Put. That Coffee. Down.

29Sep08

I caught up with my friend Brad last night as a part of church small group that Kelly and I plan to begin attending on a regular basis.*

As we talked about the mixed bag of good/bad stuff we’re dealing with, Brad brought up the dreaded end of the quarter/month.  He’s in sales and – as is the case for salespeople throughout the universe, throughout all time – he’s sweating a deadline.

His situation made me think back to my time selling and how much I honestly enjoyed the pressure and accountability.  As bad as it was at times, it seemed like the good times were always worth it – both financially and personally.

It also made me look forward to graduating and getting into a role where I’m selling again – preferably not individual subscriptions or widgets, but instead an idea, agenda, or company.

Talk of the sales schtick also made me watch my favorite 7 minute YouTube clip of all time:

I actually wrote a paper about the clip (from the film Glengarry Glenn Ross) for a class I took last year called Leading and Managing. Here are that last 3 paragraphs an otherwise marginal paper:

While the underlying problems in this clip may be complicated for the participants to detect, two potential solutions are actually quite simple to implement. First of all, Moss should be in the field closing sales, not motivating or managing a team. His behavior highlights the difference between selling skills and sales management skills and disproves his assumption that strength in one area imbues strength in the other. Additionally, if Mitch & Murray wished to thin the sales ranks – which is not uncommon and may have been warranted in this case – then the firm should have simply fired the under-performing associates. Indirectly “firing” associates that lose the contest isn’t fair to the employees and reflects poorly on the organization.

Furthermore, Mitch & Murray should consider building a compensation structure that rewards group performance in addition to individual performance. By doing so, the firm can tap into the power of the group structure as a motivational tool. For instance, each sales associate presumably has an individual quota that he/she must meet each quarter that ties into a larger team quota. If Mitch & Murray paid a bonus when all individuals meet their quota and/or when the team meets its quota as a whole, sales associates are more likely to hold one another accountable for their performance and thus positively influence the overall productivity of the team.

Moss’ inability to properly assess and lead according to the situation’s blend of environmental and dispositional forces and his ill-conceived sales goal/contest combine to build the associates’ perception of oppressive external influence, which ultimately undermines his effort to motivate the team. As the film goes on to illustrate, the associates’ sense of powerlessness leads to a coordinated rebellion and criminal action against the firm in an effort to gain access to the Glengarry leads, the only resource that they believe will resolve their predicament.

Why publish all of that?  Because I feel bad for not writing anything in a while.  I hope that it somehow enriched your day in some small way.

*I’m hoping that a public statement of intent will keep us accountable to actually attending.

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