Mementos and memories…

I like to keep a few keepsakes - makes me smile:

This was a gift from my ADP Major Accounts sales team.  I use it so often I’ve worn out the fingertip area.

Pens and pencils can bring back various kinds of memories, I suppose:

Consider the example of a fund-raiser for United Way who had to solicit contributions one day from a group of truck drivers as they showed up for work at six o'clock in the morning.  At that hour no one had the slightest interest in United Way, but the boss had ordered the drivers to attend the meeting.  As the fund-raiser was cheerily showing a videotape about the charity, the atmosphere in the room turned tense.  When he passed out yellow pencils and pledge cards, the truck drivers stared at them and did nothing.  Finally, one burly truck driver stood up, shook his pencil in a threatening fashion at the fund-raiser, and growled, 'I'll tell you what you can do with this pencil!'

     There was an awkward moment as everyone waited to see how the United Way representative would react.  The fund-raiser looked the truck driver straight in the eye and said calmly, 'Sir, I will be happy to do whatever you like with that pencil... after you sign the pledge card, of course.'

William Ury 

As a sales manager I was exceptional at recruiting exceptional salespeople.  People who were smart; driven; hard-working; I led ADP’s top sales team.  Perhaps my best managerial skill was staying out of their way. 

Like the United Way fundraiser, I wasn’t intimated by my team of “alphas”, but I did follow Casey Stengel’s advice:

The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.

Just a few years ago I ran into one of those alpha salespeople, Dene.  She wasn’t in the “undecided” group.  Said she remembered me being a “pain in the ass”.  Guilty. 

Dene wasn’t a top producer right away.  But she was talented and driven and it was only a matter of time before she would excel.  In the meantime however, Dene was subjected to my two-pronged, managerial principle:

• 1.      When my sales rep was above quota I would support them however they preferred – including just staying out of their way.

• 2.      If my sales rep was below quota I expected them to do exactly what I told them to do; exactly how I told them to do it; no questions; no discussions.

Micro-manager! you say?  Guilty again – but only with under performers.  When an under-performing salesperson complained I simply suggested if they didn’t like doing things my way just stay above quota.

In reuniting with Dene, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was thinking what I could do with that pen back in the day.

                                                            GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.