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The Lead - How Many Hats?
Earlier this year, there was great debate in the world of golf about whether US Ryder Cup Captain, Keegan Bradley, should choose himself as a player for the American squad to face off against the Eurpoeans at Bethpage Black in September. For context, no captain has also played in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963.
While Keegan had a great year, and ultimately could've been justified choosing himself, he decided not to. When asked about the decision, he said "I want to be the best captain I can be."
It's not uncommon within a small organization for leaders to ultimately task team members with taking on multiple roles. Business owners often do this themselves. It's often a necessity because of resource constraints. But is it actually a good thing? Especially as it relates to growth?
I've watched this concept play out in organizations primarily two ways.
Salesperson is also tasked with managing other sales people.
Business owner is the salesperson, among many other things.
I'll say for starters that neither of these things is inherently bad. I think both of these scenarios can be effective, it's just difficult and there are more landmines. Let's talk about some of those.
The first challenge is ultimately focus. Operating with attention divided is not easy. Being able to manage your time well is important, but that's not really what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the mental bandwidth.
Being really clear on your growth goals should help you to understand what's actually required. But do you have that?
Let's say my goal is to sell 100 deals in a year. My close rate is 33% so that means I need to talk to 300 prospects in order to get those 100 deals. How many qualified leads do I need to prospect, to have 300 conversations? Where are those coming from? How long is my sales cycle?
All salespeople need to have those metrics, but the importance is magnified if your job includes non-sales related responsibilities. That kind of clarity will allow you to focus on the important activites that are non-negotiable for reaching your goals. Your time will be constrained, and it'll be easy to shift gears as fires and other priorities rise to the surface.
The second challenge is incentive alignment. This one is pretty simple. If you're asking someone on your team to play multiple roles and want to know where they will likely devote their attention, just look at how they are compensated.
If you're the business owner, this may be less of an issue for you. At the end of the day, it's your business and so you enjoy financial benefit of growth, as well as operational effeciency etc. The bigger issue is if you've asked your salesperson to wear a non-sales hat in addition.
Quick example - at one point in my career, I was asked to be a player-coach for a period of time. Continue to work my territory and hit a quota, but also manage a team. I loved managing people, but I didn't have any financial incentive other than winning my own deals. Where do you think my focus was?
Lastly, there's the very basic question of ability. While you may be facing a resoure constraint, it's worth considering whether having yourself or another person take on an additional role may be a detriment because of skill level.
Just because someone is good at selling, doesn't mean they're good at helping others do the same Just because you own the business and possess all the institutional knowledge, doesn't mean you can sell. You get the picture here. If this is the case, the issue can get magnified beause with split focus, you may not be able to devote the attention to actually getting better and refining the skill.
Let's go back to a sports analogy. If you look at all of the coaches in the NFL, most of them played football at some level. But very, very few of them were hall of famers. Playing the game is different than leading others. Andy Reid is probably the best NFL coach today. He played in college, but never actually played in the NFL. It doesn't inhibit his ability to lead, because running a team is an entirely different skill.
The moral of the story is this - patching together a solution can be good for a period of time. But if you have ambitious growth goals, it's going to require serious attention. Duct-taping together the pieces of a sales organization isn't a long term strategy. You have to devote proper resources, find the right people, and lead them well.
