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Leading Your Sales Team To Success
Rivalry is one of the main causes of teamwork failing.
Teamwork is key: these days, even in sales departments, several people work a great deal of projects jointly. Consequently high-quality leadership training is required for teams: innovative solutions are developed within the group and the group members are motivated and dedicated to what they are doing.
When team leaders talk about group work they talk about frustration, emotions and blockades, about rivalry, laboriously worked out compromises, delays, half-hearted agreements and processes that drag.
The following tips show how to manage the different critical phases of teamwork to avoid teamwork failing.
What characterizes a team
Competitive towards outside companies
Joint meeting planning
Innovation
Sense of partnership
Aiming for team success
Mutual dependency
Sense of fun working together
Awareness of deadlines
Acceptance of challenges
The initial phase
Getting all the team members to agree on the project must be your first goal. Bare in mind: sales people are under constant time constraints, rushing from meeting to meeting means they do not always have their minds on the same thing at once. They are often only present in body as they continually think about what they still have to do.
At the start of the initial team meeting identify the tasks and goals of the project and the associated structure and restrictions. You need to state how much working time the project will take up. Getting all the members of the team to agree to the project takes far fewer intellectual powers of persuasion than ‘emotional incitement’.
Try and communicate the aims briefly and in an attention-grabbing and interesting way in order to enthuse the team members.
The action phase
The team members take the next step by having an intensive discussion about the project. You now need to take a back seat, your dominating powers of persuasion were required in the initial phase but this step is all about the team.
You will notice, during the course of the discussion that your sales people are exchanging far more than lines of argumentation: conflicts of interest and differences of opinion as well as old enmities reappearing in the shape of sanctimonious arguments.
The team leader will try and settle the contentious points whilst attempting to separate the squabblers. However even though it may take a lot of time, let them argue. For everyone taking part, a certain amount of pugnacity is important to ensure a committed way in the action phase. Inspiration is stifled if there is too much systematic dialogue. Arguments, which are broken off too early, will cause the sales people who are willing to adapt to back down and not venture their own opinion. As a result the team members will only work half-heartedly from then on.
The time to mediate is when arguments are being repeated and the debate is going round in a circle. By then the attacks are getting more personal and some sales people are expressing their discontentment. A great deal of tact and sensitivity on your part is required to move the team members onto the next phase. Many delegates on leadership training courses mention that they have benefited from an increase in self-awareness during the course, which will help them in this area.
The integration phase
The target of this phase is to detach your self from the (controversial) discussion and assess the suggested solutions in a professional manner. Try and find a pacifying correlation that will take the discussion further:
“I think all the important points have been covered. We should now assess this sensibly and then consider about what decisions we are going to make.”
“We will not get very far if we continue like this. We need now to examine the suggestions that have been made and decide on those.”
The best skill of a team leader is finding the right timing.
The debate should go as far as it can. Keep in mind that it is not a question of your own maximum resilience and capability of withstanding variance, but that of the team members.
Some team members who are principally sensitive and susceptible will reach the point of their maximum resilience far earlier than you do.
Give the team members time to come to terms with defeat: those whose suggestions were not successful require time to get used to the majority view.
The implementation phase
The compromise that has been reached must now be jointly implemented. After the feeling of togetherness achieved in the integration phase, individual team members now have to assume responsibility. The following questions must be answered:
Who is doing what?
Until when?
Who is he/she reporting to?
What will be the measure of a successful completion?
Which supervisory steps need to be well thought-out?
What happens if nothing happens?
Once you are into the operation phase, you must observe to ensure that the team keeps on track. At the end of the project, it is important to celebrate the accomplishment with the team, as this is an important motivator. These teambuilding techniques are covered in good leadership training courses.
