[Podcast] Objective Setting with John Sharpe

Mr. John Sharpe is the Co-Founder of Sales Transitions, a consulting company based in my hometown of Dublin, Ireland. He's an incredibly talented individual who helps coach and provide guidance to sales leaders and managers, and individual contributors. And we spoke a little bit in this episode about the importance of objective setting while coaching for performance improvement.

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Podcast Transcript

KJ
So tell me a little bit about this coaching performance framework that you're that you're selling right now.

JOHN SHARPE
Yeah, look, I guess, just without promoting ourselves, we are called sales transitions, or sales effectiveness. Companies consultancy firm, we provide benchmarking diagnostics, we provide Consultancy Services, anything from redesign or self process to compensation plan to another a third practice being capability development or training. So one of the capability training are actually a program that we've developed between two practices, Id evaluation and benchmarking. And the training practice is a sales manager program. And I guess, KJ, what you were particularly interested in was how we leveraged the whole concept of objective setting in that program. And and the reason being, it's really the program is all about driving a systemic performance improvement across the frontline sales team. By and of course, the manager is ultimately responsible for that. And in fact, managers core purpose, or sales managers core purpose, as we all know, should be to, should be to achieve for and live what we call that we call it unleashing total team performance where the highest number of reps hit or exceed their quota. And how a manager goes about achieving that effectively and efficiently is critically important and a key aspect in the program. But yeah, so. So that's sort of context, if you will, and reason. You know, we have a lot of clients who talk about, you know, driving performance improvement in their sales teams. And often the go to solution tends to be, you know, training the frontline sales team, but in actual fact, the sales manager can be leveraged hugely and isn't typically, in fact, development and sales managers, very much overlooked. In many cases, with rep rep training. Commonly the go to solution. And, and then the other challenge then for sales manager is most of them have come from being salespeople, to managers, and that transition, they don't take too easily. And actually, you show me a sales manager that's been actually trained and licensed, if you will, to manage and lead a sales team. I don't know any. Yeah. You know, much like we all needs to develop proficiency and to drive a car and secure a license learning to lead salespeople, it's the same. So yeah,

KJ
the different set of skills, right one is a rep trying to sell and close deals and negotiate and the other is a manager at the core of it. So exact saying proficiency and training you mean they need to upskill when they get hired as a manager, they need to upskill they need to learn the skill of management. And that's what you guys provide. Now. My credit, I'm curious to know, you say it's sometimes a little overlooked. The first thing if we want to increase our sales performance is to go straight to the reps. What what tends to happen is that is this an executive decision, the executive say, we're not hitting our targets, let's hire in here, consultants, let's go right down to the reps. And then you do a diagnostic sort of initial diagnosis of the situation is that help each customer because obviously each customer is different, right?

JOHN SHARPE
Well, you don't really need to provide any insights to point out To company leaders that really Yes, of course, their sales team needs to be developed and trained. But don't don't overlook the sales manager, because that's a key leverage point for you. And they're the people who work and live with the salespeople every day of the week, they have the most influence over their sales teams to leverage that influence, appropriately, so that, you know, and develop the manager and bring them up to what we'd call benchmark level quartile one level where they've really know the discipline of coaching for performance improvement, and are able to exhibit and extol the virtues of an everyday and in their, in their working life associate that is massive, because as you know, when you put a sales team on a training program, it might be one or two day program 80% of information goes in one ear and out the other retention. Unfortunately, our learning curve and retention as humans isn't great, and it gets lost, whereas managers with them the whole time every day, so leverage that critical influence that the manager has to develop the sales team. That's what we'd extolled.

KJ
Right? So the manager is the critical leverage point. And you target those individuals and you try to, you know, increase their proficiency in being a manager, not just selling, but in actually managing the people who sell. Yeah, what type of training do you provide them?

JOHN SHARPE
Well, we've developed a program that is sort of quite different in that, in that, first of all, we would need to make a custom made for the client. So it'd be client specific customization, we would take into account their industry, their selling dynamic, their team, etc. And then we would the two modules, if you will program is to evaluate and benchmark the sales manager for managers across the various teams within sales or against best practice against the best in the world. And we leverage competency evaluation to develop by a company called OMG objective management group to do that. And then we sit down and we debrief against those results. And we go through a development process to ensure that that manager was aware of the gaps that they have development gaps and their strengths. And we work with them to close those gaps and accentuate those strengths. And that would then be followed by a training a series of training modules around a discipline, the key discipline approaching for performance improvement, because what we know from the search is that, you know, if if a manager extols this behaviors associated with coaching for performance improvement, which are typically being able to coach effectively to being able to provide individualized coaching, based on the stage of development of each of the reps and reps are in four stages of development, they're either developing as a rep to emerging as a rep, excelling as a rep, or they're plateauing as a rep. So we need individualized coaching, and do that effectively, against the stage of development and rep is critically important. And then, of course, setting objectives. And this is where, I guess Krezzo comes in, we've typically used SMART objectives. But interestingly, you know, I've, I've, I've thought about this and I have had exposure to OKRs. And as much as smart, there's nothing wrong with smart objectives. I think that they're quite useful. We use SMART objectives in the context of management, performance management, really age old performance management framework called objective setting, supporting activities and review and recalibrate we call it OSR pieces the objective setting and the way we upset those objectives is smart objectives. As you know, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound, but they are they have gotten a taste and smart objectives have connotations and are perceived as longer term tasks and of managers typically use them for annual reviews and mid year reviews and with coaching performance for performance improvement. That doesn't work because coaching from performance we couldn't buy a sales manager with the reps is something that requires review supporting activities, reviewing recalibrate the objectives, and far more regular basis. And the frequency of that would be a function of the stage of development of the rep. So okay, let's do lend themselves to a more accelerated approach. Well,

KJ
that's you said something really interesting there that the frequency of review is dependent on the rep. So what you were highlighting is that, you know, if we take a quick step back, objective setting is a crucial part in performance improvement. You guys use it? You use SMART objectives, which has been around since, you know, past 6070 years, I believe, and very common. And what you're saying is, though, that, oftentimes they're used, or certainly associated with the sort of performance management arena, so they get annual and quarterly and they would you would you be inclined to say that they often get forgotten about some times, they're just if you're, if you're setting something quarterly? You know, he said, at the start of the year, three months later, you can't really remember what you said, you know, things change so quickly. So is that what you're trying to say is the frequency of review and these smart objectives is a little bit needs, needs changing to keep up with our modern day workplace, which is constantly evolving now?

JOHN SHARPE
Yeah, I think it's just a perception thing. In the context of driving performance in the frontline sales teams, when you're dealing with a rep, who's at the developing stage, where they're really just come into the business and onboarding, or trying to become familiar with systems and processes, the market competition, the product, or environment that's challenging, and they haven't even started to build a pipeline. So to start setting objectives with them, be it Okay, or otherwise SMART objectives or otherwise, and reviewing them every three months, and six is pointless, you're talking about very regular frequency of review and recalibrate those particular objectives. And I think OKR is lend itself to that, more than SMART objectives just from a probably a perception thing. One thing,

KJ
new kid on the block, right?

JOHN SHARPE
Yeah, you know, and the other thing, you know, SMART objectives tend to be one to one, typically used in private sort of one to one base, which is fine. But in the sales team, I think it's healthy to encourage, you know, transparency and alignment. And they are two characteristics of OKR. That I would like, and I think are appropriate in the context of, of what we do. But just to give you I suppose, an idea of how we use OKR, as we use it within two other frameworks. One is the GROW Model, coaching model. And of course, a sales manager needs to know how to coach needs to become effective at coaching. And grow is a very common, I don't know whether you're familiar with

KJ
grow KJ, oh, give us a give us a quick highlight of one

JOHN SHARPE
row is a common enough to use to coach anybody it can be. It can be it doesn't have to be salespeople, but a manager to direct report relationship. And coaching. People rely on this goldmine. So, go GROW Model is G for girls, are for reality, over options, and, and W for way forward. So goal is what you want. Reality is where are you now? options would be, you know, what could you do? And way forward is what will you do? So, that's a great a simple way of thinking of the GROW Model. And it's straining the manager to be able to build rapport, you know, for for the goals stage, for example, to be able to build rapport, demonstrate willingness to help with the, with the particular rep and question and that lead, because I said could be developing emerging plateauing or excelling. And that requires a different sort of individualized approach because they'll all have different challenges different world different dynamic. And, you know, we we then use a thing called the tight loose framework, and if you think about managers manage people, often a lot of people managers I see are sort of a polar opposites, they either micromanage or they they take this attitude of synchronous when, you know, we talked about the tight loose because there's shades of grey in between that and you need when we say tight we're dropping back close management convertor when we say loose, we're talking about freedom within boundaries. And then when when we're talking about sort of objective setting, of course, regardless of the stage of development of rapid, plateauing or excelling, or, or developing objectives need to be and always need to be clearly defined. explicit and clear, there's no sort of room for implied or assumed or anything, objectivity. In ordinary,

KJ
and who's responsible for the objective setting?

JOHN SHARPE
It's mutual, it's typically mutual. Because prior to setting objectives, when we sit down with the rep and, and start the process, when the manager sits down with rep and starts applying the learnings and concepts into the sort of coaching discussions, or coaching for performance improvement discussions, they at that point would have established you know, where the rep sits within those four quadrants, I talked about developing, plateauing, emerging and excelling. And just to give you a sort of, sort of mind's eye, if you think about the y axis being the vertical axis, and the x axis being a horizontal axis, we plot developing emerging, excelling, plateauing against the x axis, which is year to date, performance. Yeah, we're doing here today. And we plot the rep against developing emerging, excelling and plateauing on a Y axis, which is performance trajectory. So that would be things like how good they are opportunity conversion, or behavioral standards, sales activities, personal development. So you know, that's mutually agreed between rep and manager. And once that's mutually agreed between rep and manager, then the rep agrees, yeah, I'm in plateauing, or I'm in excelling or I'm in a developing stage. And that can be quite an easy process. And once you know that, we know that we're in that stage, then you can apply the tight loose framework to that, as well as the ground model. And what, what, what grounds, all of that is what we call this always or objective setting, support activities, sporting activities, and review and recalibrate, which as I said earlier, could actually replace be replaced by OKRs. And makes sense to do so. But to give you a sense of how the loose tie loose fits in, so, for example, when you start talking about how you're going to support the rep to meet their objectives, you know, if they're in a, if they're in a sort of excelling stage, well, then, you know, that's very much a hands off, low touch type of thing, because they're doing well. But if they're in a developing stage, that that becomes tight. So not only are the objectives setting tight for the developing rain stage, but it's also tied to sporting activities. And guess what it should be tied for review and recalibrate because so it's tied, tied tied across those three dimensions, if you will.

KJ
So, three, now, that's just interesting, because my one of my questions was going to be what's right or wrong is, like, is tight, the right way to go or is loose the right way to go? But essentially, it's contextual, it depends on the circumstance, if individual is in a certain stage of development, you act accordingly, whether it be more tighter on the leash or loosen the leash. And so that's that's kind of interesting, though. Because Wouldn't that conflict with sort of other ideology that there should never be a moment when you're tight micromanaging someone? Because essentially, people who feel micromanaged are less likely to feel confident in themselves and you know, more kind of working out of fear and anxiety that they might be fine

JOHN SHARPE
for us and we're not extolling that. My micromanagement is not what tide is, okay? Tide is closed management,

KJ
close, man. What's the difference?

JOHN SHARPE
The difference is with close management, you and you know, as I said earlier, regardless of the strategy development and rep, tied objectives are the way to go and they they and if you can think about it, there's no point in working with someone who who's excelling or developing and having a sort of assumed and implied objective between the two of you is that No, there isn't. So it's tighter. It's been tight around the objective. It's not been they're not close management in terms of following the individual to the toilet. checking up on them every day, okay in the context of job objective set objective setting, and then followed by tight or loose in the context of supporting their activities, that the activities to achieve the objective, and then tight or loose in the context of reviewing or recalibrating those objectives. So that's the context.

KJ
With objective when you say tight or loose objective setting, like for instance, and just thinking a tight objective setting might be something like shorten the time span, shorten the volume, that has to be his is it about confinements of the task into just smaller, smaller micro tasks? So it's, again, easier to build a momentum? Yeah, that one? Like, what could you give me an example of what type of objectives? Yeah,

JOHN SHARPE
well, again, we're bringing bring it back to the x and y axis, we talked about where to push to find where the websites on against that those axis the y axis trajectory performance, and that tends to be behavioral standard sales activity, personal development, opportunity conversion. So you're setting your you're trying to drive improvement across those sort of predictors of success is leading KPI rather than trying to just set an objective view message or a target, you know, what's the point in that sort of objective? I know I'm safe, my target? What am I going to do about it? So you go after things like the predictors of success, I know, they're all saying, if you do the right things, you'll get the right results. So you start setting objectives around behavioral standard sales activity, and the y that's the y axis, the performance trajectory axis. And typically, one an example for preventing that behavioral standard would be insured pipeline and CRM is up to date fully qualified by saying Monday 5pm in preparation for my weekly review, one to one view. Yeah, that's forever. And that, yeah, and even within the context of okay, oh, is that, oh, that objective set needs to be tight? What's the point in having a, so really, that's all that that means? It's close management of that title. And what

KJ
really, what, where OKR is, I think, land, we talked a little bit about its popularity and so forth. But actually, it's true true value for why people should consider if they're using SMART objectives, whether it's with sales teams, or other replacing with OKRs is the key or part because the origin of OKRs is about taking an objective, which tends to be aspirational, clear, but certainly not quantified. And using a key result, perfect example, being a predictive indicator, we encourage people to use leading indicators for success and quantifying the objective statement. So the objective statement could be, you know, something is as cheesy even as you know, become better become a great sales rep with my CRM, or become the best sales rep here in the organization or this month or whatever. And that you quantify with the key result. You say, Okay, how, what does that mean? How am I going to measure? It's all about how you're going to measure yourself. So that's why the combination of quantifiable with the qualitative objective statement is just what makes it a little easier for people and then a smart, objective framework.

JOHN SHARPE
Yeah, yeah, well, exactly. And, you know, when we talk about our program, it all culminates into a game plan. And within that game plan, you have one shader, which saw all a sales manager needs to drive effective coaching for performance improvement conversations. And when it comes to review and recalibrate that's all about, you know, how will we measure so you agree upfront, how will you measure and how will you know, you've succeeded? So, but I agree with you, okay. Or, again, I like the fact that OPR is a sort of based on, always put, they tend to a permit for us aspirational goals were smart objectives, given the A in Smart is attainable. So people don't tend to go for aspirational. They go for, you know, attainable, what they can have, yeah, and in sales, we need a balanced approach to drive performance. So I think that's where, you know, again, another reason why I like, you know, I might throw out the OSR framework and look at this, okay, or framework for all the acronyms.

KJ
There's a lot there's a lot but actually A something I'm curious to know that you might have come across. I was speaking with a gentleman yesterday, who is essentially an internal resource for what you're essentially doing with sales teams, he was doing it with an engineering team. So what he talked about was on an on a regular cadence, I think he said weekly, he would sit down with individuals, whether and managers. And his biggest challenge, you said wasn't getting the individual or manager like to update something. It was getting them to an environment that would facilitate the right conversation. Meaning, you know, they, they were meeting up on a regular basis manager and team, but they weren't really having the right conversations. They were just going through the motions, saying, oh, yeah, this needs update, okay, updated by whether they should be questioning, is this the right objective to assess? Should we change it? Why should we not change it? How should we measure it differently next quarter? So could you talk to me a little bit about that moment, because you've been in many rooms with many, you know, people trying to get them to have the right conversation? Could you talk a little bit about that type of scenario.

JOHN SHARPE
And I think this is a good one, because this is where the game plan is so important in the context of what we do, because it gives gives a manager of a number of frameworks which work together and complement each other. And what we call coaching for performance improvement frameworks, and a methodology and a systemic approach to have, you know, to be able to move from and once they start becoming familiar with it, or they move from what we call conscious competence to unconscious competence, and being able to, you know, have those conversations and the consistency between one conversation and the other, is grounded on the tools that they use. And the consistency between ongoing conversations with the rep and the question is, is is grounded on the tools that they use, and becomes mind numbingly consistent.

KJ
Second, language is like a shared language.

JOHN SHARPE
Yes, it is a shared language. Exactly. And there's no escaping it. And the good thing is that the manager becomes, is able to drive individualized conversations with with reps. And that's really important because when we did, we, you, we worked with a company called blacktop consulting, who, who did a lot of research into sales manager behaviors and best practice. And their benchmark study and research showed that 35% of reps receive, say they receive zero coaching and only 46% receive coaching consistently. And there was one I think, was one in 10, sales managers rate as highly effective by their reps at coaching. 83% of reps say that they're coaching, far more effective when their manager individualize that coaching. And the big one was a correlation between the manager getting to what we call quartile one or benchmark level by exhibiting all the behaviors and the right behaviors and those and the reps that that performed. And I think it was the probability of rep hitting target if a manager was at benchmark level was 61% versus 43%, if we only got to quartile two to four, as opposed to quarter one, so So there's a big upside in, in manager's ability to provide coaching for performance improvement, effectively and an individual in an individualized way in a consistent way.

KJ
So just so I understand that what you're essentially saying is currently, could be in your company, it could be in many companies, that the sales managers are overlooked. If they are given more coaching, they will increase the bottom line revenue of your company that what your Asian

JOHN SHARPE
basically makes sense, you know, if you do the right things and get the right results, and if so, you know, coaching, coaching, and particularly coaching for performance improvement, as opposed to live coaching, you know, the different coaching means different things to different people. And what they're talking about is driving improvement in direct reports, behaviors and results. Okay? A systemic ongoing approach to coaching.

KJ
Your specific when you define coaching, you mean specifically for managers who are responsible for individuals, teams, you know, individual contributors,

JOHN SHARPE
something that really addresses the sales manager challenge. And if the sales manager challenge can be summarized in 3333, key points, one is they go and they live in a world of noise, you know, they're bearing the brunt of what we call organizational squeeze. They're buried in admin meetings, and they're wearing many hats. That's number one. That's a big challenge for a manager. So how do they prioritize allocate time? How do they expand, what they would like to be able to do is spend a lot of their time and energy coaching. But they don't, because they've got all these other things going on. And they're struggling to find time. So that's number two, struggling to find time to sell and spend enough time helping their people sell. And the third one is big challenges. And we sort of alluded to it earlier, development is pretty much geared towards process and product for a sales manager rather than critical sales, leadership skills. So, you know, there'll be the three key management challenges, and there's all organizational challenges, as well, you know, under actually understanding what good self management looks like, is a challenge in itself, because the little research is available on that. And then, as I alluded to the top of the call, you know, often managers are overlooked, where development is overlooked. And I think from a time perspective, you know, a coaching energy, you know, how does it matter to go out, if you think about the typical behavior of a manager and how they allocate their time to coach in the first place, they would tend to go after the bottom 20, wouldn't they? Because they feel that it's the bottom 20 they need and they feel they need to, they feel compelled to help the bottom 20 to get to their team quota? Yeah, yeah, they also spend a lot of their time helping the top 20 Because, you know, it's rewarding, right. Consequently, that middle 60 Yeah, least amount of attention. And, but that's where their core, that's where the big payback is with that core performer, cohort.

KJ
That's exactly it.

JOHN SHARPE
Whereas the laggards in the, the 20% and the leaders of the other 20%. Now, that's a different conversation that we should be having with them, you know, with the with the laggards. Typically, there are people within that that are consistently underperforming, they don't have the right attitude, you as a manager know, they'll never make it. But you know, because we feel we need to have a pulse, we need to have a bit of resource in the team. And maybe something will fly in the window, we hold on to them rather than cutting loose rather than redeploying them rather than putting them out of their misery. And then the conversation with leaders needs to be different as well, because that's all about maximizing retention and ensuring that the succession plan, what after further challenge and help and actually put those top leaders within themselves, they're the ones that should be helping you to help that core, that middle 60 group. So even even something as simple as that managers get wrong.

KJ
Well, ironically, it's it's very ironic that it's reflective of the organization as a whole. Because typically, those mid level managers as we started this call are the ones that don't get the coaching in the organization, and they're the ones that can be most impactful. So essentially, the synopsis is, you know, this mid level management, particularly in the sales department, but perhaps across other departments as well. We've just focused on sales for this conversation, but that mid level management are the ones that can influence your your performance as an organization, far more than the individual contributors. And what they need to do that is coaching. Performance Improvement coaching.

JOHN SHARPE
Yes, absolutely. But you say far more than the front liners and then the front liners, drive that performance. But what I'm saying is that those middle managers, they need to be developed so that they know how to they know how to add effectively, efficiently manage their frontline teams for maximum maximum optimized performance. And that's something that's overlooked in most organizations, they do not spend enough time, even something as simple as we know that mutual trust is the bedrock of a relationship. So any manager relationship, I'm talking about a relationship and a sales manager to rep relationship manager, and owner, manager, middle middle manager to a normal direct report relationship, a rep relationship to a client with a doctor to a patient,

KJ
husband to wife,

JOHN SHARPE
wife, trust is key. And, you know, a lot of people don't actually understand that concept of trustworthiness. So we, we bring them through as a great equation on trustworthiness, which is trust worthiness is equal to credibility plus reliability plus intimacy, divided by self orientation. Yeah,

KJ
I like that equation.

JOHN SHARPE
So if you think about it, most of us feel that, oh, most of us rely on true you know, which most of us rely on on the sort of credibility and the reliability piece to get our scores high. We're not so good at the intimacy and when it comes to self orientation. It's all about also SaaS, orogen vested interest, so becomes high school and because it's denominated equation, it lowers our trustworthiness. So, you know, that's important, you know, and with trust, individual team and organizational performance all improved. That's, that's been proven. Yeah.

KJ
Well, now we could probably have a totally different episode on trust that I'm obsessed with. Because I think it's just this really strange thing that happens in our world, where, if it's only when you give it that you receive it? Yes. Which I've found in my life is like you. You can't really just tell someone, trust me, Hey, Mr. Customer, trust me, hey, sales manager, trust me, I'll get my number.

JOHN SHARPE
Well, it does work. But adoxa can

KJ
eat well, even then,

JOHN SHARPE
a choice guide, you're

KJ
adding credibility to just because they're a doctor, you know? Still, you've got to, you've got to give it before you get it back. And that's an interesting equation. I like that one. Yeah, well.

JOHN SHARPE
So getting back to, I guess, the core of your conversation, which is whether I should change and I know you've been trying to influence change from SMART objectives to OKR, isn't it? And again, I do, we've sort of discussed three reasons why I should do that one. I think smart objectives do have a perception of longer term reviews, whereas posting for performance improvement is all about more frequency and regularity in the review calibrations side of things. And that aspirational versus attainable, you know that that's another reason for using it. And also the transparency and alignment. Again, smart objective centered to be that one to one thing. So, you know, overall, I think OKR is can in effect replace, I call it replace the old with the new and no reason not to and, you know, I think it's something that we will be doing, because, okay, let's have a more sort of 21st century dynamic to them being associated with Google, I guess. And yeah, well, we're tired, tight, loose model that I described earlier. And the GROW Model. Yeah.

KJ
Yeah, they complement these newer models, you know, because they're, as you rightly pointed out, that we've evolved, you know, there was something before SMART objectives. I think it was called wasn't management by objectives, it was something else. It was a goal setting. Theory, I think it was called. And, you know, then SMART objectives were the new kids and but they were the new kids because simply that old framework didn't have time bound goals or specific so currently, remember who came up with it? Someone came up with the SMART acronym, that evolved goal setting because goal setting has been it's human nature. It's so deep in our psychological sort of beings. You know, we've always aimed at something and gone after it. Now. We've tried to label them. And this is this is the new generation. It's like version, you know, three, four, whatever it is. Yes. It's it is that version new version. Because Because our world is changing, you know, we've changed a lot in the past couple of years, our workplace. So that's another, just trying to provide more context to people when they they hear smart and then the hero pillars and the hair smother acronym and they're like, aren't they all just the same thing?

JOHN SHARPE
But yeah, you've got the CEOs and the cake guys.

KJ
Yeah, everyone, everyone just shouts out things when I say, you know, yeah, Krezzo is we do gold management people are like KPIs, Emil, like, they all come up with their new thing. But it's just to set the record straight. This is the latest version evolution. And it's evolved, because things evolve, or it's evolved, because how things evolve, they evolve out of necessity, not out of desire, simply out of necessity.

JOHN SHARPE
Yes. Yes. And I guess going back to that management, old tried and tested management framework that I talked about, which is used for years, the, which was the what have we we sort of summarizes OSR its objective setting, supporting activity and review and recalibrate. In actual fact, it's, that's what we're replacing, because, yeah, the objective side and OKR is, was it could still be based on smart, could be still be smart, and we just change out the attainable to aspirational and attainable, you know, so it's just playing with them. But I think the important thing is that you have something that, well for us within our program, we have something that can can be used on a more regular basis, adapted, as I mentioned, loose adapted to the stage of development of the rep. Provide, you know, the necessary review recalibration, which goes with measure the measurements side of things to change, and that it happens more frequently for sort of a more accelerated approach than the typical sort of mid year annual type of boat with more frequent check ins and the like, you said, it's make it transparent, you know, just like a sales team will put their numbers for achievements up on the board, let's put put our objectives to drive performance improvement,

KJ
accountability,

JOHN SHARPE
their ability, that

KJ
what you're saying is funny, because we, we all use different frameworks in different ways. But we're all rushing to the same red light, which is getting to an environment where you talked about unconscious competency, which I really love that phrase, and the shared language, like, you're ultimately trying to get to a point where the people in your organization who move it forward and perform, those people can have the right conversations, they can, you know, have a mutual language and mutual trust. And they can just talk about this stuff a lot, in a lot more clarity, save a lot more time. That's a button how you get there. If you want to use smart OKRs, whatever, that's, that's how you get there. But where you want to eventually V is at that point where people are much more aligned, they're on the same page, they have this shared language. And yeah, they're they're a lot more focused, ultimately.

JOHN SHARPE
Yeah. And, you know, let's, let's not fool ourselves reasonable. We're using these tools and frameworks and whatnot is to drive change. To an in my, in the context, the sales manager program that we do, it's to drive performance improvement, and that's changing itself. It's interesting, we sit by one of the things we cover, we talk about, with two managers about, you know, how they, how they find time to coach and motivate their people we talk about, you know, thinking about reps. Again, it's sort of a two by two matrix or consulting firm. Just another one that we all have. But if you think of, again, the the y axis being results and the x axis being desired to change, yeah, within that, within that sort of, and then there's four types within that independent rep, which would be high end results, but low on desire to change, but then the rapid, they're hitting their number, but low as payload is outstanding. And underneath them, they would have what we call had to track to the rep that's not eating the number, and doesn't want to change into the right of that you've got this driver, either rep that hits their number, who will put in the effort? Sorry, the rep that's not hitting, they're not hitting. But we'll put in the effort to do so. And Ultra change. Yeah. And then somebody with the achiever, and that's the rep hitting their number, and wants to get even better. Right? You know, why would we spend our time with somebody that doesn't want to change? You know, and have demonstrated, they're not prepared to change? And now, you might argue, well, you know, we've got to be able to work with people like that. And of course, one does, and we're not suggesting that one doesn't. When you're allocating precious sales manager, time to drive, drive in create, change and improve performance, you do have to think about, you know, where you spend your time and energy.

KJ
Now, we're getting now we're getting somewhere. This is nice. Yeah. So that is why the first step in your, you know, consultation is to diagnose, that's probably the wrong word. Just get a greater understanding into the willingness to change of each individual, so that you can allocate the time that you say, obviously, is very precious for a sales manager more effectively. Yes, that's an important one. And that just to just to highlight that to everyone, that that could be applied to anything, not just sales, like a fear rolling out OKRs think, just swap out the word coaching for performance improvement with OKRs, you're enacting some sort of organizational change, you need to identify the people in the room, who are the ones unwilling, perhaps resistant, perhaps even toxic to the change who are actively trying to tear it down? You know, those are the people that should be you should not spend your time on because it's, you know,

JOHN SHARPE
you need to be careful that will go in my world, you know, regardless if someone is an achiever or detractor your interest in them, and the way you treat them should not change your relationship is not about what quadrant they might fall into quadrant simply helps you determine how you spend your energy and time coaching.

KJ
Oh, yeah. When? So you spend less time on the tractor? Well, of course,

JOHN SHARPE
you know, it's still saying Why hit your head against a brick wall, but you don't behave, but you don't behave any differently towards them. And your interest in them should be the same, you know, you don't treat them you know, of course, from an HR perspective, you shouldn't anyway, and from just a human human perspective fisherman. Yeah, it's just giving you that sort of sense of certain managers don't think that way. They think shit, I've got to allocate my time equal equitably? Well, you know, why would you do that to someone who's just doesn't want to change? In fact, they're very happy if you didn't let them live in that world. You know, foot, you know, there are consequences to that. And, again, you know, one of the biggest, I think Mazhar has did a study on the impact on people who aren't hitting their number or achievers underachievers constant under achievers and the impact that has an overall team motivation. You do have to have those difficult conversations. And when somebody says, You've got to, you got to be able to have tough conversations. You got to be able to avoid avoidance, denial, neglect, we talk about you know, avoiding those things. And when you see something going awry, you jump on it straight away. To avoid that getting worse than they're stirring, you know. So, yeah,

KJ
yeah. Excellent. Well, listen, it's been a pleasure. And

JOHN SHARPE
we could talk all day KJ, you know, but I'm sure at some stage the talk would turn into pub talk.

KJ
I was hoping to get a bit of pub talk in as well. You know, that makes it that makes that brings the Irish culture into us.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai