After interviewing thousands of sales managers, we found that
the biggest difference between the "great" and the "not-so-great"
is the ability to manage stars. By "manage," we mean how they
recruit, retain, and keep their stars producing at top levels.
We have attended countless sales award dinners. One of the most
coveted awards is usually sales manager of the year, and in almost
every case, that award was won because of the contribution of a
star salesperson. Often, the star sold six to eight or even 10
times as much as the average performers at the company.
The reason stars perform so much better than their colleagues is
their incredible talent. Generally, they have striving and
impacting strengths that are off the charts. Such extraordinary
talents often don’t make for well-roundedness, but rather for
idiosyncrasies. As a rule, these unique individuals present more
than their fair shares of management challenges.
We were at the annual sales banquet for a software company at
which, as tradition had it, the company’s top brass was
honoring the year’s best performers. Toward the end of the
evening, they introduced David as the sales representative of the
year. His results were extraordinary. He had single-handedly sold
more than some entire districts. The audience greeted him with a
thunderous ovation as his results were recited.
Then David took the microphone and spoke. He thanked the founder
of the company for the great products he had developed. He thanked
the internal people for all their support. He thanked the sales
manager who had hired him and taught him the ropes. He thanked his
coworkers for their efforts. Each statement was greeted with an
ovation. Finally, he looked out over the audience and asked each
sales rep to work even harder the next year. It seemed the perfect
ending to a perfect evening. Then he did the unthinkable.
Instead of sitting down and basking in his glory, he looked over
the hushed audience and told them he had heard that two of the
company’s best products were being removed from the
commission plan the following year. "I just want you to know," he
said, "that if that happens, I’m leaving the company!" The
audience was stunned into silence as he left the podium. The happy
smiles on the executives’ faces had quickly turned sour. Even
though everyone agreed that he was entitled to his viewpoint,
everyone also thought he had picked the worst possible time to
express it.
What would you do if you were the manager? How would you handle
this "star"? Is David worth keeping, or should the company get rid
of him?
This particular company has a great track record of retaining
star salespeople. They understand that the very best can sometimes
be a bit unorthodox. The company chose to evaluate David’s
situation according to four criteria.
For them, performance is the first criterion. Many people can be
hard to manage, but only a few can deliver the numbers year in and
year out. In this company, if you want to be different, you had
better be really, really good. One manager told us, "There is a
fine line between a prima donna and an unemployed flake . . . and
that line is productivity."
The second criterion by which the company evaluated
David’s action was ethics. No amount of productivity can make
up for ethical lapses. Honesty and integrity are at the core of
this company’s value structure. They clearly understand that
ethical standards must be maintained by all employees -- no
exceptions.
The third criterion is mission. "Mission" defines how a company
wants to conduct business and the kind of reputation it wants to
have. Some exclusive department stores, for example, have a certain
way they want their salespeople to treat customers. So do many
companies. These are not ethical standards, but they can be just as
sacred to a company.
The final criterion has to do with community. How does the
salesperson treat others? Some stars can be quite demanding on
internal support personnel, but in this company they are not
allowed to become abusive. Everyone in an organization deserves to
be treated with dignity and respect. Sometimes tempers can flare
and a few tense moments can erupt, but systematic "torture" of
support staff is not allowed.
David’s manager got together with his own boss the next
morning to discuss how they should handle the situation. David was
a top producer, and he had breached no ethical standards. Although
his remarks had been made at a very bad time, they were actually
made with a good intent and did not violate the company’s
standards regarding mission or community.
So they met with David and told him they had not yet made up
their minds about the commission program. It was an important issue
to the company because profits for certain older products were
declining, and the company needed to focus its attention on newer
offerings. They asked him to represent the sales force on the
committee that would review this issue.
The manager never said anything about David’s remarks. He
realized he didn’t need to. All of David’s friends in
the company gave him enough grief. Instead, the manager looked
beyond his lapse in judgment and tried to address David’s
concerns and give him a way out. In this way, David could stay with
the company without losing face, even if the company removed the
products from the commission structure, which, incidentally, is
what ultimately happened, and David eventually came to support this
decision.
Handling prima donnas can be incredibly daunting. Yet your
success as a manager will depend on how many of these
"opportunities to manage" you can attract and retain. Everyone is
different. There is no cookbook that will work for everyone.