Have you ever been called to the principal's office?
I have a "high natural child" inside me who sees humor in many areas of my personal and professional life. This child needs to be harnessed or it continuously gets me into trouble for making inappropriate comments that apparently, only I, find humorous.
When I was in grammar school and high school, I would hear this phrase echoing over the loudspeaker at school, "Mr. Bartlet ... Mr. William Bartlett, please report to the principal's office immediately!" Everyone would laugh, and I knew what was in store for me. A lecture from the principal on something I did that was deemed unsuitable. After his lecture, I would return to the classroom to the laughter of my friends and this scenario would regularly repeat itself until eventually I became numb to the process. In all my years in school, I never associated anything good with being called to the principal's office, so I dreaded it. For many salespeople, being called to their manager's office conjures the same mental image as it usually reflects disciplinary or corrective action.
I had a training session at one of my clients last week where I witnessed the "called to the principal's office syndrome" play out with one of his salespeople. While we debriefed the day's training, an accounting clerk came into his office and said in an exasperated tone, "Paul, (one of Jim's top sales reps), is at it again! He is not submitting his invoices on time and we cannot match them up with the customer's orders." Jim, the sales manager, blew his top and summoned Paul to his office where he proceeded to loudly reprimand him for his bad behavior. He attacked Paul's character by saying that he was selfish and self-centered only caring for himself. When Paul left, tail between his legs, Jim turned to me and proclaimed, "I have to conduct these coaching sessions with each member of my sales team 3 to 4 times per week!"
I let Jim cool down and said, "Is that a true example of one of your coaching sessions?" Since I've known Jim for 10 years, I took the liberty of being blunt with him about what I witnessed and proceeded to inform him of the damage he just caused. In my world, coaching comes from giving nurturing, nonjudgmental feedback designed to have the light bulb turn on in the salesperson's head. It takes place in a safe environment where the manager and salesperson can calmly share open, honest, fact-based feedback. A successful coaching session protects the salesperson's self-worth while helping them raise their awareness.
Coaching is one of the key skills all successful managers must possess, and it should represent about 35% of their time. The amount of time it takes to achieve a successful coaching outcome deters many managers from utilizing this key skill and so they resort to "fixing problems" versus "empowering their staff to better utilize their skill set and grow."
Here are some coaching tips to utilize in your next coaching sessions:
1. Provide context at the beginning of the session to deepen the salesperson's understanding of the problem.
2. Have the salesperson self-assess the problem and their role in it prior to giving your assessment.
3. Give your assessment of the problem and determine the size of the gap between your understanding and theirs.
4. Ask enough questions to help the salesperson gain real-time understanding of the steps they should take to remedy the problem and prevent it from happening again.
5. Help the salesperson "own" the solution and determine next steps.
My best-selling book, "The Sales Coach's Playbook ... Breaking the Performance Code" details my coaching methodology as well as provides the tools to sharpen your coaching strategies and tactics. Teach your people that coaching has nothing in common with being called to the principal's office and they will see coaching as a key to raising their productivity. Go conquer your worlds!
• Bill Bartlett owns Corporate Strategies, A Sandler Training Center. bbartlett@sandler.com. Text "salestip" to 35893 to receive Bill's biweekly newsletter.