Agreement with Problems and Barriers

It's said that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. While it's probably debatable whether that is true or not, we'll use that as an analogy for this blog. The weakest link being your management team or executives going into agreement with the supposed problems or barriers put forth by the staff of the company. In other words, the actual problem is that anyone in an executive position is actually agreeing with the problems being suggested by your staff and by that agreement, making it a reality for the company which hurts many areas of the company resulting in bigger and bigger problems and crashed stats.

So the challenge is to get your management team and executives to disagree with the idea of obstacles, problems or barriers. They must be willing and able to listen to the staff and understand the problems but then be strong minded enough and strong willed to know that they are not really problems regardless of what is being said by the staff. They must push the staff toward handling the supposed problems. By disagreeing I mean, mentally not buying into the problem. For example, you may have a VP over the sales area who has a sales rep come to him or her to say that the reason there were no sales lined up today is because all of the prospects the sales rep is dealing with are getting answers back for various questions and so the sales rep needs to wait for the answers to close the deals. So in this scenario, the VP of Sales would become your weakest link and would add fuel to the fire to ultimately create bigger problems for the company by simply "buying in" to the idea presented by the sales rep why no sales could occur that day. The VP of Sales would then present that same idea to the senior executives who also buy in and the ripple effect continues to poison the other sales reps as the agreement of this idea continues to the point that sales have come to a grinding halt.

So the correct handling is for the VP of Sales to listen to the sales rep's reason and then immediately correct the sales rep to say something like, "I understand what you're saying here but the truth is, all sales are caused by us not by waiting on the prospect. We're the ones that make sales today or not. So, make a list of every way that you can get in touch with your prospects today to get an answer back today. Find any reason to call them as well as create a list of anyone you haven't called or need to get in touch with and then write the entire list down. Make a copy for me as well and then email and call everyone on the list today with an exact plan for what you will do to close each deal on the list today. I will check up with you to view progress at 10AM, 2PM and 5PM to see if you need anything. Thanks" This could be communicated many different ways but the point is, the VP of Sales would not express agreement or go into agreement with the idea that there won't be any sales today based on the reason put forth by the sales rep. The other sales reps would also see this as an example and realize that the VP operates this way and it will start to rub off on them as well.

A culture will develop around not agreeing with barriers or obstacles in the way of the company goals. The anchors to this strategy is your executives and management team. They have to be strong mentally to not be swayed by any of the staff's reasons so they become weak minded to agree with the problems or barriers. Their strength and complete disagreement will result in growth and expansion for the company. It will also result in a Spartan like team that pushes through all possible obstacles that present themselves.

To end with a great quote that forwards this concept, in the movie Mission Impossible 2, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins discuss the mission they need to take on and Commander Swanbeck says "you think this will be difficult?" Ethan Hunt replies "Very" in which Commander Swanbeck says "Well this is not mission difficult Mr. Hunt, this is mission impossible.... difficult should be a walk in the park for you."

So that is the frame of mind. Damn the barriers. Disagree.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group