Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up: A Maverick's Guide to Motivating Yourself and Your Team/Cassette

Pacetta, Frank

ISBN 10 : 0671886991 ISBN 13 : 9780671886998

Editeur : Simon & Schuster Sound Ideas, 1994

Synopsis

Book by Pacetta Frank

A propos du livre

Extrait

Chapter 1

Making a Statement: The Last Shall Be First

Cleveland gets a bad rap. As a city, it's the butt of snide jokes and gibes. But having spent four years in Dayton, Ohio, as an undergraduate at the University of Dayton and another ten working for Xerox in the Columbus area, I knew there was more to Cleveland than a river that used to catch fire and a baseball team that wouldn't.

Unlike some of my colleagues, who refused to consider a promotion and a transfer to Cleveland to run the district sales office, I jumped at the chance. Their reluctance stemmed in part from a misperception that they'd have to undergo a sacrifice of lifestyle to move to the "rust belt"; and they were wary of taking on a job that was widely regarded around Xerox as Mission Impossible. It wasn't that I was bolder or more visionary. The fact was, I would have gone anywhere for a chance to run my own show. I was prepared, confident, and determined to succeed.

Having said that, let me add that I had no idea what I was getting into. First, I agreed to leave my position as a district sales manager in Minneapolis (the number two position at that time) and only then did I thoroughly investigate the situation in Cleveland. Talk about leaping before you look.

Even so, had I done hours of research in advance, I still would have eagerly accepted the assignment. Theoretically, the Cleveland office should have been able to run neck-and-neck with any other Xerox operation in a comparable metropolitan area. It was doing about $56 million in revenue. With a central city population on the order of 500,000 people, and responsibility for much of northeastern Ohio as well, we should have been at least keeping abreast of places like Columbus and Cincinnati. Theoretically.

At that moment, though, of the eleven sales districts in Ohio, and sixty-five nationwide, Cleveland was dragging along near the bottom. I later learned that its reputation had sunk so low that in the mid-1980s when Xerox began pushing "Leadership Through Quality," the formula that brought the corporation back from the brink of death, major customers in Cleveland thought it was a big joke. Looking back, one of them acidly commented that our marketing strategy was to "sell by confusion."

When I got a look at the data, all the indices that I checked showed that the district richly deserved its infamy as a basket case. Even so, I spent my last days in Minneapolis planning ways to create a game plan and a mind-set that would put Cleveland back on top in the midwestern region and into national competition with bigger districts like Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and Denver. Raising the bar -- my favorite expression -- had begun, and I hadn't even set foot in the office yet!

Make Changes Immediately

I believe in the power of personal example. You can rant and rave and threaten, but the most effective way to get results is to show someone what you want done. On my first day in Cleveland it was clear that I had to reestablish the work ethic. I had reps and managers camped out in the coffee shop on the ground floor of our building at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. I immediately put the place off limits. Not by posting a "Keep Out!" sign, but by making it perfectly clear that a long, leisurely breakfast was a thing of the past.

I was at my desk the first day -- and every day -- by 7:00 A.M. The management staff didn't have to be charter members of Mensa, the society of geniuses, to know that it made sense for them to roll in at about the same time. The reps who reported to them quickly got the picture, too. The office was up and running by 7:30 A.M. Anyone lingering in the coffee shop had to be afflicted with suicidal tendencies.

And that's an important point that must be made right here. The new manager doesn't need to arrive on the scene with a sharp ax and a chopping block. No matter how shaky the operation, the first order of business is to start doing business again. A reign of terror, an immediate housecleaning, is only going to get in the way of that objective. Set a blistering pace at the outset and there will be no confusion as to what each person needs to do to keep his or her job. When there is no ambiguity-and no alternative -- people usually either get with the program or select themselves out. The house cleans itself.

Here's tip number one, so get out your highlighter pen: Come in and make a statement. Put a stake in the ground with a can-do attitude that has no gray area whatsoever. The cavalry used to arrive with flags flying and bugles blowing. You are the cavalry.

It's a matter of leadership. My working assumption is that everyone wants to succeed. It makes sense, doesn't it? But why don't they succeed? There are three reasons: deficiency of skills, lack of desire, or poor leadership. Many times -- probably most of the time -- it's poor leadership. That's why on a sports team, when there's a losing streak, the coach gets fired, not the players. The players have the skills and the desire, otherwise they wouldn't have made the cut; what's missing is the direction, the coordination, the motivation that can only be provided by a leader. Making a statement early -- and I'm talking about an actions-speak-louder-than-words statement -- puts everyone on notice that the leadership vacuum has been filled. In itself, that's powerful and reassuring news. Even more important, though, is the central message of this truism -- if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. Troubled organizations don't have the faintest idea where they're going, and the uncertainty is corrosive.

Whether you see yourself as a coach or the cavalry, tell 'em where they're headed! That's job one.

A Choice and a Chance

By getting off to a fast start in Cleveland, I was providing leadership and a basic level of motivation, which amounted to "The train is leaving the station. Get on board or get left behind; the choice is up to you."

This can't be a bluff or flashy and meaningless rhetoric because the skeptics will opt to wait and see whether you're serious. The train can't leave tomorrow or next week; it's got to begin pulling out the moment you set foot on board.

Those who have climbed aboard will immediately be demonstrating whether or not their skills are up to the task. The longer the startup is delayed, the longer it will be before you as a manager and leader really have a complete understanding of the resources at your disposal.

If I've inherited the gang that couldn't shoot straight, the first thing I'm going to do is hold a little target practice. I want to know what I have to work with, and I want to know immediately! Training, guidance, extra supervision can all be applied -- that's what a leader is there for -- but not if I'm just guessing about who can hack it and who can't.

I can't stress it enough. Get a fast start.

Back to the Future

On day one in Cleveland, I scheduled a meeting of the entire sales operation. We had a small auditorium set up like an amphitheater in the lower level of our building that suited the purpose exactly. I wanted everyone to get the same message at the same time.

It was great to be back in Ohio again. I was so pumped up I couldn't sleep the night before. If nothing else, I wanted the group to leave the room feeling the same way. And I wanted them focused on these key points:

* Change was already happening.

* Expectations were set.

* Nonsense was out.

* The work ethic and the customer were in.

* People were going to enjoy working in Cleveland.

* We would be tough but fair.

There were forty-four people on hand, the entire sales and sales support operation; all the seats were full. The sales management team stood together against one wall, looking like the receiving end of a firing squad or a police lineup. The imagery was unfortunate since they were the sales managers who would be running the seven individual teams of account and sales reps; in effect, my combat platoon leaders.

Aside from brief one-on-one conversations with the managers, I had avoided holding separate meetings that excluded the troops. At that stage, it would have been a mistake to work within any sort of hierarchy. Trickle-down communications guarantee confusion and misunderstanding. Don't use intermediaries; keep the lines of communication short and simple.

Going into the meeting, the atmosphere was definitely tense and apprehensive. Even those who had been performing up to par were worried. Those who hadn't were having a very bad morning indeed. The whole group knew why I was there. Or at least, they thought they did.

The first order of business was to recognize the heroes. It is always the number one item on the agenda when I open a meeting. What's the point of breaking your butt if nobody notices? Twelve reps out of thirty-four had achieved their sales goals the previous year. Overall, it was a rotten record, but those twelve deserved to be commended. Ignoring their success would have been a major blunder. Praise doesn't cost anything and it yields big dividends. A paycheck, no matter how large, isn't enough.

If you're a manager and haven't thanked one of your people for doing a good job today, you either have a seriously ill organization on your hands -- one that doesn't merit any kind of praise, which I doubt -- or you're cheating those people, ripping off assets that they've worked hard to acquire. So put the book down and go out into the office, or pick up the phone if you're home or on the road, and tell someone that he or she did a good job and that you appreciate the effort.

Don't be surprised if they're surprised. My people certainly were. They weren't expecting those few minutes of recognition at the meeting. The culture of failure was so well established that even the winners saw themselves in a negative light. I asked for a round of applause. I wanted everyone to get a taste of how good it feels to win. When the applause died down, I stood there for a moment in silence. Then, without a podium or notes, I began to run through the statistics to establish that the Cleveland district sales office's performance had been poor for the better part of three years.

The figures were grim. One set in particular spoke volumes. It showed that the average order rate per rep was the lowest in the region, even though Cleveland was nowhere near the smallest district. The ranking was close to the bottom nationwide, as well. I'd gone back and benchmarked several districts to track how well they were doing in other categories and products. In each case, these comparisons revealed that Cleveland lagged far behind.

Then I told them, "That's history. That was yesterday." I wanted to establish two things: first, those people who had worked hard and done a good job, despite the overall showing, were not going to be lumped in with those who had done poorly; and second, I needed to demonstrate that redemption was not only a religious doctrine. Each of them had a second chance. All they had to do was reach out and take it.

"I expect each of you to pay the rent every month," I said. They knew what I was talking about. Xerox top management sets a minimum level of business -- we call it a plan -- that they anticipate from the seven regions and the roughly eight or nine districts that comprise each of them. Most regions, I should note, are geographic entities -- northeast, southwest, midwest, etc. -- although, in some cases, special regions that have nothing to do with location are set up to allow for t0est marketing or special projects. In either case, allocation of the plan is based on the district's performance over the previous three years, but the regional vice president is permitted to do a little fine-tuning to account for a district's unique circumstances. Once that happens, the plan is apportioned among the various management teams based on the number of existing accounts and likely prospects for new business. The plan is the basis for the reps' compensation. If they beat it, there are bonuses commensurate with the percentage of the extra margin. If they fall short, IOUs come due and the draws that have been paid out must be reimbursed depending on the size of the deficit. When the system works right, with all involved participating in drafting a fair plan, it accurately reflects a district's potential sales, rather than imposing an artificial quota.

By referring to achieving the plan as "paying the rent," I was signaling that from then on, just as every family has a budget that must be met each month to put food on the table and keep a roof overhead, there would be no room for reps and managers who didn't cover their share of the budget.

I announced that each manager would sign a binding contract with me committing him or her to a specific bottom-line figure and a course of action to achieve it in the next year. Then the reps would work with the managers to develop contracts of their own to insure that each team would make good on its promises.

Achieving the plan is like paying a cover charge at a fancy nightclub. You get in the front door, but to buy a few drinks and a steak dinner takes additional cash. The shrimp cocktail, the noisemakers, and the funny hats are all extra. Just making plan isn't enough. The object is to beat the plan to advance beyond a meager subsistence existence.

The system won't work, however, if management panics and imposes unrealistic expectations on a district. A classic error is to rely on past performance. Conditions in today's marketplace change rapidly. Booms can flatten out and bust within a matter of weeks. If you're not paying attention, or living in a dream world, the wake-up call comes in the form of hardworking managers and reps who are wildly undershooting their plans through no fault of their own. Since compensation-is based on achieving the plan, and exceeding it, the salespeople end up being deeply frustrated and demoralized.

Conversely, writing off a seemingly lackluster territory as a perennial loser doesn't take into account long-dormant business conditions that may be on the verge of blossoming again. To escape both of these traps, I've learned to be a statistical sponge. I want to know everything about the area in which I'm doing business; raw data, anecdotal evidence, analysis, gossip, even educated guesswork by the right people.
ard

That's how, as I stood in front of the group, I knew that I was not asking the impossible. One look at the record told me that my new reps were not keeping pace with their peers in other districts in terms of the number of customer calls. They weren't getting out in front of the decision makers, and consequently, they weren't writing the business.

My rule is that if it is being done elsewhere, we can do it too and do it better. Cleveland's poor performance didn't have anything to do with inflated expectations. The opposite was true. Nobody was saying to the operation, "Just go do it! Just go do what they're doing in your sister districts!"

Salespeople are glib. That's why they've been hired. They can come up with a million reasons to explain why the deals aren't happening. Listen to them. Listen hard. Then look around at what other people are actually doing. Call a major account and ask when was the last time he or she heard from one of the competition's reps. Last week? Was your person in there last week? No. How long has it been? My feeling is that if the competition can work the block, so can we.

Xerox has a corrective-action program that I'll talk about later. It's very effective as a tool for catching and ...

Présentation de l'éditeur

Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up is a real-world story of winning in business by motivating employees in the most positive way possible—nurturing them, showing that you value their accomplishments, and giving them the skills and the responsibility to become winners.

Frank Pacetta, the hard-working man who engineered the drastic performance turnarounds of Xerox's Cleveland and Columbos sales staffs, gives the reader the same techniques he uses to build a winning business team:

* How to develop trust and create loyalty
* How to generate enthusiasm and excitement
* How to establish feedback and accountability
* How to rebuild an organization, and then lead and energize it
* How to put the organization on top and keep it there year after year

This book is check-full of practical, proven tips on leadership and management, everything from motivation to communication to all the nuts and bolts of selling successfully. And Pacetta has included his Top Ten Tips (and created Ten More Top Tips), which were featured in The Wall Street Journal and which have been copied and posted on office bulletin boards across the country.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Simon & Schuster Sound Ideas
• Date d'édition: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0671886991
• ISBN 13: 9780671886998
• Reliure: Cassette
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible