OK, my original working title was “degrees of suck”. Little harsh, eh? Negative and vulgar… yeah, I get it. Try not to take offense. I am using this word as it would exist within a retail sales team and their abilities. I am not trying to be hip or more acceptable through the use of this word. I am being “cheeky” and using this word as a means to provoke an intentional jolt and learning possibility.
So a client was talking to me about coaching. They suggested what do you say when someone is “tanking” a little versus someone who is really “tanking”. By “tanking”, I am referring to their performance, in sales. The discussion was concerned with the degrees of coaching based on performance. Makes sense, right? There are varying degrees of performance, which means the conversation about their performance and our reaction/job/conversation/tone/etc. would need to conform to the context of the situation. If I ever make sense to my learners, I hope it is when I state context dictates how we interact as a manager. Context dictates everything in life. Whatever is happening in that moment at that time will influence how you manage, how you lead. Is Skippy, Todd and Mary doing great, average or just…well, are they “tanking”? Then consider the trend, is it a first time thing or a lingering performance issue?
Here is a learning moment; especially for newer managers. Do you think there is only black in white? I believe as a store manager there are always shades of grey. There are big and little battles to win. I believe in hitting a goal. I believe in being accountable and having consistency. I also understand there is not necessarily absolute right or wrong, complete success or failure. Many times our management, our leadership, our implementation produce degrees of success and failure; each happening simultaneously. Therefore as manager, I may not always have the answer…yep.
Before we get into a “hugging” moment, I am not saying we should not strive for success without failure. Quite the contrary, we should always strive to achieve that thing or those things which elevate our abilities or our ability to improve someone else. That thing that makes us a bit faster, better, different in business and even smell nicer. I want to win and know there is no trophy for second place. I always have hope and do not believe in a no win situation. I am a capitalist and believe improving the business and the bottom line is a good thing. I have seen bad and good in retail and customer service. I want to help sales managers know what they do not know. So now you know where I stand. In some ways, I think we are hard on ourselves.
Managers have to deal with sales reps and must respond to their performance. The reality is sales reps are in any given time in varying degrees of good and bad. So what to do…
- Keep score. This is the big one and potentially the biggest “aha”. Know the scorecard for any given employee. Know the degrees of “suck” or the degrees of how one performs. Degrees implies a number – know the number.
- Know your team. Know their triggers. Know what might be making them “suck”; what might be challenging them in varying degrees. Is it knowledge, systems, habit or just plain old willingness? If they lean right or left, know why and be very aware of how that matters to them.
- Embrace how to apply pressure or maybe a balance of praise to correction mindset. I can find “wrong” in anyone, and that cannot be my mission. In other words, let your team know more what they do well and how they do it well versus always wanting to “correct” them. Will a little push, a little thank you change behavior or will you need to apply a little more pressure?
- Today I realized something simple. Life happens. There is not perfection, there will never be and you may have to just trust AND take a little time to help someone out. No immediate answer, just one little thing to improve a little part of a little something and then they improve. We, as managers and leaders do not always have to change the world. Just make a little change. For your clarification, it involved a sprinkler head. Yes, I know this is a stretch…just go with me. My moment today.
I believe both managers and reps deal with “degrees of suck”. They each realize that they have to deal with each other and each day provides a context with degrees of both great and bad, success and failure, loss and win. It is hard to be perfect. Well, actually, it is impossible to be perfect. What I believe is that we each, managers and sales reps, have value. It is just that some days we only see it as it relates to our objectives. What if each day, we allowed degrees of success and failure to exist in all things, what would change? Would we manage and lead differently?
So the original question or stimulus for this post was “what about when someone is only kinda sucky?” The tree-huggy response would be, “OK, welcome to the human race.” The more learned response may be a reaction based on an analysis of compared to what, what drove their behavior, do they know “what, why, how and to what extent?” and do we both agree on what happens next?
Rate your day today. Think of a number. Bet it is 7.5. Degrees of good and bad leading to 7.5; Right?
Cheers