In the arena of Major League Baseball, Billy Beane’s now famous money-ball strategy was built on his understanding of the halo effect and the negative impact it has on player selection by General Managers and their scouting departments.  To counter the insidious bias of the halo effect (Nisbett and Wilson 1977), Beane’s unemotional strategy applied stringent critical thinking and statistical assessments to more accurately determine a player’s value.  Beane refused to let physical appearance and charm to cloud his judgment [in] when scrutinizing other significant areas of value.  Beane’s thoroughly rational vetting process enabled him to field a dependable playoff team for half a decade and revolutionize Major League Baseball’s approach to scouting.

Similar to player selection in Major League Baseball and therefore prone to the hazards of the halo effect, is the interview process of just about any corporation.  Consider for a minute a common recruiting scenario when after final interviews are complete the decision to hire a new sales person for an open territory comes down to two candidates.

Sally, has 2 years of sales experience with Enterprise Rent-A-Car.  She has no quantifiable results or track record of excellent production, but her charisma and charm have impressed everyone she has interviewed with.

Jim, has 4 years of sales experience at Xerox and a record of outstanding achievement but his interviews are less exciting than Sally’s.

Despite the facts, our intuition whispers that Sally has a more promising future than Jim does.  The halo effect generated by Sally’s charm has blinded our ability to judge and see other important qualities required for future sales success (e.g., perseverance, commitment, proven results).

Hiring mistakes a death walk for sales organizations and recruiters. Avoiding these mistakes is extremely difficult because blindly following our intuition is easy and habitual.

To achieve -sustainable success in hiring–a core competency requirement for sales leadership–we must consistently place our bets on the best all around candidate, relying more on critical thinking than on intuition.  We can all recall similar situations when we put too much faith in our intuitions allowing our impressionability to get the best of us, and made predictions that were too rosy, only to have the true character of the candidate revealed in lackluster future performance.  It is for these reasons Empire has developed a recruiting process based on discovering the candidate’s history of notable accomplishments and ability to articulate their path to success.

To thrive at selling products in today’s hyper-competitive and minimally differentiated business landscape, we must apply pressure.  If it seems like the walls are closing in, the competition is out-innovating us, or we can’t communicate our products’ differentiation, we will feel anxiety and pressure.  This is the unenviable anxiety of the passive and helpless passenger.  Passengers feel pressure, drivers apply it.

The meteoric rise of Umpqua Bank illustrates the critical need to constantly apply pressure.  In 1994, Umpqua had six nondescript branches around Roseburg, Oregon.  Today it is an industry phenom and recognizable brand.  For the past two years, Umpqua has been listed on Fortune’s top 100 best companies to work for.

Umpqua CEO Ray Davis has intelligently manned the helm throughout the company’s stratospheric rise, continually challenging company leadership to find the revolution before the revolution finds them.  Finding the revolution allows them to innovate and take charge of the marketplace, applying pressure on their competitors instead of Umpqua sitting passively and feeling the pressure of helplessness.

For as long as anyone can remember, the commercial banking industry, has competed for customers with the same bland marketing campaign–”bank with us, we will offer you a higher rate.”  Such uncreative marketing taught the doctrine, “a bank is a bank is a bank.” But Davis realized that for Umpqua to survive and thrive, the company’s leadership would have to find the revolution and for almost 20 years, Umpqua has been radically revolutionizing the consumer banking experience so it would not have to suffer from the anxiety of a severe correction.

Umpqua found the revolution by cross-pollinating the banking experience with a coffee house, an indie rock club, and a common living room atmosphere where family members play Wii bowling.  They have made the boring bank a place people want to go hang out. While hundreds of banks have died over the past 18 years, Umpqua has thrived and enjoyed great success because it actively applies pressure instead of passively receiving it.

Lessons and parallels from the meltdown of the banking industry and the success of Umpqua should both sound alarms and provide guidelines for success in medical device sales.  Like banks mindlessly mimicking the boring non-differentiated bank approach to marketing, medical device reps have sold the same way forever,[] as if the reps were saying “a device is a device is a device.”  While the medical device industry is experiencing a sharp increase in competition, it is also suffering decreasing surgery volumes, decreasing product prices, and decreasing commissions.  All indices are pointing in the wrong direction.

To win in this adverse environment we need to follow Davis’ foreseeing approach and apply pressure.  Medical device sales reps must practice more deliberately, prepare more thoroughly, and proactively find the revolution before the industry revolution crushes them.

Passengers on the medical device status quo bus are heading for a major crash.  Device reps must restore their value by reinforcing their sales professionalism and ability to communicate and execute sales.  PEPPER is the beginning stage for this radical revolution.  PEPPER provides the foundation needed to survive–and indeed thrive–through the storm of adversity, by applying pressure and forcing our competition to feel it.  There is no substitute for alertness and timely action.

To see how Mr Davis engineered the Umpqua banking revolution, read the article below.

http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2011/01/find_the_revolution_before_it.html

Experience tells us that you cannot create a vibrant, sustainable company, if leaders do not create a culture of attraction first.  The desire of a job seeker to join an organization must be driven by the company more so than by the particulars of the position.

When a person seeks a job with organizations like the New York Yankees, Google, Apple, or ESPN they are usually looking to join a team, a vision, and a culture.  The attraction is the aura and prestige of the company and potential for future opportunity and therefore the prospective employee is often willing to accept less money or a position for which they are over qualified, simply to become a member of the team.  The ultimate allure of the job lies in the quality of the company itself and the new hire will find value in just about any work assignment.

Unfortunately most perspective hires are more concerned with the specifics of the job they seek than with the value and importance of the company they will work for. Leadership must stand clear of these shortsighted job seekers and avoid the trap of filling an open position with a person who only considers job description and pay.  The indiscriminate job seeker; uninspired; will dilute the company’s culture and team spirit and rather than making the attainment of ambitious corporate goals inevitable, they will become impossible to achieve.

If a company wants to win in today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, it cannot be contaminated with these undesirables. Leadership must eliminate flawed and lazy hiring practices by building and communicating a culture, which attracts genuine and dedicated team players–people who value where they work and want to make a contribution.

Leaders in the medical device industry are notorious for the narrow-minded practice of placing value on job experience.  Instead of rising to the challenge of creating value at the company, they continue a recruitment process that begins with job seekers looking for a medical device sales position, rather than looking to join a culture.

The result is a company with disconnected employees who care only about what they do, with no concern for where they do it.  This cripples the leader and any possibility of creating a thriving culture.

Sustainability is only possible when the employees of a company have a purpose bigger than the individual and are willing to go beyond their respective job descriptions to help the organization succeed.  Leaders must create an identifiable corporate personality that will attract like-minded people ready to excel in that culture.  A motivated and enthusiastic workforce is priceless.

The transactional leader meets the material and survival needs of the subordinate in return for the services they render.

Vivid images of Irish emmigrants overcoming the harsh living conditions at the Five Points of New York City, or being exposed to the life threatening work conditions required to build the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, are proof of the innate ability of the Irish to overcome life’s unpleasant turns and succeed without complaint.

Our current economic downturn, societal infighting, and wars abroad give people plenty to complain about, but rather than reinfoce professor Maslow’s theory by complaining, the IRISH celebrate instead. They celebrate their fallen heroes, they celebrate their heritage, 
they celebrate their ability to grin and bear it, and they celebrate being IRISH.

This St. Patrick’s Day join the Irish in finding humor in life, listening to inspiring music, telling dramatic and hilarious stories, and celebrating until they are too tired to stand.

Happy St Patrick’s Day.

In contrast to entity theorists who believe in fixed talents, incremental theorists trust that with effort and strategic focus, incremental improvement will occur. And, if the commitment is steadfast, the improbable goals become inevitable achievements. Incremental believers focus on the journey of continual learning as their path to improved performance.

Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University professor, discovered that even at young ages the majority of children are either fixed or incremental theorists. Her studies also show that children who embrace incremental learning revel in the effort to improve, where as children who believe in fixed talent shun effort. The entity believer interprets effort or struggle as proof that one is not special or gifted. Trapped in their mistaken logic, they believe that if you were granted special gifts, like height, you wouldn’t have to work hard achieving them.

As with math, many believe professional sales people have been endowed with the ‘gift of gab,’ the likeability magnetism, and the magical combination of natural talent and charisma that people refer to as “it,” such as when they say, “That guys just has ‘it.’” The mistaken belief that sales is a natural-born talent is reinforced by a prevailing sales culture that focuses solely on performance goals instead of learning goals. Typically, sales people are rewarded for meeting or exceeding performance goals (e.g. annual sales revenue growth) and not for building skills. Dr. Dweck’s findings show that students who focus on performance goals vs. learning goals (e.g. getting an “A” in French vs. speaking French fluently) are less likely to persevere through challenges and obstacles than are the students who value incremental learning. Unfortunately, the entity student feels inferior or bad when their performance goals are not achieved and the fear of failure makes them avoid practice and struggle. By contrast, the incrementalist thrives on challenge. Dweck states, “With a learning goal, students don’t have to feel that they are already good at something in order to hang in there and keep trying. After all, the goal for them is to learn, rather than to prove they are smart.”

Strictly measuring sales success by performance goals propagates discouragement, lack of perseverance, and quitting. Perseverance and the ability to apply concepts to new situations are key components for sales success. When learning is the focus, grinding through challenging problems is embraced rather than being rejected in frustration. Struggle is not viewed as an indictment of inadequacy but as an opportunity to learn and persevere. In order to achieve elite sales results, sales leaders must instill a more expansive mindset in their people. Leadership must create a progressive environment where learning goals are prioritized over performance goals. For instance, at Empire, let’s broaden our focus to emphasize sales mastery along with our customary 20 percent annual growth goal.

Apply Dr. Dweck’s findings to sales–valuing learning above performance–means we must focus on improving communication skills. The professional sales person must strive toward communication mastery, which can be attained through deliberate practice. A means of such practice is provided by PEPPER, the first program to apply the theory of learning goals to professional sales. The founding principles of PEPPER are driven firmly into the bedrock of the most recent and advanced research in personal and professional achievement.

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Become CAPable Today!

Happiness is available to everyone, but like anything worthwhile it is difficult to achieve. A goal of being happy requires a serious commitment involving tradeoffs and sacrifices. We must understand and prepare for the challenges we will face on path to happiness then pursue it with passion and focus.

In their book The Progress Principle, Theresa Amabile and Steven Kramer reveal that people are happiest at work when they find meaning or a greater purpose in their job responsibilities. As leaders, we must consistently deliver a clear message on the theme of purpose and emphatically communicate why this job matters. When the greater purpose is established, the path to happiness at work can begin.

Amabile and Kramer’s research also concludes that highly motivated efforts and incremental improvements are required for achieving happiness in professional life. Pursuing happiness through self-improvement is an individual responsibility. We must know why we are doing what we are doing; motivate ourselves to engage in focused effort and recognize improvement in our capabilities.

The minimum requirements for achieving professional self-improvement is individual motivation, supportive leadership, and the right resources. We have chosen sales and sales leadership as a profession and it is up to each of us to pursue happiness at work. For the first time in medical device sales, we have a technological resource–PEPPER—to help us practice our communication skills, improve our product knowledge, and prepare flawlessly for objections. By tracking incremental improvement, PEPPER is what Amabile and Kramer call one of indispensable elements of professional happiness.

The pursuit of happiness is a personal decision. PEPPER provides the deliberate and rigorous practice routine necessary for sales people to

In order for the sales of company of today to survive, it must become a ‘smart company’,  by fully embracing the power and conveniences of the IT revolution. Improved access to data and the increased collaboration made possible by inexpensive hand-held devices are  two examples of the many advantages technology can provide.

Sales leaders who are serious about success in the 21st century should consider the points made by Friedman in this New York Times article and in his new book ‘That Used To Be Us’ and apply these concepts to sales force effectiveness.  According to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, it is not the strongest who survive, but the most adaptable.  Sales companies must adapt to the new economy or die.

“The more information and trends you are able to mine and analyze, and the more talented human capital, bandwidth and computing power you apply to that data, then more innovation you’ll get.”–Thomas Friedman

2012 must be the year of transformation.

Dirk Gorman,

Capable Leadership LLC,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/opinion/friedman-so-much-fun-so-irrelevant.html?_r=1&ref=thomaslfriedman

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The the title of leader is trumped when compared to the impact of someone actually leading. Leading is not a noun, it is a verb–it means action!  Leading requires measure that convey and support a vision of transformation; a vision that is powerful enough to inspire others to join the call to action.  Leading creates an on going movement that picks up velocity over time and continues until the transformation is complete.

Success in 2012 is not about ‘the leader’, it is about the act of leading.

Happy New Year.
Dirk Gorman
Capable Leadership LLC,

Regardless of the industry you are in, the reason for employee and management turnover is always the same; leadership is failing.  People often blame their industry, products, the compensation or anything else they can think of to mask the problem, but ultimately the burden of turnover falls on leadership.

The responsibility of a leader is to drive growth, develop a challenging and rewarding culture and create a vision that employees and top management can believe in.  The relationship between turnover and leadership can not be minimized; excessive turnover mean that leadership is failing.

Dirk Gorman,

Capable Leadership, LLC

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204083204577078403954893904.html

Aaron Rodgers has taken the NFL by storm, performing with such ease and confidence that he makes the position of quarterback look simple.  The article below chronicles Rodgers’
path to greatness, and not surprisingly it reveals a rigorous practice routine combined with an “inner burn” and total disdain for losing.

For three years Rodgers sat behind Packers’ starting quarterback Brett Favre, and for those same three years he lit up practice, directing the scout team up and down the field, frustrating the Packers’ starting defense.   He emulated the best in the game, studying for instance how Patriots’ Quarterback Tom Brady used his eyes to control the defense of his opponents, then mastering it himself, Rodgers would made it a part of his own arsenal.  Rodgers patiently prepared, knowing that his opportunity would come and when it did, he would make the most of it.

The path to success is always the same, fanatical focus, practice, and the “inner burn”(passion). PEPPER provides the practice field needed to become the Aaron Rodgers of sales.

Enjoy the article.  Comments are always welcome.

Dirk Gorman,

Capable Leadership,

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/sports/football/the-education-of-the-packers-aaron-rodgers.html?pagewanted=all

Conversely, those who are limitless,  independent and free to choose, approach their day with “I want to.”  “I want to attend the 545AM meeting tomorrow.”

Correcting your words will correct your mind.  “I want to” is the beginning of limitless possibility.

Dirk Gorman,

Capable Leadership LLC,

Using the information provided by professors Walton and Dweck, can reinforce personal accountability for breaking the mental status-quo, help remove limitations on our willpower and ultimately increase our ability to persevere on the path to happiness and success.

Today professional sales is a vital component to corporate success and the only means for a company to differentiate itself from the competition.  But, to unleash the power of sales, a transformation in the expectations of sales professionalism must take place.  The goal at Empire is to be a status-quo disruptor, therefore each member must break through their mental limitations and accomplish more than they ever thought possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/opinion/sunday/willpower-its-in-your-head.html

When You out produce your competition, Empire is the highest producing sales org in the nation.

When You are more prepared than your competition, Empire is the most prepared sales org in the nation.

When You are more intense than your competition, Empire is the most intense sales org in the nation.

When You are more professional than your competition, Empire is the most professional sales org in the nation.

When You are more passionate than your competition, Empire is the most passionate sales org in the nation.
When are Your best today, Empire is its best today.

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, Empire must out-work, out-produce, be more prepared, more intense, more professional, and more passionate than everyone in our industry. It’s up to YOU. Will You prove it, today? Empire is YOU.

Dirk Gorman,

Capable Leadership LLC,