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Newsletter Archives
Welcome to NMA’s
Leadership Excellence – The Roadmap
Newsletter
Thursday,
May 3, 2007 – Vol.
9
Written and Published by Natalie R.
Manor
Visit our website at:
http://www.NatalieManor.com
Table of Contents:
1.
A
Note from Natalie Manor, CEO
2.
Delivering
Difficult Information Successfully to
Improve Sales Accountability
Dave Liddell,
COO
3.
Delivering Difficult Information and the Next Generation
Natalie
Hoffmann,
Dir. of Operations
4.
Resources for Your Roadmap to
Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully
=============================================================
Your
Roadmap for Delivering Difficult
Information Successfully
1.
A
Note from Natalie Manor, CEO
You want to know the hardest, most
difficult information you will ever have
to deliver? Well, in my opinion
anyway.
The hardest information to deliver is to
someone who is really making an effort
and their effort isn't making a
difference. They just don’t "get it"
even with all the training, time spent
with them, coaching, supporting and
helping them to succeed.
You have to deliver the news to them,
“this is not working”.
So this brings us to the place where we
get to examine whether that person, who
is not doing well even with help, is in
the right position or even the right
organization.
I coach a senior female executive
who has an administrative assistant
that is not doing well. They have
worked together for 5 years so there
is a deep and thriving relationship
between the two of them that makes
the admin’s inabilities to perform
even harder to discuss and resolve.
The executive and I discussed why
this employee is not doing well
after all this time. What we
discovered is the following:
-
The admin’s responsibilities
have increased 150% in the last
two years
-
The
executive has new
responsibilities and now has 15
direct reports she didn't have
two years ago
-
The
focus of the department that the
executive is leading has changed
and the responsibilities have
increased
-
There
is no approval for overtime past
the 40 hours of work for the
admin – the admin doesn't have
the ability to come in and catch
up
What we concluded during our coaching
sessions together is that NO ONE could
perform all the duties now assigned to
this admin. It would take 2.2 people to
effectively and efficiently perform the
job functions of the current admin.
My female executive was delighted with
the results of our research. Why,
because the person tasked with all of
the work was actually doing a great job,
but on an impossible assignment. There
was no way that the admin was going to
succeed by trying harder, doing more,
working on her time management skills
etc. She was in fact doing the best job
possible for her training and
experience.
The conclusions of the discussions and
research was to help the female
executive examine what is most important
to accomplish within her organization
and what are her best resources to get
the work done. It also allows the admin
to not spend her entire day feeling as
if she is failing which was severely
affecting her confidence.
As leaders you have an opportunity to
examine what is really occurring during
tough situations that appear to be
failures on the surface. If your
people are having trouble getting their
work done in a timely way, find out why.
Maybe their workload has significantly
increased, the mission of the
organization has changed, your
responsibilities have increased so their
responsibilities have increased also.
It could be that the perfectly
competent person you hired for a job
doesn't have the competencies or
expertise to perform new duties that
have quietly ended up on their desks.
Delivering difficult information
successfully will never be easy,
however, it can be done in a way that
increases performance, supports
productivity and takes care of your best
people.
Our next month theme is Teambuilding.
Watch for all the great information,
tips, techniques and strategies for
creating a superb team. Also, watch the
website for the
NEW
Teambuilding eBook with MP3. The
feedback on the content has been
outstanding.
My best,
Natalie
P.S. Just wanted to say
happy anniversary to Sandy
Mayo our Director of
Administration. She has
been with NMA for 3 years
this week. “Sandy, we could
not and would not want to do
this without you. Thanks
for all the love and
support.”
2.
Delivering
Difficult Information Successfully to
Improve Sales
Accountability
By Dave Liddell,
COO
One of the best aspects of what I do is
teaching sales leaders how to build and grow
a sales organization that endures through
hard times and thrives when their market is
strong. It requires sales leaders to acquire
a keen understanding of people and the
discipline to adhere to a selling system.
I am often asked by Sales Vice Presidents,
“Why is it so hard to keep many of my
salespeople focused on the sales process? We
provide plenty of training, but for some
reason it does not seem to help. What are we
doing wrong?” Of course, this is not always
an easy answer, but assuming a good sales
system is in place, the root cause can be
narrowed down quickly. Very often the
culprit is lack of accountability to
performance results.
A good sales system consists of a well
defined sales process, a CRM (customer
relationship management) tool to track sales
opportunities, product and sales training,
sales coaching (usually by the sales manager
but sometimes by external coaches), a
compensation plan aligned with the desired
behavior, and a performance management
system. The most important component of the
performance management system is the sales
manager’s ability and willingness
to hold salespeople accountable to specific
results. More often than not, this requires
delivering difficult information.
Drawing from my experiences with different
sales organizations, the manager’s ‘ability’
is rarely the concern – it is more often the
sales manager’s reluctance to confront the
sub-standard performance of certain
individuals. This is not necessarily an
indicator of a poor performing manager, but
rather a human reaction to avoiding
inter-personal conflict or confrontation.
Through my informal surveys with business
leaders this is very common – but why?
The answer to this question is impacted by
the sales manager’s leadership style and the
company culture, however, two common factors
are:
-
Sales managers consider themselves
friends of their employees first and
then as their manager second.
-
Performance management measures are
inconsistent or non-existent in many
organizations.
Let us consider one solution to this dilemma
…..
First, be sure that sales goals and metrics
have been clearly communicated and
understood. The basis for delivering
difficult information in a sales environment
is to ensure that all sales producers have a
clear understanding of their performance
targets (quota) and the metrics that support
reaching these targets. Examples of metrics
can be the numbers of calls made, the number
of quality conversations, and/or the number
of sales meetings. Achieving a healthy ratio
of metrics-to-sales is the formula for
success.
Second, the sales manager needs to place the
responsibility of poor performance directly
on the shoulders of the sales person being
evaluated. This requires a specific
description of sales person’s actions and
behavior, and a dialog detailing the
consequences to the organization and the
individual. Providing a description of an
individual’s behavior is not the same as
criticizing and is a much easier way of
delivering (difficult) information. This
helps minimize the manager’s reluctance and
positions the dialog for a commitment from
the sales person for improved performance.
Let me know how this works for you in your
organization. Send me an email at
dave@nataliemanor.com.
3.
Delivering Difficult Information and the Next Generation
By Natalie
Hoffmann,
Dir. of Operations
No
emerging leader ever wants to have
difficult information delivered to
them. Its already tough enough being
younger than everyone else who are the
apparent decision makers and to have
them say:
-
That’s
not right
-
You need
to add this
-
The
timing on that was not good
-
Maybe
you need more training in this
These are the
types of the comments that feel like insults
to us because we already feel as if we have
several strikes against us for being the age
we are and living in the time we are living
in. In order for you to understand what I
mean by this…insults… just think about the
last conversation to where you felt as
thought you were undervalued or dismissed.
For me when I am in this situation I feel
frustrated and not very effective.
Now that I have
made the commitment to work on my leadership
and communication skills I have found
several of these judgments and feelings I
have had in the past about comments people
have made to me are unfounded. I realize
now that my superiors and even my peers who
have commented on my training, timing and
core skills are really just trying to help
me grow as a leader rather than trying to
insult me.
I also have a
choice of how I feel when I receive
information. I can receive information by
thinking that what I am hearing is going to
be helpful or not. When I decide – ahead of
time – that the information is going to be
helpful, it is. When I think that it is
going to not be a good situation, I am
right, it is not.
In
order for me to have grown as a leader
and a better listener, I’ve needed to
find out what I value around wanting to
be an extraordinary leader. I have
needed to spend some time with me to
determine my goals and aspirations. It
is an interesting process and also
helpful. Finding out that my passions
are:
-
Contributing
-
Communicating in a superb way
-
Growing
people
-
Being a
life long learner
These have
helped me to know that the information I get
from “them” is really an answer to what I
value.
Getting out of
my own way has gotten me two big promotions
in the last two years, some nice money, a
company car and respect from my co-workers
who are ALL older than me.
Now, when
someone delivers information (difficult or
otherwise) to me, I listen with what I
value. What is really astounding is that
the information that I now receive makes
sense and the people who deliver the
information are less “duh”. Sounds like I
am growing up.
If you have
feedback about your own emerging and growing
as a leader in our next generation, please
feel free to email me at
Natalie.Hoffmann@NatalieManor.com.
4.
Resources for Your Roadmap to
Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully
Top 10
Coaching Questions for
"Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully"
Here are some
great communication coaching questions to
help deliver difficult information more
easily and successfully. We
often find that people like to print them
out and post them in your offices where they
can see them and refer to them often.
Feel free to pass them onto your peers and
colleagues.
Download your
copy here:
http://www.nataliemanor.com/downloads/DDISTop10CoachingQuestions.pdf
Article -
"Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully"
Here is an article I wrote on
“Delivering Difficult information
Successfully".
It can be found by using this link:
http://www.nataliemanor.com/articles/difficultinfo.html.
It has some great content that you can
use yourself or share with your team or
organization.
CD/MP3 -
“Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully"
After 20+ years of helping leaders just
like you with delivering difficult
information
through coaching and training we decided
to take all of our content and record
it.
Now you can
take NMA’s tips and techniques around
communication with you anywhere anytime.
For the last few newsletters our theme has
been around being able to deliver difficult
information easily and successfully.
We would like to offer you, our faithful
subscriber, our
“Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully" CD at a
special discount.
With your special coupon code offer
NMA’s
“Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully"
CD
is now just
$9.97 that is
a 50% savings
off of the regular price of
$19.97!
Go to
http://www.NatalieManor.com/shop and click
on
“Delivering Difficult Information
Successfully".
Once you login into the NMA Shop type
this coupon code right below your credit
card information.
DDIS050307.
Could you
use some support in your performance
management and leadership competencies? The
NMA Team and I
would be delighted to be a resource for you
in building and navigating your Roadmap to
Leadership Excellence in your organization.
Give us a call at 800-666-2230 or email us
at
Success@NatalieManor.com. We’d love to
be a resource for you and your organization.
NMA’s
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=============================================================
The NMA Team
NMA,
Natalie Manor & Associates
NMA,
Natalie Manor & Associates
is an organization of consultants,
corporate trainers and executive
coaching professionals who provide
measurable results for our clients in
the areas of Leadership, Communication,
Strategic Planning and Cultural
Development. To inquire about NMA’s
executive coaching, speaking, customized
training, facilitations and seminars for
your group or organization, or to
schedule an initial consultation,
contact us at:
Success@NatalieManor.com
Copyright
(c) 2007, all rights reserved.
U.S. Library of Congress ISSN: 1529-059X
You may copy, forward or distribute NMA’s
Roadmap if this copyright notice and full
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Contact us at:
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