The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working
We all make the same mistake. We easily get caught up in too much information to process, too many devices to look at, too much work to carry out, too much of anything. We’re lulled into thinking that being “on and running” all the time is a cool thing. We hunker down, put in more hours, sacrifice sleep, and eventually lose sight of what happens around us.
“The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working” productivity guru Tony Schwartz warns us from the pages of his book by the same title. Time is finite and, no matter how hard we try, working 25/8 is not an option. But by managing our energy reservoirs more effectively, we can regain the ability to dedicate our undivided attention to a single task at a time.
At Salesophy, we bought and read Tony’s book because at some point in time we felt we had to take better care of ourselves and of our key “assets” - our brains, our cognitive capacity, and our energy levels. There’s a lot of science behind Tony’s claims that led us to believe it’s time for a new way of doing things to start.
Interested in Tony’s book? Click here.
All right, Matt G. is confident he’ll be able to leverage his four key coaching skills and has decided on the type of coaching that Joe mostly needs. But his pre-work for tomorrow’s coaching session isn’t over yet. These kinds of conversation may get tense at times, so Matt wants to tune his engine to be able to sell Joe the benefits of what he’s trying to achieve. During warm-up, Matt will need to establish whether or not Joe is aware of the issues that Matt has observed. If not, he’ll have to dig a bit into those. Finally, he’ll have to make sure Joe can clearly see the benefits of being coached by Matt.
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Sarah W. (not her real name) is Matt G.’s boss at Best Microchip and the company’s National Sales Director. She joined Best Microchip a couple of years ago. Having grown in the semiconductor sector by holding positions of increasing responsibility in sales and marketing, Sarah’s understanding of the market dynamics and the competitive landscape is unparalleled.
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Fundamentals of Coaching Part I focused on the key skills that a manager must hone to coach effectively. But there’s another important activity that needs to happen prior to coaching any individual.
Can you remember Matt G.? After direct observation of his team at work, Matt decides that Joe definitely needs some coaching and plans to spend 3-5 hours/month co-travelling with him in the coming three months (incidentally, this is the ideal amount of coaching time per rep. It’s significantly less than most managers think is required for high quality coaching).
It’s late evening and Matt is in his office reviewing his notes and defining his mission for tomorrow’s coaching session with Joe. To that end, he is factoring in Joe’s needs, the meeting’s objectives, his unique strengths as a coach, and the knowledge that he can impart him.
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To illustrate the typical challenges of today’s sales managers, we’ll introduce you to Matt G. (not his real name).
Matt G. is a newly hired District Sales Manager at Best Microchip, a medium sized semiconductor enterprise located in San Jose, California. Reporting to Sarah W., the company’s National Sales Director, Matt has been assigned to a sales team that includes Anton, Mary, Joe, and Bob. Two months into his new job and he has come up with the following list of to-dos.
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We’re often asked to explain what Salesophy is about.
Well, here’s our pitch:
At Salesophy, we write about sales management topics with the learning and development needs of the world’s sales leaders in mind - from first line sales managers up to VP of Sales.
By focusing on creating cutting-edge and rigorous content and finding new, technology-driven ways to deliver and share relevant information, we work to provide sales management pros with guidance on how to better grow their knowledge capital, work smarter, and be successful.
At Salesophy, we work hard to expand your sales management wisdom. We’ve just started and we’ve got a lot more on the way. Stay tuned!
