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Making A Difference – Thoughts, Observations and Opinions
This is Dave Brock’s Blog.
It offers my views on a variety of business, sales, marketing, and leadership topic. My goal is to make a difference for you, the reader, in both your professional and personal lives.
Latest Posts
Outsourcing “Coaching”
Coaching is one of the highest leverage activities a manager must engage in to maximize the performance of each person on the team. Sadly, too many managers don’t take the time to coach or, when they do, they are very bad at coaching. “Outsourced” coaching is rising in popularity–for many good reasons and too many bad reasons. In my own career, my managers have taken strong roles in coaching, and I have had a few “outsourced” coaches to complement what they do. And, as part of our business, we do a huge amount of “outsourced” coaching. I’ve gotten huge value […]
Start With Why, Then Ask Why Again, Then…
No I’m no channeling my inner Simon Sinek. But “Why” is a fundamental question we too seldom challenge ourselves with. The concept of the “5 Why’s” appears to have originated in in the 1950’s-60’s with Sakichi Toyoda as a cornerstone of the Toyota Production System. It is a fundamental problem solving/diagnostic tool, focused on helping us understand root causes. Why is this important? We have a tendency to react to and act on symptoms of issues we face–within our organizations. Our customers do this, we do this as we look at performance issues in sales and our businesses. We see, […]
Behind Every Problem Performer…. There Is A Problem Manager
In every organization, there are problem performers. People who, for various reasons, are not meeting performance expectations. They may be “C” players that need to raise their performance. They may be “D/F” players where other actions may be necessary. Too many managers think it’s the person, the problem performer, that’s the problem. They blame that person for their lack of performance. They fail to recognize their role/performance in enabling problem performers in the organization. Stated differently, behind every problem performer, there is a manager that hasn’t fulfilled their responsibility with that individual. Let’s dive more deeply into this, how do […]
Our “Attention” Problem
Recently, I participated in a Clubhouse discussion, it was my first and I was surprised to be invited to be part of the panel. After the discussion, one of the hosts asked my impressions. “It was interesting, we covered a lot of different ideas. But I wish we could have gotten into a few things much more deeply.” She responded, “I know what you say, but no one wants to get deep into these ideas. They prefer going through a lot of things at a very high level.” I reflected on her words, recognizing that we experience the same thing […]
“They Don’t Do What I Tell Them To Do!”
No, this isn’t a frustrated parent complaining about their children’s behavior. This is a complaint I hear from too many sales managers. Often, this comes up in discussions about coaching. Managers claim to be coaching, where in reality they are dictating/telling. I ask, “Do you understand why they aren’t doing those things?” Again, the frustrated response is, “Look, I know what works, they just need to do what I tell them to do! Otherwise, I’ll find someone who will.” I probe them, “Are you modeling the behavior you want?” Usually that’s met with a look of confusion or incredulity. “What […]
Going Through The Motions Or Doing The Work?
Every organization I work with has a “Buyer focused selling process.” Every organization has deal management, pipeline, and account management processes. Every organization has taken their people through the latest greatest sales training, spends thousands per person on tools. Every organization focuses on their ICP. Every manager says they coach their people. When I go through my checklist of the strategies, processes, tools, training, programs, systems that help drive sales effectiveness, virtually every organization checks all the boxes. They have the things that should support high levels of sales performance. I begin to wonder, if they have all this stuff […]