Ignore The Buzzwords

The leadership team need to disagree and argue more.

2011-02-24T10:00:00.009+01:00

Over the years I have had the opportunity to take part in different leadership teams. For the most part it has been interesting and a good learning experience. Reflecting back however I have come to see patterns of mistakes and failures based on a type of situation that seems to repeat itself over and over again. In short I claim the following:

People agree too much! Real, fact based dissent and real debate is a rare commodity.

Now, to elaborate a little; in my experience teams rarely tap into the power of its full potential. Often team members stay silent and refrain from participation; the reason for not taking part might be fear of failure, lack of engagement or an array of other reasons. Please note that I am referring to teams that in no way should be considered dysfunctional, but rather normal setups for most organizational situations. My experience has been of teams consisting of people with integrity and passion but that has not automatically made the team efforts open and dynamic.

I do not claim to have all the answers on how to create a good, dynamic team however it seems clear that not having a process for discussion and encouraging dissenting views often make team members converge on ideas too quickly, before all options have been duly considered. An example could be that you are considering entering into a new segment of the market. Great opportunities can be seen as well as very real risks. Very often the discussion will lean towards the position of the leader too quickly. If the Leader/Manager is keen on the Idea, chances are that many team members will back that option. Another possibility is that a position of apparent (but perhaps untrue) common sense is put forward early in the discussion and because it is perceived as sound, alternatives will not be explored enough.

Many times meetings have seem to have been orchestrated by the leader (formal or informal) in such a way that the options other than the preordained favorite are not properly evaluated. The result is that strategic decisions very often will be made on very shaky grounds. Not using the potential of the entire team is like giving away money to the competitors.

Once in a while I have experienced the opposite of the scenarios above. Namely a decision making process that is truly dynamic, truly exploring even far-fetched ideas. The results on such occasions have been nothing short of brilliant.

Recently such a situation occurred. My company faced a business opportunity that, although profitable, lacked in one important quality; it deviated from our stated strategic goals (slightly). We were of course interested in making money but in order to do so we had to violate (again, slightly) our strategic goals and part of our business integrity. Anyone who has ever worked with sales knows that is hurts (actually, it hurts a lot) to say no to a deal that is profitable. So we had a discussion where we tried and debated the options. During the proceedings the Team Leader very clearly told everyone to disagree and criticize his position. He actively encouraged us to try and see things from different perspectives and also try and simulate short and long term effects of any given action. The discussion was lively, everyone took part and the gloves really came off. At long last we felt that the alternatives had been explored and we then converged toward one route of action. Then a decision was made, whether of not it was the correct one remains to be seen, however since everyone is invested in it I am willing to bet on its chances.

To summarize I think any leadership team should have a process of decision-making that encourages dissenting views and standpoints. If not there risk of premature consent, something that historically have proven disastrous.

So that is why I recommend the followingA clear decision making process

Leadership that encourages REAL debate of different views

Clear rules to support new and dissenting ideas

Involve everyone that has interest and/or a stake in the matter

Some companies give out awards for employee of the month. I am thinking we should award best dissenting view instead! Maybe regardless of whether it is actually implemented anywhere.

Over and out

//Björn

Suggested viewing / listening: The Great Courses / Professor Michael A. Roberto dive into the topic above + many more decision making problems in the “Art of Critical Decision Making” course found here: http://bit.ly/dMbsB8

3 common Sales Leadership mistakes!

2010-11-08T16:00:00.009+01:00

Listening to Sales Managers and Sales People sometimes I sometimes get a feeling that they make very few mistakes. In fact I would say if there is one profession where bragging is common (almost mandatory sometimes) this might be it. Sometimes, not always, I feel that this Sales is a profession with Over Confidence problems. This might be part of the reason people make the mistakes I would like to talk about today:

Sales Mistakes

Focusing on closed sales opportunities
How many times have you heard, "have you sold anything today?" from a Sales Manager? I have heard it countless times. The major problem with this is that not very much constructive action can be undertaken on a closed opportunity. The Sales Manager might congratulate wins and criticize losses, however that does very little for future sales. In my view you should instead focus on the pipeline of opportunities and especially the opportunities with problems. If done correctly the Manager can actually help a Sales Rep focus on opportunities that have potential and also spend less time on dead ends. So, stop asking about what has been sold, ask about problems and new possibilities instead!
Overvaluing of open opportunities
Well, say that we have an organization that has observed the point above, they actually focus on the sales pipe instead of made sales. This is good but there is still obstacles to navigate. One of which is the fact that most people are to positive! Shouldn't Sales reps be positive? Well, not in this regard. When considering a Sales opportunity Managers and reps very often over value things. Because you wish the client to decide does not mean they will. When evaluating opportunities strict criticism applies. Having and maintaining a qualitative (and quick enough) way of grading opportunities requires skill and resources but do not let that deter you, done right it may be prove essential to success.
Overconfidence on how clear your message is being heard
You might think your presentation and product is clear and crisp, that does not mean the customer agrees. In this case the old rule that the customer is always right definitely applies. The fact is even the best presentations are bound to be forgotten by the customer very quickly! Why? The human mind does not seem to be very adapt to remembering slide-shows and witty comments about your product. However, if you somehow establish a real and agreed upon need and get the customer to understand that your product/service will help to address that need, remembrance chances incline. In other words, use questions to understand the customers situation and adapt your presentation accordingly.

Hans Rosling: The good news of the decade? | Video on TED.com

2010-10-20T14:20:00.000+02:00

Hans Rosling is one of my heroes. This presentation rocks, as usual!

Hans Rosling: The good news of the decade? | Video on TED.com

Meet Charlie What Is Enterprise 3.0

2010-06-20T20:18:00.001+02:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

I think it sums up most of the essentials. Björn

Meet Charlie What Is Enterprise 3.0

View more presentations from Kingsley Idehen.

What is the perfect elevator pitch for Enterprise 2.0?

2010-06-18T15:30:00.006+02:00

Getting a CEOs (or other decision maker) attention can be tough. Ponder that you by accident have her/him riding in the same elevator and that the person has struck up a conversation with you.

You now have 30 seconds to make that person interested in the possibilities of Enterprise 2.0, what do you do?

This is a question I have spent some time on because most of the E2.0 related stuff I read is usually quite extensive in volume and though intellectually great, hard to convey in a short time.

One allegory that people seem to be able to grasp quickly is that if todays youth (well, some may be youth only in mind) organize flashmobs very effectively at almost no cost then maybe the emergent communication methods/technology might be something Enterprises should take a closer look at. I usually pair this story with some generic challenge that I believe is relevant to the message recipient (for example collaboration between marketing and sales). The story about fairly complex organizational efforts (flashmobs) done at no cost seem to be a good thing to mention because it instinctively appeals to the lowest form of business development (IE cost cutting). The fact that it implies efficiency gains is in my experience not what CEOs and other senior decision makers notice at first glance.

Now is that such a bad thing? I have yet to meet a CEO or other manager who did not focus on cutting costs and/or increasing revenue. In fact many rarely go further than that. Most people (managers included) realize that things like Innovation culture and cross-collaboration are things that a organization needs in order to go beyond just being a decent performer. However, knowing is one thing, doing quite another.

With this in mind I would conclude that a good elevator pitch must contain some relevance to the basic needs of Managers. The aim here gaining their interest so that further talk/meetings can be scheduled. Now one could argue that a pitch should contain more elements, this is of course true, but using the elevator pitch exercise forces you to think to strip your message to the bare essentials.

This is just one, quickly developed, pitch. If you have another one, perhaps one that beats my example I would love to hear it.

EDIT: just found this, adds some ideas to the subject: http://www.techiteasy.org/2010/01/25/five-elevator-pitches-for-enterprise-2-0-adoption/

Do not overdo it!

2010-06-14T13:28:00.003+02:00

I just read this post by Seth Godin. I Think it speaks volumes!

A museum does not get to be great by adding every conceivable thing. The British museum displays only a fragment of its vast inventory. Its greatness comes just as much from what it decides not to display as what actually is shown.

Classic Negotiating with a twist

2010-06-10T13:24:00.006+02:00

When negotiating with someone you usually concede some points to gain others. However there is one technique that people seem to neglect using. That is the possibility to get something extra after an agreement has been made.

My brother recently got a new job. At the final stages before signing he went through the customary compensation Negotiation, things like Salary, Bonus, Pension, type of car and other things were discussed. The negotiations were tough and the Employer was firm and would not budge much, however an agreement was made. They also decided on a starting date 2 months down the line, something that fitted my Brothers plans nicely. Now to the elegant part.

After all is agreed upon, signing has been made, my brother says the following: "Now I have a question, it may be a bit strange and if you feel it to be weird, just say so. However about the car, might I be able to get it now?". The answer from the employer was, a look of big surprise (no one had asked them such a question before), but more than that the response was an affirmative answer. The actually said that they had to check if any tax rules prohibited the lending out before start date, but if not it would be OK. Also it might benefit them as they otherwise would have to keep an unused car for 2 months, something that might be a little work for them.

Now, what would have happened if the question was asked during negotiation. The probable outcome would have been one of the two things:

The answer no!
It would have been an issue to negotiate upon

If the second possibility would have come into play my brother would very likely have had to budge on some of his other demands. As it turned out now the employer was already in "an agreeing kind of mood" and did not see it as a demand.

This technique works well on issues that are slightly beside the point, but works very lousy on the hard issues. The move can not be used for things such as monetary compensation and the like. Using the same kind of question regarding Bonus or Salary would probably be both non working and weird.

After buying a pair of Jeans or Shoes asking for a belt/socks/shoe polish for free works the same way. Personally I find it useful in business situations were more value is at stake, but if you feel experimental you can use it in your personal life as well.

A third reason Sales would benefit from Enterprise 2.0

2010-06-08T09:29:00.004+02:00

In my last two posts I talked a bit about why Sales departments and Sales reps would benefit from tools and methods within the Enterprise 2.0 discipline.

This article, posted by Oscar Berg sums it up pretty well. Sales can directly, and indirectly benefit from improved collaboration. In this case the Sales Force is already encouraged to collaborate, the only thing E2.0 would do is enable people to actually do it.

My professional life has, to a large extent, revolved around Sales, Business Development, Collaboration and Communication. The case mentioned above involves all components and I will subsequently follow it with great interest.

Another reason Sales needs Enterprise 2.0

2010-06-02T12:40:00.007+02:00

A former Colleague told me a story that I would like to share.

Before I start I would like you to focus on the usage of e-mail. As we all know it is universally used to not only send short messages but also form discussion threads. We have all seen them, lots of participants "reply all" which in short order turns a simple message to a heap of messages stacked on top of each other.

Now, you may ask yourself, I am aware that it ugly but it still serves its purpose, so what is the problem? Well, there are a few issues, let me illustrate with the following:

A small company makes a strategic decision to use personal blogs and an internal Wiki for almost all internal communication and documentation. Employees no longer save notes or documents of any kind on their own computer anymore. Everything has to go into the shared space, even personal notes and the like. The Company in question are in the possession of a powerful technical platform (called Incentive) that enables Enterprise 2.0 type communication and collaboration (as it happens they develop and market it themselves).

Now one day the CEO, Rickard Hansson, decides to blog that he will no longer support the usage of Telemarketing, in his opinion the results have been substandard in quality while costs are high. Rather quickly a discussion starts in the comment field below the post where two Sales Reps disagrees, one even presents hard data on how the results in his region differs (positively) from the image the CEO presents. The CEO replies that maybe he is wrong, maybe statistical variations play a part or maybe there are other explanations.

A few months later the company hires a new young Sales rep to strengthen the team. As most fresh recruits he scans the Intranet (in this case a Wiki) and other internal systems (blogs, CRM etc) for knowledge that will help his getting up to speed with his new employer. He then stumbles upon the blog post mentioned above and replies that at his last place of work they used a partner for Telemarketing which produced very good results, as a bonus the Sales Rep adds som contact info. Contact with the Telemarketing firm is made and pretty soon a new campaign is launched which becomes highly successful. Everybody is happy!

Now, dear reader; what would have happened if the initial discussion had been in the form of an e-mail thread?

The answer is easy, nothing would have happened!

Do you see a business case growing? How many other similar situations occur daily because we use communication tools that just do not cut it?

One reason Sales needs Enterprise 2.0

2010-06-01T09:18:00.009+02:00

People who know me are aware of the fact that I work with Sales and have been doing so for about 10 years.

At one point in my career the company I was working for was about to do a major Cold Calling session, set up as a company wide competition. Every office or branch competed together against other offices. I took charge of preparing lists of prospects and when I asked the office Senior Sales Rep if I could cross reference his list to exclude duplicates he just answered "No, there is no way that people in Sales cooperate! I like you but we are competitors.". It is worth noticing that neither local nor national management seemed to deem this as inappropriate but rather judged it as the way it should be. Well, I worked hard on having lists with solid contact info, sometimes with an ounce of background info (this was pre LinkedIn, now I would have more info). Apart from the expected Contact Information I added small bits of info such as previous buying patterns, known Issues, informal Titles and notes. I then proceeded to share this info with the entire team as most people lacked sufficient prospect material. My office then proceeded to win the entire race. It seems no one but us had prepared lists with the extra information, everyone else stopped when they had a name and phone number written down. Not only did we book a lot of meetings but a good percentage of the booked meetings were then converted into real sales and revenue, everybody was happy. My own contribution to the effort was medium when it came to Cold Calling (some of the real Sales Hounds beat me there) but I am proud of having provided solid data and info.

Looking back I see two things occurring:

Giving people a little extra info produces better Cold Calls (Both the caller and recipient gets more comfortable)
The Calls that were converted to meetings were better qualified than ones just booked with brute Sales Force (no pun intended)

This brings me to my point. Sales is still about contacting prospects and working it from there, but Sales can benefit from additional knowledge and Data. It of course has to be somewhat relevant but I would advise against on trying to figure out to much beforehand. Say for example that you would Integrate a CRM-system with external sources of knowledge, such as NewsGator, LinkedIn and/or something else. Should you filter all the extra info, well probably. Should you restrict some parts completely, I think not. The reason for integrating is probably that you want your Sales Reps to have more relevant information when they are talking to the customer, be it specific Customer info, Industry news or some gossip about what is happening at a Competitor. The point is that it is hard to judge beforehand what will be relevant.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, can we serve our Customers better if our Sales Reps have solid, relevant Information.

What do you think?

LinkedIn and Cold Calls!

2010-05-31T15:28:00.002+02:00

I just read this post on making cold calls warmer. It may be that it is not fit for every business but in some cases you might want to take it farther than the author suggests.

Lately I have been using LinkedIn professional to get access to those hard to get clients. So far I has not revolutionized my world but rather added a nice extra dimension of communication.

The cool thing when speaking to decision makers via LinkedIn is not that I can find and contact them, but rather that they can see who I am, who I know and get a hint of where I am coming from. That makes the initial contact a little bit warmer.

The Content Economy by Oscar Berg: These are the times for explorers

2010-05-31T12:01:00.003+02:00

Oscar Berg writes about how companies sometimes react instinctively to use restriction on issues that need not be suppressed (in this case Social Media and webb 220). To me it seems obvious that this and similar issues often can be a problem. I personally can think of lots of times when I have used non sanctioned tools and methods to get results. The result is often a happy boss that wants to take credit for the achievement, that is if it was successful! If asked before a tryout of a new Idea lots of managers refrain from trying.

In fact it is more of a rule than exception that people break rules in order to do their jobs effectively. I say it is time to at least think about what parts of an organization might benefit from slightly less rigorous rules and restrictions.

We know it is wrong and inefficient but...

2010-05-31T09:34:00.005+02:00

Lately I have been meeting up with lots of people from different businesses and organizations. The topic of discussion has been Enterprise 2.0 and how a professionals can utilize next generation communication and collaboration tools to improve themselves.

In this post economic crisis world one would think that businesses would see the positive potential of new tech, tools and methods. Generally, everybody agrees on a few facts, most everybody (in mid size and large organizations) says:

Our communication is inefficient (they do not always say it that clearly)
We spend loads of time managing data and documents (again, not always said loud)
We spend to much time searching for our own information
Most often such searches fail and we have to duplicate info we already have
Overall we have rigid and traditional methods and tools to manage our knowledge and information (please do not take this as a quote)

All of the above problems are in themselves of course troublesome. But when you think of it the implications and consequences such as lost Business Opportunities, missed Business Improvements and non existent Collaboration between relevant parties, well then the total effect is a rather serious problem.

When asked people also agree that the the proposition that organizations might benefit from thinking in ways that replicate web 2.0 behavior is true. Most people also agree that it would be interesting to explore the Idea. Comparatively, students all over the world frequently work with on line collaboration tools such as Google Docs and Apps and expect the same kind of possibilities once hired.

Are their expectations met, well not really. In fact I often come across rather large organizations which have scarcely more than e-mail and a shared network drive. Is this the way to be efficient as a knowledge worker in the year 2010? I think not.

I think we will shortly see more and more organizations exploring what Enterprise 2.0 will mean to them.

To be continued