If you fail to Do It, you not only fail to improve your circumstances or obtain the results you want, but you also set yourself up for a continuing cycle of disappointment. The following story illustrates the consequences of not “doing it.”
As do many small-sized service organizations, Strategic Associates (not its real name) ran into difficulty sustaining its overhead and continuing its growth. During the past three years, the firm had learned to pinpoint the “cliff” of “no sales” that usually lay two to four months beyond current engagements. Strategic Associates (SA) executives used the cliff metaphor to represent the point on the company’s financial pro formas that showed no projected sales reven- ues in the future. As in many small professional service firms, the key people in the organization both sold and delivered the company’s services. Naturally, these key people watched for the “cliff” and turned their attention from delivering service to sales whenever they saw themselves swerving too close to the edge.
While SA’s organizational culture had become adept at avoiding the cliff, the situation began to change in early 1988 when the “cliff”
became steeper and more threatening. In fact, unknown to the rank- and-file employees of the firm, the president himself had to mortgage his home to meet payroll demands for two months. As word of the predicament got out, however, people began to wonder about just
how bad the situation had become and started speculating on who among them might be laid off if things didn’t get better.
In this atmosphere of dread, the entire firm dropped Below The Line as everyone began blaming various people, programs, and occurrences for lack of performance and for the recurrence of the “cliff” problem.
Although SA’s management conducted objective personal interviews with all employees to assess their performance, most people felt they were getting blamed unfairly for the company’s problems, which lay outside their control. After a lot of emotional venting at a weekly staff meeting, management and employees agreed that the time had come to move Above The Line and turn the situation around.
Subsequently, management invested a lot of time interviewing all the employees to better understand the real nature of the problem.
Then, at an historic company-wide meeting, they laid everything they had discovered on the table, holding nothing back, and unveiling charts and graphs that summarized all the pertinent facts of the situ- ation. Open discussion and dialogue ensued, with the express aim of solving the overriding issue of sales. Everyone worked hard to See It because the problem had become so pervasive. As the meeting pro- gressed tumultuously, no one held anything back because everyone figured they had nothing to lose. Clearly, unless the current situation changed, SA would have no choice but to start laying off people within the next two months. The meeting sounded a loud wake-up call for every employee as each came to appreciate both the gravity of the situation and the fact that they personally were doing little to help solve the problem.
Senior management had certainly made its share of mistakes, but employees, too, had avoided the sales issue because they felt it lay outside their control. Even those who had tried to sell in the past had failed to get good results, while others had not even tried to sell be- cause they received no incentive beyond delivering services sold by others. While some blamed management for poor training or the lack of attractive commissions, they also started seeing the limitations of their own comfort levels and unwillingness to challenge themselves and assume responsibility for SA’s problem. Everyone had allowed the burden of sales to rest upon the shoulders of the executive group, and in particular, upon the president. After all, since those key exec- utives had always made the necessary sales to sustain the firm’s growth, why should anyone else worry about it? Now, of course, with
the very life of the organization at stake, the realization dawned that everyone must worry about it.
Management, too, obtained from the meeting a growing realization that they had not acknowledged some important realities. In the past the top salespeople had received a lot of recognition for “saving the day” and bringing in the sales, and until now, they had to admit, they had shied away from sharing the glory and the wealth. With luck, they had always steered SA away from the cliff, but at this juncture luck seemed to be in short supply. As the senior staff listened to their people, they realized that all SA’s sales success stories starred the president and the chairman. In fact, the chairman always bestowed upon the selling of intangible consulting services a certain mystique reserved for only the elite among consultants. Whenever SA dug up promising leads for new business, the firm invariably put its very best salespeople, the chairman and the president, to work on them, a habit that had further fostered the perception that sales remained the domain of people at the highest executive levels.
As a result of the meeting, the chairman and president also came to appreciate that while they knew how to sell, they did not feel confident that they could train others to do so. Their own experience over the years had made them good salespeople, but they did not believe they could pass that along to another person through training alone. Finally, they admitted that their behavior stemmed, in part, from their own need to feel good about their accomplishments. After all, successful selling cemented their positions as stars in the company.
As the chairman and president owned the facts surrounding SA’s dilemma, they realized that all their employees needed to gain confid- ence that they could help solve it. If they could define themselves as part of the problem and own their own circumstances, they could help everyone else see themselves not only as part of the problem but as part of the solution. Given the gravity of the situation, each person must grasp 110 percent ownership of the situation, no matter how small their contribution to the problem, before SA could turn things around permanently.
As the president and chairman shared this insight during the meeting, more and more people began talking about how they could and would do whatever it took to accomplish the firm’s objectives.
Emotion ran high as people spontaneously recounted their feelings and expressed their eagerness to solve the problem. In a very real
sense, the organization’s power to get results increased tenfold as everyone developed a strong sense of ownership.
As the president led the group into a Solve It phase, he in essence asked, “What else can we do to achieve the results we want?” The ensuing discussion revealed a pent-up enthusiasm for solving the firm’s ever-recurring sales problem, not only for the immediate-term but for the long-term as well. The group began crafting a sales plan that listed the immediate involvement of every person in the firm, outlining what each might do to keep SA from falling over the “cliff.”
For the first time in SA’s history, each and every employee began thinking of what they could personally do to increase sales leads and impact the overall sales performance of the company. Some even considered friends and acquaintances they could tap for sales leads.
Even more important than this short-term effort, everyone engaged in hammering out a longer-term plan to involve the entire consulting staff in keeping the firm well away from the “cliff.” This plan centered on developing the sales skills of all the consultants. Eventually, everyone bought into the long-term solution: categorizing all incom- ing business into three different groups based on income potential.
Any lead for a company with annual sales under $250 million fell into the “C” category, which would be courted by any consultant without the aid of a member of the executive team. This aspect of the solution would immediately expand the sales team by allowing more people to call on prospective clients without risking the loss of more lucrative accounts. Over time, all consultants would gain selling ex- perience that would eventually prepare them for selling to bigger prospects.
The “B” category included companies with over $250 million but under $1 billion in annual sales. These prospective clients would be contacted by consultants and a member of the executive team other than the chairman or president. The “A” companies exceeded $1 billion in annual sales, and they would receive the direct attention of the chairman or the president, along with one of the consultants who might lead the ultimate engagement.
To implement this program, the senior consultants outlined a training and certification process for each category, and by the end of the meeting the entire group felt both enthusiastic and empowered to meet the challenge ahead. Most people felt they now stood in a position to benefit both themselves and the company with the new
sales approach, and the president himself felt that the new program would remove all limits and boundaries to the firm’s successful future.
Not only would the solution expand the sales force immediately, it would further develop all SA’s people, creating a machine capable of producing sales and keeping SA permanently away from the “cliff.”
After the meeting, SA’s people moved swiftly Above The Line, with everyone “seeing it, owning it, and solving it.” Now, finally, they were ready to Do It. However, as people turned their attention to the need for immediate sales during the weeks after the memorable meeting, the president managed to snare the firm’s largest contract ever, causing everyone to heave a sigh of relief that SA had solved its immediate crisis.
Almost overnight the longer-term concern of permanently avoiding the “cliff” and sustaining perpetual growth became a dim memory as all the consultants went back to doing what they had always done:
implementing the work sold by top executives. The picture looked rosy because this one huge sale, combined with SA’s annual sales to date enabled the firm to achieve its best revenue year ever. As a result, the chairman and the president perpetuated the myth that only they could slay the big dragons when they needed slaying, and they let the training and certification program fall by the wayside. While from time to time an employee lamented the return to “business as usual,”
none of the new sales development plans ever materialized. With neither management nor the consultants willing to take the risks as- sociated with the new approach, SA soon fell back Below The Line, waiting for the next “cliff” to appear, hoping that it wouldn’t be so steep the next time.
Of course, a year later, the “cliff” reappeared, and SA found itself right back where it started. Once again, the chairman and president shouldered the responsibility. Unfortunately, by not taking the step from Solve It to Do It, the firm could not stay Above The Line and get the results it really needed. Imagine what might have happened had SA followed through on its original plan. Not surprisingly, SA has grown sluggishly over the past five years because it keeps bumping up against the growth limits imposed when only the top people worry about sales. While the firm has expanded from $3.5 million to $7 million in annual sales, at least one competitor has grown from $3 million to $45 million over the same period of time.
That competitor knew how to Do It.