CareerJournal.com’s Bend Without Breaking: Women Execs Discuss Flex Schedules is an interesting take on a woman’s leadership challenges.  This quote is what caught my attention:

Michele Coleman Mayes, senior vice president and general counsel of Pitney Bowes, says one of the main rules she learned early in her career — to never leave the office at the end of the day before her boss — is considered outdated by her 20- and 30-something employees. “We baby boomers were driven by face time, but younger employees say ‘what’s the point of that when everyone is wired and always reachable?'” says Ms. Mayes, who is 57.

Some women executives Ms. Mayes’s age glower when younger employees ask for flexible work schedules and complain they aren’t committed, she says. Ms. Mayes dismisses that view as foolish, saying it can cost companies talent that they need and, now, with technology, can manage in new ways. She arranged for one attorney on her staff to leave work by 5 p.m. each day to spend time with her young child. The attorney works from home on her laptop later in the evening and never misses deadlines, according to Ms. Mayes.

If you do not offer flexible work arrangements now, you should definitely prepare to in the near future.  This flexibility is expected from more than just the younger generations.  We are experiencing flexible hour requests from baby boomer candidates also.

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“Let’s be clear, I’m not going to take the assessments.”  That was part of a conversation I had with a sales manager recently.  It is surprising how often I have this discussion – either overtly or indirectly.

Sales managers are not fans of taking our assessments even though the assessments provide strategic insight into growing themselves and their team.  One cannot successfully look at a team – any team – without the context of the team’s leader.  In order to understand the sales team, we must understand the sales manager.

This disdain for our sales management assessment begs the question, why do they dislike the assessments?  My thought is simply this – the sales manager, at one time, was promoted or hired into the position.  Either way, the new sales manager was expected to bring extensive management skills that would be a perfect fit to this particular sales team.

But how many salespeople know how to succeed in sales management?

Take the top-performing salesperson who is promoted into the sales manager role.  They succeeded in the sales role so the assumption is they will “teach” the other salespeople through their own personal success.  That model is expected to lead to team-wide success.  But this approach is not sales management, it only works if you have a team of clones selling in exactly the same markets.  Surely you don’t.  Each salesperson is different in many facets, not the least of which are skills and aptitudes.  How does this new sales manager positively affect change in a salesperson who is not “wired” the same way as him?

I believe this is the crux of the problem.  Salespeople are placed in management positions without knowing how to manage their people.  If the sales manager candidate reveals this fact, they know they will not be considered for the position.

That fear brings us back to the assessments.  Woody Hayes was the legendary football coach at Ohio State University years ago.  Hayes was renowned for running the football almost exclusively (and ignoring the pass).  When asked about his run-always philosophy, he said something to the effect , “Only 3 things can happen when you pass the football and two of them are bad.”

I think sales managers take a similar approach.  The assessments will reveal that the sales manager is strong, weak or has deficiencies that the company did not know they had.

This approach is misguided.  Sales managers are typically the people in which the company has the most invested.  Sales managers are also the people who can have the greatest impact improving the sales team’s performance.  Even if a sales manager could be stronger, it is in the company’s best interest to invest in the sales manager’s ongoing development.  We will be releasing more information on a new program shortly in regards to this business-critical topic – please look for it soon.

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Interesting article from the Ottawa Business Journal titled The hard facts about soft skills.  The premise:

“The things that students are missing out on when the certificates are handed out are lessons in soft skills that actually make a business person who they are. The technological skills are relatively easy to learn, but the soft skills are what make you a business leader,” said Barry Gander, vice president of CATA and author of Success.

Gander makes an excellent point especially in regards to recent business school grads.  Technical skills are difficult to differentiate since they appear to be a commodity.  Soft skills are certainly the more elusive traits to locate (and measure) and therefore the better differentiator.

“There are five things employers will pay for. They include leadership skills, project management skills, people skills, communication skills and sales skills. Notice they’re all soft skills. Everything else (like technical skills) everyone else has too!”

He’s right.  I would take it a step further and say that companies will measure these 5 skills and we at Select Metrix will look at how those different skills interact.  This interaction is an important part of the equation.  One example:  strong communication skills but weak sales skills often reveals a schmoozer.  Schmoozers are dangerous because they are often smooth enough to look strong in interviews but their weakness is exposed once they are on your payroll.

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This week’s trait is one we bandy about here at Select Metrix often regarding salespeople.  This trait is important in all sales but especially in complex selling environments.  Pay special attention to the weakness description – it is a common issue we encounter amongst salespeople struggling in a complex sale.

Integrative Ability
The ability to evaluate what to do is also the ability to identify the elements of a problem situation and understand which components are critical. Being able to clearly see the component dimensions of a situation gives a person the ability to see different types of situation structures. Thereby, they are able to see different types of problem solutions.

A salesperson with strength in this trait is able to integrate all the variables of a situation into a single homogenous picture. The picture is then used to make decisions regarding planning, resource allocation, problem solving, etc.

A salesperson with a weakness in this trait may tend to not be able to see the most obvious problem solution. They may get mentally blocked by focusing too much on any one component in the problem (e.g., people, system structure, and resources). Someone with an intense weakness in this trait might also tend to have preset ways in which they solve problems. They find it difficult to break away from these narrow habits and utilize other problem solving techniques or methods.

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