Who’s Taking Accountability for Results?

Sadly, the Blame-Game has become a pervasive phenomenon in America’s corporate culture with Enron epitomizing increasingly popular finger pointing among top management. In helping my client companies grow their businesses, I invariably meet Blame-Game players, the people who make and accept excuses for non-performance, in all strata of the organization.

Taking a cue from Dave Kurlan, president of Objective Management Group, I believe it’s important to identify and eradicate lack of accountability in the sales organization in order to improve sales productivity. “Real growth and change won’t occur until an individual stops making excuses and starts taking responsibility.”

Identifying Accountability Issues

A local manufacturing company experienced declining revenues and margins for four years. Determined to reverse the trend, the management team asked me for an objective assessment of their organization’s business-development processes. The evaluation revealed that the entire team had a problem with excuse-making.

Interviews with key players in the company about why sales were declining yielded comments that ducked accountability, blaming the market, competition and management:

Customers have such unreasonable expectations.
Our competitors are slashing prices.
Manufacturing needs to get their act together.
We don’t get any training around here.
Marketing is way behind schedule.
Management is so confused; they’re clueless.
There’s no support help around here. We have to do everything ourselves.
The marketplace as a whole is declining.

In reality, when someone blames the economy, an external element, they don’t believe they have control over the outcome. Therefore they’re unlikely to do anything that will improve their effectiveness. When competition is cited, it’s really an admission of being outsold by the competition. When management incurs blame, that’s just the easy way out. As Kurlan explains, “They would be criticizing themselves if they were to take responsibility for not following through on something or letting something fall through the cracks.”

Fixing Accountability

Here are three rather simple, effective ideas to start eliminating lack of accountability:

Hire disciplined people.
Implement a No-Excuse policy.
Track performance metrics.

Hire Disciplined People

Ian Troup, the leader of Upsher-Smith as they grew from 8 to 200 Million in annual revenues over an eight year time frame, recently said, “If you don’t have the right crew, the right captain doesn’t make a difference.” Although I discussed recruiting in a previous article, having the right people cannot be overstressed as critical components of building a high-performance sales culture. Disciplined people, who operate with a high degree of personal responsibility (they don’t make or accept excuses for themselves or others), have disciplined thoughts, which fuel disciplined actions, which fuel disciplined results.

Thoughts--------Actions-----------Results

Case in point: A client company had a growing gap between their revenue projections and results. The president was quite proud of the leadership team he had recently put together, each with more than 25 years in the industry and excellent technical knowledge. However, upon further evaluations, both blamed their lackluster results on stiff competition in their respective markets. They let their competitors be an obstacle versus a stepping-stone to creative brainstorming and strategic development. Even given stiff competition, people with a high degree of personal responsibility would have delivered better bottom-line results.

Implement a No-Excuse Zone

Like the president of that company, we too often accept excuses. It’s imperative that we start recognizing excuses. Then, we need to enforce a No-Excuse zone where we stop accepting excuses of any kind, from any one, at any time, for any reason—even if there is a shred of validity to them!” Kurlan advises us to raise expectations by asking, “If you couldn’t use that excuse, what could you have done differently to overcome that obstacle? It sounds harsh, but the strategy empowers your people to work harder and smarter, knowing that you won’t accept that excuse ever again.

The VP of Sales for a local medical-device company flew all his sales people in for their annual national meeting. They only had one piece of “homework,” which was to be turned in at 5 p.m. on the first day – a major account strategy worksheet for three of their largest accounts. At the appointed time, only three of the 17 people had completed their worksheets.

They all had legitimate excuses: they were going to work on it on the plane, but the person next to them talked too much; they were going to do it last week, but they had a family crisis and couldn’t fit it in. Every excuse was legitimate. However, legitimacy does not change the fact that the paperwork didn’t get done.

What a dilemma for the sales managers who’s trying to build a disciplined sales group! Does he let them off the hook? Despite the fact that accountability is one of the sales manager’s most dreaded responsibilities, Bob took the high road and delayed the evening festivities until all 17 sales people had completed their documents. Oh yes, there were lots of groans. However, the next time Bob asked for a report, it was done on time!

Track Performance Metrics

Step four is all about performance measurement and holding people accountable, the most critical aspects of revenue generation. Research by Objective Management reveals that in growing organizations committed to developing consistent growth in revenues, 25 percent of a manager’s time is spent holding people accountable and measuring their performance in both activities and results.

Numerous tools can be utilized to enhance the accountability process, from fast-start programs to pipeline management tools to scorecards to Quick Quote Qualifier. Here is an example of one tool that can be helpful. One of my clients, a successful IT consulting company, uses Sales Track, an on-line activity-tracking tool. The sales manager set up the program with each rep, jointly establishing weekly/monthly/quarterly and annual revenue and/or margin results. Based on each personal income target, the managers and their reps determined together what revenue needed to be in the pipeline in order to meet their income goals. Once the revenue number was determined, they worked backwards to determine how many prospects were needed based on the rep’s closing percentage. By continuing to work backwards, they were able to determine exactly what key activities (phone calls, appointments, proposals, seminars and other best practices) were needed each day/week to achieve the company’s and sales rep’s goals.

Each Friday the sales people input their data. By Monday morning, both the sales rep and the manager get an activity/results report that analyzes where they are against annual objectives.

Accountability Accounts for Growth

The line that separates winners and losers in organizational growth is accountability. Losers only talk about why past efforts went awry, while winners take action and make changes.

Stop accepting excuses and making your own. Step up to industry’s most difficult challenge and make sure everyone’s responsible for results. To inspire your sales people to rise above their circumstances and to take action to achieve profitable growth, try implementing some of the ideas I’ve shared. And let me know how they work for you by emailing danita@salesgrowthspecialists.com.