Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com February 16, 2015 • Hartford Business Journal 21 Biz BookS Employee engagement builds 'best places to work' "T he Best Place to Work — The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace" by Ron Friedman (Perigree, $25). The best places (BP) to work aren't the best because of their perks. They're the best because they believe that their employees are assets not expenses. As such, they're the intellectual capital a company needs to exe- cute their company's plans. So, it's not surprising that a key part of their culture involves ongoing employee development. Part of that development deals with the BP counter- intuitive approach to fail- ure. What's worse, failure or not trying? The BPs answer: "When we're afraid of failure, our performance stalls." With that ingrained in their culture, employees are encour- aged to take risks. By doing so, they create more possible solu- tions. The quality of their work improves as they learn what does work and won't work. They also know that won't-work-now knowl- edge may be of value as situations change. BPs also focus on expanding the skill set of their employees. By encouraging knowledge growth, they heighten employee productivity. Providing challenging assign- ments "fulfills their (employees) psycholog- ical need for competence and autonomy." Peer-to-peer coaching plays an important role, too. Peer-coaches help employees "figure it out" by asking open-ended questions like: "What would success look like on this project?" "What are some steps you're considering taking?" "How can you break the project into manageable chunks?" The session focuses on developing the direction of an action plan and its steps. Subsequent ses- sions explore what's next. The benefits of peer- to-peer coaching engage empowerment. The coachee figures it out and handles execution. The coach learns how to teach by listening. The organi- zational benefit: Peers know they have go-to colleagues with "whom they can discuss their next biggest challenge, without feeling pres- sured to have all the answers." The bottom line: Think of employee development as an investment in the cre- ative future, not as today's expense. • • • "A Beautiful Constraint: How to Transform Your Limitations into Advan- tages, and Why It's Everyone's Business" by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden (John Wiley & Sone, $28). To most people, a constraint represents a limitation that materially affects the ability to do something. The authors take a different view; they see a constraint as the "stimulus to find a better way of doing something." There are four areas of constraint that all businesses face at one time or other: foundation (core business maxed out); resource (manpower and money); time; and method (doing things a certain way). In many cases, these constraints intertwine. Here are two examples of how companies used constraints to stimulate thought and develop cre- ative solutions: In auto rac- ing, Audi found the answer to how to win more races when its R10 could go no faster than its competition. Its team shifted their focus from increasing speed to saving time. Audi used a fuel-efficient diesel engine and created the R10 TDI. Its increased fuel mile- age meant fewer pit stops, which saved time. The R10 TDI won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three consecutive years. Louise Waters, CEO of a LPS charter school, wanted to find a way to measure achievement of high school students. Beyond academic issues, there were variables related to low household income, stability of home, hunger, etc. She wanted to quickly find out if students grasped a lesson. Using donated remote-control clickers used to poll audi- ences at conferences (right-click to agree, left-click to disagree) students would provide instant feedback to their teachers. With feed- back identifying a problem, a teacher could then work with the student. Seeing a business opportunity that would help students nationwide, she used a limited budget to hire techies to develop the ExitTicket app for tab- let computers. It's now used in 4,800 schools in 108 countries. Key takeaway: Con- straints shouldn't con- strain ambition. n Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer. Jim Pawlak tHe rainmaker How to build a successful sales team Editor's Note: This is part one a three-part series on building a successful sales team. By Ken Cook H ere's a question for you: What are some descriptions for the types of salespeople organizations look to hire? What comes to mind? Frequent answers include hunters, farmers, finders, minders, and rainmakers. The hunters/find- ers/rainmakers are perceived to be skilled in connecting with new opportunities and closing new business. The farmers/mind- ers are perceived to be skilled in keeping existing customers happy, and sometimes uncovering new rev- enue opportunities in the existing customer base. In other words, those who can find new revenue, and those who can protect and maybe grow existing revenue. When building a sales team, here is where the challenge comes in: Many business lead- ers seem able to find people who can take care of the existing customer base. What is difficult is finding the salesperson who can find the new opportunity. What's behind this apparent dilemma is the belief that hunters are a small subset within the salesperson uni- verse. The belief is that a hunter's skills are advanced; they're not afraid to reach out, and rejection does not slow them down. In old school sales prospecting this was true. However, in today's ultra-connected world the ability to find and connect is unlim- ited. What is most important today is the abil- ity to make the connection a personal one. And in this case, many hunters could prob- ably learn some lessons from the farmers. Great farmers are successful because they nurture relationships. They connect with clients and build relationships with them. Long-term clients become long-term because of the trust that is built. Great farm- ers listen and generously provide help and solutions. The client feels safer with a great farmer who takes care of them. Many hunters operate differently. They look to sow their presence as far and wide as possible. The connections are usually sur- face level at best. The hunter tries to assess opportunity as quickly as possible, and if there appears to be none, they move on. However, the great hunters — those who are the best of the best in new business devel- opment — do not operate in this way. They are not prospectors; they are relationship builders. Think of them as super farmers. Great hunters have a web of relationships that are strategically built. The relationships span the marketplace at large. They include current clients, past clients, desired clients, and industry influencers. They also include peers within their own company and across complimentary firms in the marketplace. Each relationship has some depth and is at least "business personal." When a great hunter goes prospecting they make the connection through people. They know who they want to reach, and they find a way to get with that person through a warm introduction. Instead of overtly selling, they pick up the phone, call someone they know, and arrange an independent validation of who they are. This independent validation or warm introduction pre-establishes at least a minimal level of trust. "Jerry recommended him, so I'll at least take the call." If you are looking to hire great salespeo- ple, hire candidates who are pre-disposed to comfortably connecting and building trust. Identify the individuals with the skills and personality traits that enable them to connect with people. Build the sales team around this core characteristic. With this group of salespeople you don't need to designate between hunters and farm- ers. Rather, you can build the team around factors such as industry expertise or product or service expertise. In this way each mem- ber of the team leverages unique knowledge they have by focusing on relationships where that knowledge would be most valued. The bottom line — a sales team built with individuals inclined to connecting and build- ing relationships has the greatest probability of widespread success. You can teach prod- uct knowledge. People can develop industry expertise. These learnings have so much more power when the person learning focuses on relationships first in order to succeed. n Ken Cook is the co-founder of How to Who and co-author of "How to WHO: Selling Per- sonified," a book and program on building business through relationships. Learn more at www.howtowho.com. Ken Cook ▶ ▶ The best places (BP) to work aren't the best because of their perks. They're the best because they believe that that their employees are assets not expenses. ▶ ▶ What is difficult is finding the salesperson who can find the new opportunity.

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