Obsessive Management Disorder
Obsessive Management Disorder
Ladies and gentlemen, we are raising a leader, a manager, a future Master of the Universe. Management and leadership are compulsions, not a job title.
How many times over the years have I met district managers, supervisors, and store managers who got the job because no one else wanted it? Maybe they wanted more money, or senior management thought that person was the lesser of the available evils.
Take a hard look at yourself. Are you one of those people? Then I say, “Get out.” Save your soul, your dignity, your pride. The burden of management is not for you. Have fun selling or paint a picture and sell it. You deserve to enjoy your life.
Leader or follower?
There are leaders and there are followers. We need a whole bunch of both. Management, however, is not a static personality trait, rather quite the opposite; it’s quite dynamic, always changing and evolving. In some parts of my life, I am quite happy to follow. For example, I enjoy winemaking as a hobby. I have a home vineyard and winery, and frankly the wine I make is not all that good. I have a friend who consults on winemaking and that helps. I’m also a member of a winemaking club. I generally have nothing to say. The other members are much more experienced and take a leadership role even in our tasting conversations. Now if I’m to talking to my staff, it’s a whole new ball game. I have ideas, direction, goals and vision. I’m in my element. I am happy with that, but it’s not a choice; it’s DNA, an obsession, a calling as it were. You don’t have to lead or manage everything, or follow everything. No one is a complete natural leader or follower.
Getting to the top
You might be asking yourself right about now, “If I didn’t push my friends around when I was 12, can I still run a store?”. Glad you asked. Yes, but there are caveats. Management is filled with technique and strategy. There are goals to be set, metrics to be analyzed, coaching, progressive discipline, and much, much more to do every day. All that and senior management still wants sales to be better than last year.
Here is the rub, and hope for all of us. There is plenty of room to grow using desire and technique. But you have to want to run the entire place to get to the very top. Take heart; there are very few who get there. Of course, you could buy the position by buying the place, or even better, you could inherit it. Although that wouldn’t mean you were an obsessed manager either. Now if you’re not that lucky, here is what you need to do to become a wonderful manager of people.
Big picture management
Broaden your view. Having a wider and deeper view of things puts them into perspective. Think about a teenager saying to a parent, “I’ll die if I can’t go to that party.” News flash: they ain’t gonna die. Good managers can make decisions today that affect the future as well as the present.
Don’t negotiate what you know to be true. For example, if you believe sales will go up if every salesperson attempts an add-on, make sure that happens every time without fail. Anything less is phooey.
Make decisions on behalf of the company, not the staff. You work for the company, not your staff. And it isn’t all that personal when you write people up for not coming to work on time. You both will live. Trust me; I own a crystal ball.
Don’t spend as much time solving problems as finding out why you have them and how to fix the root cause.
Practice the 3 F’s: fair, firm, and fun. OK, fantastic, fabulous, fearless, and fermentation (it makes grape juice taste better).
So all in all, it’s about taking your staff to places they haven’t been. Reaching goals and having customers who want to shop at your store over and over again. I am kind of obsessed about that; how about you?
© 2008 The Friedman Group
Obsessive Management Disorder - To learn more about this author, visit 's Website.
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So you are 12 years old, and you are with a group of friends discussing what you all might want to do together on the weekend. You seem to be dominating the conversation with ideas you think will be fun. Other kids offer up suggestions, but you push for your ideas. They finally agree, and that weekend you and your friends participate in the activities you lobbied for. You even check to see if they are enjoying themselves and take some responsibility for the day.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are raising a leader, a manager, a future Master of the Universe. Management and leadership are compulsions, not a job title.
How many times over the years have I met district managers, supervisors, and store managers who got the job because no one else wanted it? Maybe they wanted more money, or senior management thought that person was the lesser of the available evils.
Take a hard look at yourself. Are you one of those people? Then I say, “Get out.” Save your soul, your dignity, your pride. The burden of management is not for you. Have fun selling or paint a picture and sell it. You deserve to enjoy your life.
Leader or follower?
There are leaders and there are followers. We need a whole bunch of both. Management, however, is not a static personality trait, rather quite the opposite; it’s quite dynamic, always changing and evolving. In some parts of my life, I am quite happy to follow. For example, I enjoy winemaking as a hobby. I have a home vineyard and winery, and frankly the wine I make is not all that good. I have a friend who consults on winemaking and that helps. I’m also a member of a winemaking club. I generally have nothing to say. The other members are much more experienced and take a leadership role even in our tasting conversations. Now if I’m to talking to my staff, it’s a whole new ball game. I have ideas, direction, goals and vision. I’m in my element. I am happy with that, but it’s not a choice; it’s DNA, an obsession, a calling as it were. You don’t have to lead or manage everything, or follow everything. No one is a complete natural leader or follower.
Getting to the top
You might be asking yourself right about now, “If I didn’t push my friends around when I was 12, can I still run a store?”. Glad you asked. Yes, but there are caveats. Management is filled with technique and strategy. There are goals to be set, metrics to be analyzed, coaching, progressive discipline, and much, much more to do every day. All that and senior management still wants sales to be better than last year.
Here is the rub, and hope for all of us. There is plenty of room to grow using desire and technique. But you have to want to run the entire place to get to the very top. Take heart; there are very few who get there. Of course, you could buy the position by buying the place, or even better, you could inherit it. Although that wouldn’t mean you were an obsessed manager either. Now if you’re not that lucky, here is what you need to do to become a wonderful manager of people.
Big picture management
Broaden your view. Having a wider and deeper view of things puts them into perspective. Think about a teenager saying to a parent, “I’ll die if I can’t go to that party.” News flash: they ain’t gonna die. Good managers can make decisions today that affect the future as well as the present.
Don’t negotiate what you know to be true. For example, if you believe sales will go up if every salesperson attempts an add-on, make sure that happens every time without fail. Anything less is phooey.
Make decisions on behalf of the company, not the staff. You work for the company, not your staff. And it isn’t all that personal when you write people up for not coming to work on time. You both will live. Trust me; I own a crystal ball.
Don’t spend as much time solving problems as finding out why you have them and how to fix the root cause.
Practice the 3 F’s: fair, firm, and fun. OK, fantastic, fabulous, fearless, and fermentation (it makes grape juice taste better).
So all in all, it’s about taking your staff to places they haven’t been. Reaching goals and having customers who want to shop at your store over and over again. I am kind of obsessed about that; how about you?
© 2008 The Friedman Group
Obsessive Management Disorder - To learn more about this author, visit 's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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