ManageSmarter.com offers 7 suggestions for sales managers to make them more effective:
1. Do not micromanage people
2. Take time when increasing expenses
3. Take care of your “stars”
4. Be teachable
5. Focus on the things that make a major difference
6. Be sure to understand the ‘hierarchy’
7. Earn the respect of the people you are leading
You will have to read the article to get the details for each point. But here is the take-away from point #5:
There is a tendency to get caught up in making changes to areas that are irrelevant to productivity yet have a negative impact on the staff. Let the little things go while attending to the major shortcomings of the enterprise. Long-term employees typically resist change. Easing the pain with the process by altering the big things nets greater dividends.
How true. I worked at a company where there were meetings about the most ridiculous items that we became fed up with it all. A group of us who were tasked with producing results formed our own clandestine group with our own meetings. We discussed the major objectives and tasks at hand, divided them up between us and then went out and accomplished them.
It was like a shadow management team. And it was more effective than the lead team.