Diagnosis (as it applies to Sales Coaching)

OK!  We have determined that the lack of sales coaching exists.  Is that a problem?

Well, it depends. 

One of the assumptions we make when helping organizations create higher performing sales teams is their over all sales strategy.  We assume that the investment you make in hiring the right people, in training them on your products and services as well as the time they take of others in your organization is one that deserves the opportunity for growth and to develop these people to reduce turnover.  We don’t have any problem removing poor performers, but how much of the performance problem is our responsibility?  What kind of things do we do after we hire them or inherit them?

Do you have clear job descriptions?

Do you have clear job goals?

Have you defined the areas in which you will evaluate them?

How often do you discuss these topics? (Once a year?)

Assuming that you have these tools in place, you already have some of the components of effective coaching!  Let's stop for a moment and remind ourselves why we are coaching?  Is it just to change little things?  It might start this way.  However, our goal is to create a continuous learning team.  One that views the world with what they can accomplish with a little help.  What would it mean to you if your "team" had the same type of response that "Coach Carter's" team had after a major failure.

Now we need to diagnose the skills and knowledge of our sales managers.

Do they know how to effectively coach?

Do they ask, or get, help in their skills in coaching?

Is their version of coaching, telling a person what they did wrong?  (high turnover)

What role does diagnosis play in your organization?
Self Diagnosis is a difficult skill.  Diagnosis of the coaching environment and in your own skills are heavily based on the environment you had as an individual contributor.  Just as parents often say, "They want  a better life for their children, " it is true with most sales managers.  But how?  In our experience, people tend to leap to action too quickly when a problem appears. There is tremendous pressure in the system to do so, especially for people in authority. "Don't just stand there, do something!" As a result, we believe that the single biggest mistake people make in trying to exercise leadership is the diagnostic failure of trying to treat adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems.  During the SLC program we will learn about self diagnosis as an ongoing program, not an event.

Diagnosing yourself is just as important as diagnosing the system. Before stepping into a situation, you need to understand your own blind spots and triggers, what role you are playing in the organization, what values you embody and how you are perceived. Whether, when and how to intervene will be a function of how you diagnose both yourself and the situation, a process which will enable you to make conscious choices rather than rely on your defaults.