Front line managers have the highest impact in driving seller performance. Sadly, too many organizations fail to set these managers up for success, as a result, the organization underperforms it’s potential. Millions are spent on training, tools, technology for individual contributors, while little is invested for front line managers. Coaching individual contributors is viewed as critical to their development and success, yet front line managers receive little or no coaching themselves.
How do we reverse this? What do we do to set these FLMs up for success, maximizing their own ability to perform, and through that, maximizing the performance of the people they lead?
Let’s walk through the critical success elements–at a high level.
Are we selecting the right people for the job? Too often, we focus on “Who’s our best seller?” We take our highest performing sellers and move them into a FLM role. But that’s not the job of the FLM! Choosing the wrong person can have devastating impacts on the organization they lead, costing millions to 10s of millions.
We need to develop rich competency models for our ideal FLM. Then as we look at the candidates, we assess them against the competency models. Among the things we should include in this competency model is: Team orientation–are they interested in the success of their teams or their own. Emotional intelligence–can they read their people, adjust their communication styles, have difficult conversations. Do they have a desire to develop others or are they just focused on their success. Can the balance strategic thinking and tactical execution? Do they have critical thinking and problem solving skills? Can they manage their egos, ensuring their people get the credit. Do they have a true performance orientation?
Do they understand their job–and that it’s different from their individual contributor roles? Speaking to managers, I often pose the question, “What’s your job?” Inevitably, after rolling their eyes, thinking, “Who is this dunce,” they respond, “It’s to make the numbers!!!” I immediately respond, “No that’s your peoples’ job! You job is to maximize their short and long term performance!” And too many managers don’t understand this. They focus on making the numbers, often swooping in to close deals for their people. Managers’ jobs are about maximizing performance. Whether it’s hiring the right people, making sure they have the right training, tools, programs, processes, systems. Getting them the support they need; sheltering them from the rest of the organization so they can do their jobs. And most importantly, coaching them and developing them so they can achieve the highest levels of performance.
Are they trained to maximize their own performance in the job? We invest millions in equipping our sellers for success. Whether it’s training, enablement, tools, technologies. By contrast the investment in developing managers to perform is a small fraction of this. Too often, they are given no training in coaching, performance management, leadership, and business management. While we may provide systems, tools, and endless dashboards, we don’t train them in how to use these effectively. We don’t train them in how to work with the rest of the organization, getting their teams the support and resources needed. As a result, they end up managing to the numbers without really understanding what those numbers mean and how they impact performance.
Are we coaching the coaches? Just as coaching our sellers is one of the highest leverage activities FLMs can do. Senior managers coaching these FLMs is critical. Helping them understand what leadership is, how to understand performance and the key performance levers they can leverage in coaching their own people. How do deal with performance issues. How to translate strategies into execution. How to model the right behaviors for their people. Just like their people, they need feedback, support, and development.
Are we removing or minimizing the noise? Perhaps more than any other role, FLMs are overwhelmed with administrative and reporting nonsense. They spend endless hours looking at dashboards or in internal meetings, providing reporting to senior leaders. Time management is one of the biggest challenges FLMs face–particularly helping them free up the time to devote in working with and coaching their people.
Are we giving them the time/resources/runways they need for their own onboarding, or to identify and drive the changes within their own teams. Somehow we seem to think managers can turn things around on a dime, that change initiatives can happen overnight. The reality is that things take time. Recently, I spoke to a CEO who expressed disappointment in the performance of one of the Global VPs. He said, “This individual isn’t hitting the goals!” I pushed back, “This person is doing as much as possible. First, the individual is relatively new in the role–and the region was very troubled when this VP was put into the role. So massive changes are needed to correct performance–and the individual has a plan in place and is executing that plan. Then, you froze the budgets. Part of that plan the plan that you approved and supported involved hiring a number of new people. But subsequently, you froze the budgets, preventing this VP from executing the plan.” It was a bit of a tough conversation, but to the CEO’s credit, once he was reminded of this, he realized the RVP was doing as much (or more) than could be fairly expected.
Are we developing them to step into bigger roles in the future. Just as we want to develop our people for both short and long term performance, we want to develop our managers to step into bigger roles as the organization grows.
Do we and do the FLMs really understand the ROI of their roles? Each FLM has a multimillion impact on the organization. It’s not just the revenue goals their people achieve–though that is multi-millions. But the impact of hiring the wrong sellers, or not addressing performance issues quickly has millions in impact on the overall performance of the organization. Are they retaining the high performers, or are these high performers leaving because of poor leadership from the FLMs? Or are we churning through FLMS (average tenure 11-18 months) so they never even get to address the performance and change issues? We agonize over the investments we make in tech stack, but we fail to recognize the ROI impact of good and bad leadership.
People are our greatest asset. Not just those on the front lines, but the managers responsible for maximizing the performance of those individuals. Are we setting them up for success?
Afterword: Here is an outstanding AI generated discussion of this post. Enjoy!
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