(Image retrieved from boldomatic.com)
It was 2007, and the sales executives on my team had years and years invested in their professional role at a Fortune 500 company, making six figures with salary plus monthly commission checks, and winning quarterly and monthly trips to exotic and relaxing destinations for their stellar sales performance.
One would say they were at the top of their game – or were they?
The team sold telecommunication products and services to an existing base of mid-sized business customers. The customers relied on their account executives to offer the right product (voice, data, telecom equipment) to help connect their multi-site enterprise (read: business) in order to communicate effectively across locations. Most proposals we delivered to our clients consisted of inter-state connectivity solutions for locations within the United States. Each account executive manages several customers who also have a global presence, and the Fortune 500 company they work for provides the world’s largest and reliable global network and product portfolio – in the world.
So to re-cap, we have a global company, with global solutions and capabilities, paying top sales executives six figures, and sending them on extravagant award trips, not to mention other amazing perks and benefits.
In 2008, the VP announced a new Director, responsible for over 250 front-line sales and sales leaders across 6 states in the US. This Director had an exciting vision with a plan of execution in hand. The very first time he met the entire group, he explained where he believed we were as an organization and pointed out that if we wanted to maintain our competitive edge, we all must begin to have “different conversations” with our customers. He went on to explain how much they needed us to deliver, and how much we needed them in this fast paced and technology driven world.
Did he just say we must change in order to survive? Did he have a change model to use? Or strategy that would get this many people to jump on board and overtime, create the transformation he so desired?
Had I known what I know now about Kurt Lewin’s 3-Stage Model of Change: Unfreezing, Changing & Refreezing back in 2008, I would say this is the model our new Director was most familiar with and maybe even executed on in his prior roles. At the end of the day – okay, at least one full year (and a half), the organization and its people were transformed, or as Lewin defines it Refreezed, to symbolize the act of reinforcing, stabilizing and solidifying the new state after the change (Hartzell, n.d.).
Looking back, and assessing my direct reports behaviors during this time, the stage in Lewin’s Model that seemed to be most problematic for them was the changing stage. As mentioned above, they were very successful experts (or so they thought), and as our new Director explained his vision, we were leaving so much more on the table (customers total telcom spend). We had several other products in our toolkit and the network to make a much wider reach (globally) to enabled our business customers to enhance their very own productivity, customer experience, and revenue goals. But we as an organization were not comfortable talking about these great assets. At this time, we lacked the education.
Unfortunately for multinational enterprises (MSEs), their competitive business environments are constantly changing and MNEs have to learn to adapt (Moran, Abramson, Moran, 2014). This is where “different conversations” comes into play – learning about our customer’s challenges, business goals, and budget, and aligning our solutions that best fit those needs.
What? Talk business acumen with our clients and not about what we are expert in (our products)?
What I immediately recognized was that my team members were creatures of habit and I had my job cut out for me. Let the stress levels increase. As their leader, I must motivate my people in the organization to want change (by overcoming the perception of threat and pain), help them unlearn old behaviors, help them learn new behaviors, as well as make sure that there is a support system (infrastructure, training, people, etc.) to make sure the change actually goes beyond lip service (Pennsylvania State University, 2018). The change stage is when the change becomes real. It’s also, consequently, the time that most people struggle with the new reality. It is a time marked with uncertainty and fear, making it the hardest step to overcome (Hartzell, n.d.).
My goal was to constantly communicate and provide the training necessary to increase the comfort levels my team needed in order to continue to succeed in their roles and that is exactly what I did from that day forward. After all, the more educated they are for this step, the easier it is to complete. Throughout this process, employees should be reminded of the reasons for the change and how it will “benefit” them once fully implemented (Hartzell, n.d.).
Speaking of benefit, after a year or more of getting comfortable with the big organizational change and having “different conversations” with our customer base, the sales team remained intact and were spinning quickly and better, like that of the flywheel principle (Kruger, 2017). Each top account executive was winning proposals that were in the millions, and global size in nature. My team members went from selling $2K proposals to $12K plus and as a result were also bringing home at least $20,000 annually than in years past. What’s more, our business customers were making more money, reassigning CapEx dollars to OpEx and trusting us as their experts who assisted them in meeting and exceeding their operational business goals.
Now that’s what I call “What’s coming, is better than what’s gone.
References
Hartzell, S. (n.d.). Study.com. Retrieved at https://study.com/academy/lesson/lewins-3-stage-model-of-change-unfreezing-changing-refreezing.html
Kruger, E. (2017). The flywheel principle for success. Retrieved at http://bettermanblueprint.com/flywheel-principle-success/
Moran, R. T., Ph.D., Abramson, N. R., Ph.D., & Moran, S. V., MA. (2014). Managing cultural differences (Nineth ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Pennsylvania State University (2018). Leadership in Global Context–OLEAD 410. Differences within groups versus differences between groups. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1942644/modules/items/24935391