When your team starts to drop the ball, these questions will
help you effectively troubleshoot and find solutions. BY LEE COLAN, INC online.
Is your sales team in a slump?
Just like a major league slugger,
your sales team’s batting average can hit a rough streak. When this happens, the
key is to avoid reflexively solving symptoms and instead focus on the deeper
problem. Here are four types of questions you should ask to figure out what’s
really standing in the way of a victory.
Goals: Does your team have a clearly stated and common
goal? Have the team members bought into it? Do your employees see a
direct connection between their daily tasks and the team goal?
Roles: Are the team’s roles defined and
documented? Are expectations consistent? Is the level of authority
for each role clear? Do your employees embrace their roles? Does each team
member have the necessary skills to effectively perform?
Procedures: Are there clearly defined, documented and
communicated processes on how the team makes decisions, shares
information, coordinates hand-offs, reviews work, challenges prevailing
thought, prioritizes work, and resolves conflict?
Relationships: Is there a reasonable amount of
(job-related) respect amongst team members? Do team members know and
appreciate the different knowledge, skills and perspectives that each
brings? Do they trust each other?
Solve the Problem, Not the Symptoms
You may find that a lack of clarity in one of the top three
levels (goals, roles, procedures) opens the door for misperceptions that can
lead to interpersonal conflict. For example, if team members do not agree
on or understand your common goal, they might start accusing each other of
having personal agendas. Or if team roles are not clearly defined, one person
might think another dropped the ball.
Your first reflex might be to directly address interpersonal
issues, but this should come last. First, make sure you’re defining clear
goals, roles and procedures. This will eliminate 90+ percent of what appear to
be interpersonal conflicts.
So, the next time your team is getting bogged down, ask
these questions, starting at the top with goals, to assess the root cause
and pull your team out of its slump.
