Subordinates at Fault for Workplace Conflict?

I, generally speaking, do not enjoy conflict, and therefore, I don't always deal with it very well.  Suffice it to say, in the moment I usually handle it ok (although I am known to back down too easily), but I absolutely hate it, and it will run through my mind for days afterwards, resulting in an all-out effort to avoid such a situation ever again.

So, naturally, I'm constantly looking for advice and suggestions for dealing with and reacting to workplace conflict.

Today Forbes was my resource (I find myself perusing this website like a snake on water these days), and I found this article: 5 Keys of Dealing with Workplace Conflict.  Seems like a good article for someone such as I - and, generally speaking, the article had good advice.  But there was one excerpt that really stuck out to me, and at the end of the day, speaks volumes about the author that made me less likely to "take his word for it" on other aspects of his advice:

"One of my favorite examples of what I described in the paragraph above is the weak leader who cannot deal with subordinates who use emotional deceit as a weapon of destruction.  Every workplace is plagued with manipulative people who use emotion to create conflict in order to cover-up for their lack of substance. These are the drama queens/kings that when confronted about wrongdoing and/or lack of performance are quick to point the finger in another direction. They are adept at using emotional tirades which often include crocodile tears, blameshifting, little lies, half truths and other trite manipulations to get away with total lack of substance. The only thing worse than what I’ve just described is leadership that doesn’t recognize it and/or does nothing about it. Real leaders don’t play favorites, don’t get involved in drama, and they certainly don’t tolerate manipulative, self-serving behavior."

The first thing that shocks me is that he is coming out and saying this in a public article when, in my opinion, it only defines him as an ineffective leader.  It appears that he feels that his subordinates are the cause of his problems, and if they wouldn't spend so much time reacting like children, conflict in the workplace would be easier to manage.  The clearest message to me here is that he does not have an understanding of how different personality types (and just different people in general) react to and deal with high stress and/or conflict situations.  And that he is a sucky listener.

But I want to point out some specific phrases that lead me to this conclusion, and are concerning to me from a psychological perspective:


One of my favorite examples
I find this a very strange way to start the paragraph.  As if he almost enjoys watching the circus of these leaders trying to manage their drama queens?

the weak leader who cannot deal with subordinates
This is a clear judgement without any substance.  He does not attempt to understand why a leader might respond in what he considers to be 'weakness'.  He insults his fellow leaders (who may have differing opinions) right out the door without regret.

Every workplace is plagued with manipulative people who use emotion to create conflict in order to cover-up for their lack of substance
Ok, here's my problem with this one: I get it - these people exist.  I've worked with them, for them, under them, you name it.  But I would say they are few and far between.  "The workplace is plagued" with them???  Come on!  This guy needs to spend more time paying attention to the reasons for these kinds of behavior, and understanding the motivations and needs of his workers instead of shutting them down everytime they show a reaction to stress.

They are adept at using emotional tirades which often include crocodile tears, blameshifting, little lies, half truths and other trite manipulations
Again, I don't think he's listening to his employees to understand their frustration.  I am one who has been known to cry in front of my boss once or twice in the past.  It's not manipulation; I'm just a sensitive person and sometimes I can't hold the tears back (and believe me I'm trying)!  And I'll tell you that there have been times in the past when I have resorted to things like blameshifting, little lies, half truths because I had tried being open and honest with my boss previously and the result was always the same: I get yelled at, blamed, punished, whatever because mistakes are unacceptable.  I'm happy to take responsibility for my mistakes.  But I'm not okay with angry inferences about my abilities or attitude as a result of my mistakes.  Just admit that you're human, I'm human, we're going to make mistakes, and when it happens we'll work through it to fix it, and examine options for preventing it in the future.  Is that so hard?

Real leaders don’t play favorites, don’t get involved in drama, and they certainly don’t tolerate manipulative, self-serving behavior."
I actually agree with this statement (outside of the wording "real leaders" which I think implies judgement against the "weak" referenced earlier in the paragraph), but I can't agree with it completely in the context of this paragraph.  It seems to imply to me that this leadership characteristic is expected to be applied quite often in the workplace, rather than on the rare occasion.


I was shocked that no commentators made any mention of these things at the end of the article.  Of course, his article doesn't exactly wreak with openness to disagreement or criticism. 

What do you think?  Do you agree with him?  Is there something I'm missing?  Am I irked about this simply because I am one of these manipulators he describes?

Unlimited Vacation for Full-Time Employees?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1823415/why-unlimited-vacation-policies-ensure-productivity?partner=rss

I have mixed feelings about this article.  Trust your employees to manage their vacation time?  Awesome.  Communicate to your employees that they need to be sure to "recharge their batteries" and avoid burnout?  Awesome.  Promote a work smarter, not harder atmosphere - as long as the job is done, take all the vacation you want?  Awesome.

I just want to point out that this only works if these messages are actually communicated and supported by management.  I had a job once that had a similar policy - as long as the job is done, I trust you to take time off when you need it.  Unfortunately, in this case, the expectations of "getting the job done" were ever increasing.  Whenever the job appeared to be coming to a close and some vacation time could be taken, the expectations increased and suddenly you couldn't take the time off because your "additional" responsibilities were now in need of attention.  So I think Management upholding their ethics and not using this as an excuse to talk employees out of vacation are essential to this type of policy working to it's full extent.  In which case, I think it's fantastic.

The other potential pitfall is that we simply live in a country of workaholics.  We are taught to work, work, work, at the expense of all else because that's how success is achieved.  If you are a person who is willing to sacrifice everything for success, than this is a great mantra, and I say go for it.  But I think it's very important for employees with families, hobbies, other responsibilities to be encouraged to put the phone and email aside during vacation.  Sometimes we just need a break.  A chance to be with family, to relax, and enjoy the daily beauties of life.  A good Manager implementing this policy will remind employees that though there may occasionally be critical issues to take care of during vacation time, be sure to actually stop working during vacation and enjoy the time off!  This has always been a struggle for me, and a lot of that is because former employers have emphasized work, work, work over taking time to "recharge the batteries".

If those two issues can be managed well (which I think simply requires an employee-centered workplace over a profit-centered workplace - knowing that an employee-centered workplace produces profits) then BRING ON THE UNLIMITED VACATION!!

Sales Article on TechCrunch.com

I found this article today while tooling around on the internet to see if others struggle with some of the sales challenges I face. 

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/05/the-excuse-department-is-closed/

I think this is a very important read for any sales professional.  Why?  Because it proves how easily and commonly this attitude prevails in Executive Management.  This article basically proves exactly why the guy behind the desk should not be managing and directing the sales team and their quotas.  It's so easy to say these kinds of things when you're not on the front lines.

I personally have experienced this quite a bit in my sales positions, much to my frustration.  I always imagine there exists a company out there that trusts its sales team and the feedback they provide... maybe someday.  This is where my desire to pursue a degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology comes in; I think the business world needs a serious slap in the face when it comes to the way that they manage their sales force.

Be sure to read the comments.  There are a couple of CEO's right on target there that bring some light and real-life experience to a naive and un-researched article.

What do you think?

Creativity Gone Wrong

I saw this sign today, and I just had to share it.  It was the store name for a bakery, displayed prominantly over the door: "Nothing Bundt Cakes".

Now, I definitely have very specific opinions when it comes to creativity, and what ideas are good and which ones are bad and I'm sure the person who thought this up felt pretty clever.  Lord knows I've come up with some pretty stupid ideas in the past that I felt deserved a whole lot more attention and validation than they merited... but there are three distinct reasons why I'm particular annoyed by this one:

1) I generally vote against almost any sign/slogan/ad/title that uses a pun.  With a few exceptions, and usually the exceptions are in the form of a commercial where the stupidness of the pun is sort of assumed by the surrounding context.  In this case, the pun isn't just the slogan, it's the store name!  I just wonder what kind of cheesy people run a place with a name like that?


2) The purpose of a pun is to mix words together that can mean two different things.  For example, if I made a comment in this post like "this store really 'takes the cake'", it would be funny (to some other than me because I hate puns) because 'takes the cake' can mean taking an actual piece of cake (which is one of the main ideas of the post) or a phrase intended as a complement towards the subject of the statement.  Well, "Nothing Bundt Cakes" thus should have two meanings, the obvious one is the play on "Nothing But Cakes", which makes tons of sense, and the other is "Nothing Bundt Cakes" which means....what??  Bundt cakes made out of nothing?  That makes it sound like the bundt cakes suck!

3) The store obviously served more than just bundt cakes.  But, personally, I've never had a friggin bundt cake that I liked, so I'm not going to step a single foot into that bakery.  Especially since the the title "Nothing Bundt Cakes" implies that they sell nothing but bundt cakes!

Anyways, my expressed frustration here is supposed to be jovial, so it's not like I'm going to lose sleep over this, but sometimes I think "if they'd just consulted a marketing person for 5 minutes they could've avoided such a silly idea!".  Hahaha.  Maybe the fact that it's silly will get them the attention they need to boost their business?  You never know...

Ideas for Sales Consulting

I've been thinking a lot lately about various skills and services I could offer to companies as a consultant.  At heart, I'm very much a free spirit, and I think someday that will ideally translate into being a contractor or consultant, rather than being employed by a company.  I like the idea of having the freedom of having full control over my schedule and my destiny, and I also like the variety something like that could offer.


So, one of my thoughts piggy-backs a bit off my first two posts, which have to do with Organizational Management and dealing with Sales Managers and Sales Reps.  Throughout my sales career so far, I've seen a lot of instances where there is a breakdown of communication between Management and the Sales Reps.  Not that the Sales Reps aren't understanding the communication from a literal perspective (although sometimes this is the case as well), but more that they are misunderstanding the tone and intention behind the communication.  Or in a worst case scenario, the tone and communication intended simply isn't meant to provide positive motivation.


Having been a Manager once or twice in my career, I see how easily this can happen.  You provide instruction and direction to your team, in what you feel is a positive but firm way, but what is received is a more negative, unsupportive (or even frustrated) version of the words that were delivered.  I see it even more acutely from the perspective of a Sales Rep.  There have been so many times when support, confidence, and loyalty were what I needed most, and Management instead delivered a swift kick in the butt.  Or when Management continually delivered swift kicks in the butt as a means to motivate our team, when they did nothing more than demoralize and depress us. 

Of course, the last thing the Sales Reps are going to do is approach Management about their flawed, or ineffective management style.  And I'm not sure it would be useful for them to do so anyways.  Wouldn't it be nice for there to be an advocate available to analyze this situation and make some suggestions for improvement?

What do you think?  This Sales Consultant (advocate) would need to have some additional skills beyond your typical strategy-focused Consultant.  Like the ability to get people to talk about more personal issues with their work that they otherwise would be uncomfortable divulging to a stranger, or the ability to be able to explain sensitive issues to Management, or skills in mediation.  I think the idea would be to keep it low-conflict, never isolate any one person (Sales Rep or Management), but simply to communicate the overall tone of the top-to-bottom communications and how to improve them.  Would you hire someone to do this within your organization?

Business Management Structure Continued

OK!!  So I know everyone has been waiting intensely for my game-changing, profound solution to the Sales Management problem detailed in my last post.  Never fear!  The solution is hear!  Hahaha. 

Anyways, I think the most obvious solution would be (that's a very strong "would") to simply hire a different type of person for the management position - put more scrutiny into that promotion given the specific traits that could make or break the rest of the team being managed.  That produces another problem, though: sales people tend to be very achievement-oriented (in my experience).  They like recognition, and especially with the hard work and long hours many of these folks put in to their job, they need a pat on the back/raise/promotion to a) feel like the job has been worth the effort and b) they probably need to value those things to be successful at the job in the first place.  I know that last sentence didn't make any sense, but damnit, I don't care!  You people are so fickle...

So my suggestion is rather than change who you hire, change the structure into which you hire them.  Right?  Attack the problem at the source.  Now, what we need is a way to get "big picture" people into management positions, while keeping top producers motivated and continually receiving promotions... I've got it! 

First, take the "Sales Manager" position and completely change the title.  Yes, perhaps this position requires more experience, but it is a completely different role than the Sales Rep so "Sales Manager" is almost misleading considering its overall purpose.  Maybe change it to something like "Enterprise Relationship Associate" or "Strategic Sales Team Member" or something that doesn't imply that it is "above" the Sales Rep position.

Second, change the way the role is described.  No longer is this the "manager" of the sales team (after all, I'm sure some Sales Executive could find time to check in with the team once a month or once a quarter to see if they're hitting their numbers, right?), but rather a "go-between" - a coordinator, if you will - who recognizes the high potential opportunities that span across the team and stays in touch with the team members to make joint calls or whatever to build those opportunities into some huge.  This person might have a yearly quota, but no monthly quota because the idea is that their opportunities will takes some time to build, and will pay off in a big way down the road.  This person could also handle sales training for the team to keep them up-to-date on new sales tactics and help the team to share successes and train each other in the areas in which they excel.

Third, create tiers for the sales team.  Perhaps the upper tiers have some sort of "reporting" responsibility, but no requirements to manage the team.  Just a title and pay raise that makes them feel special (pay would obviously be more than likely a higher percentage of commission rather than a higher base pay).  So the tiers could be something like this:

Sales Assistant
Sales Rep
Senior Sales Rep
Sales Account Executive

So clearly there is a feeling that meeting and exceeding quotas is being rewarded.  And then maybe you throw in the reporting requirement (Senior Sales Rep is required to collect and report numbers on a monthly basis to the Sales Executive who then submits a monthly report to the CEO or whatever) so there is some measure of increased responsibility.

And there you have it!: An enterprise "management" position that is equal to a Sales Rep position (after all, I think you could argue that this position belongs in the marketing department anyways), fulfills it's duties without needing to micro-manage the team, and a tiered promotions system to make the reps feel valued.  ANd think about this: with this system, you would actually be promoting and rewarding the REPS WHO ARE ACTUALLY BRINGING IN YOUR MONTHLY REVENUE (rather than the Manager that yells at them every week for not doing well enough).  Important?  I think so. 

I actually think this would be incredible beneficial from an HR perspective as well.  I say this because me and few other Reps I know would actually fit in better to the "Sales Manager" position because of some of the strategic/marketing thought processes required for that position.  I am going to be a lot more attentive (and have an easier time selling myself) to a "Enterprise Relationship Associate" job title than "Sales Manager".  And I imagine that someone who really loves sales, quotas, etc (the stuff I hate!) would be far more attracted to a Sales Rep, Senior Sales Rep, etc position as well.

The main purpose of this solution is to provide an environment where:

1) Your workers aren't doing "double-duty" - i.e. Sales Reps already do a great job managing and being hard on themselves, they don't really need a Sales Manager to do it
2) Sales Reps feel recognition and promotional opportunities in the organization for performing well/their position title indicates their importance to the company
3) Quality of life is better - stress is still there, but much lower because the Sales Reps are managing themselves rather than having their personal pressure doubled on them by their manager
4) You are placing the right people in the right positions because the titles and duties of a Sales Rep vs. Sales Manager are more attractive and fitting to the types of people that would really excel at them.

Number 4 is pretty critical because if you hire the wrong people into the wrong positions, this system starts to fall apart, but there are some pretty sophisticated controls in place in most HR departments that keep that sort of thing from happening too often.

What do you think?  Would you like this structure?  What holes am I missing in this idea?

Business Management Structure

I think it's worthwhile to start this blog off with with a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately, and which is deeply important to me.  It starts with a question: "Have you ever had a manager/boss you liked?".  Or perhaps, better worded, "Have you ever had a manager/boss who was motivating and enabled you to use your best talents and abilities to maximize your potential at your job?". 

For majority of the people I've talked to in my life, the answer is either flatout "no", or "I had one good boss..." or "Well, there were some things I liked about some more than others...".  I think I have met one, maybe two people in my entire life that have actually stated that all their bosses have been great.  Now, we can go around in circles about whether or not the boss or the attitude of the employee has more effect, blah, blah, blah... (yeah, that's right, I said it).  But from the perspective of a business owner, the goal is to improve and control what you can, and looking at your own structure rather than blaming an employee is far more productive.

So I guess I'm taking this from the perspective of the business owner.  In my (unresearched) opinion, there are very few "good" managers out there.  Good being defined as one who does what I suggested above:

"Is motivating and enables employees to use their best talents and abilities to maximize their potential at their job." 

I think I've been pretty lucky at my current position in this arena.  These problems seem to be minimized more than they have been elsewhere in my career.  But I think this problem is especially prevalant in the sales industry.  I have long wondered why Sales Managers are so horrible at their job??  In my experience, they tend to exhibit the following qualities:

Control Freaks
Micro-managers
Egos - always thinking they can do a better job than their subordinates, even when they've never been in the field
Use stressful tactics to motivate - pushing, threatening, making employees feel insecure
Believe that if employees simply put in more time and more effort, they will reach goals (no matter how unrealistic)
Disrespect for a good work/life balance

The funny thing about this is that sales is already one of the most stressful jobs in our country; and they think that adding stress and pressure is going to get more productivity out of their workers?  Now, granted, not all employees and certainly not all Sales Reps are as sensitive as I am.  I think I naturally take things harder than others.  But I've discovered that people also tend to levitate towards me when they feel uncomfortable, insecure, or just need someone to vent to.  Thus, I have had a LOT of conversations with colleagues about the demotivating tactics of our managers listed above.

Here's the interesting piece of this analysis: these are the qualities I've observed in successful Sales Reps:

Control Freaks
Micro-manage themselves
Tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves
Believe their bosses are right, and that if they just work harder and longer, they will achieve their objectives
Have an extremely difficult time maintaining a positive work/life balance

Hmmmmmmmmmmm… very interesting.  This tells me something that explains why the tactics of the managers don’t work so well.  The Sales Reps are already putting high pressure and stress on themselves; if they weren’t pro-active self-motivators, they wouldn’t have been hired in the first place.  Therefore, the additional pressure and stress added by management puts them in overdrive and leads to less effective work at best, and burnout at worst.

This also tells me something about the structure of Sales organizations, and solidifies a thesis I came up with recently.  This is generally how the hiring and promoting happens within a sales organization:

Impressive candidate is hired as a Sales Rep

Sales Rep delivers outstanding results and impresses upper management

Sales Rep is promoted to Management position to reward them for good work

Sales Rep may continue working up the ranks

Now, in my humble (and again, unresearched) opinion, based solely on experience, I think a Sales Rep and a Sales Manager have two distinct purposes. 

Sales Rep:  Build business, hit monthly numbers

Sales Manager: See larger opportunities amongst closed deals, build big deals and relationships that will pay off in the long run

Unfortunately, I think most sales organizations see the Sales Manager as the person who is supposed to keep tabs on the Sales Rep and basically be their “parent”.  BUT if they are hiring the right people as Reps, they are already managing themselves and do not need a “parent” to keep them in line, rather they need a “big picture” person to tie together potential opportunities they don’t have the time to look at or pursue.  That’s my justification for the above defined purposes of Sales Rep and Sales Manager.

What I’ve seen happen over and over, is a situation where a top-producer gets promoted to management, viewing this as an opportunity to manage his “less-productive” counterparts the way he manages himself.  This results in micro-managing and intense pressure on the sales team, and in the meantime the “big picture” high-level client development falls to the wayside because the Sales Manager is more concerned with monthly quotas.

My next blog post will go into detail about the solution to this issue because, quite frankly, this post is already REALLY long!!!