certain level, don’t look for what you can change in them. Look for what you can change in yourself, admit and own your weaknesses and improve.
As soon as you own the problem and take full, unmitigated responsibility for it, your team will follow suit and do the same. If you choose instead to play the blame game, so will they.
What problems do you need to take extreme ownership of in your life?
