Building Blocks, Close Up! Spotlight on OD for Enablement

The War on… Sales Productivity??

Based on the sales research results I see (much of which is based on survey results from folks like you), I know that our efforts to increase sales productivity (which I define as “revenue per salesperson” over a given timeframe) or?sales velocity , are equally as (if not more) challenging as any other business issues faced today. We still have industry-wide/profession-wide productivity issues with declining win-rates, revenue plan attainment, and quota attainment.

If you want better odds at making a business impact, Sales and Sales Enablement Leaders, perhaps it’s time that you look into OD (and other performance improvement practices).

What is “OD” and How Can It Improve Sales Productivity?

OD is an acronym for Organization Development.

According the?Organization Development Network :

“OD is an effort that is:

• Planned
• Organization-wide
• Managed from the top
• Increases organization effectiveness and health
• Through planned interventions in the organization’s processes, using behavioral-science knowledge.

?It is not a surprise that the unit of analysis for OD practitioners is organization, which means that in OD we focus on developing organization capability through alignment of strategy, structure, management processes, people, and rewards and metrics.”

More Alphabet Soup

Another similar approach to improving workplace performance is?Human Performance Technology ?(HPT), espoused primarily by the?International Society for Performance Improvement ?(ISPI). It’s also known as Human Performance Improvement (HPI), as explained in this?90-second video .?The?Association for Talent Development ?(ATD) also supports a?Performance Consulting ?approach and has its own, similar?HPI model .

If you step out of the daily whirlwind of business life long enough and suspend judgment about how different these ideas are than what normally happens in sales management, you might be surprised to find valuable approaches that can help you significantly improve organizational sales performance. When you consider the tenants of OD, HPT, and Performance Consulting, there is a gold mine of opportunity here. Words and phrases I’d use to describe these disciplines include:

• Organization-wide
• Top-down
• Systemic
• Gap analysis
• Root-cause analysis
• Data-driven
• Evidence-based
• Problem-solving
• Business case
• Intervention (solution) development
• Change management
• Evaluation

Nice list, right? I’d also use the word “effective.” This is the stuff that top consulting firms do (and?performance consultants ). This is the stuff that performance improvement is made of. And, this is what we need more of, in sales and sales enablement.

All of these disciplines have things in common. They may use different terms and have their own definitions and frameworks, but each typically includes:

• A diagnostic or gap analysis process
• Root-cause analysis
• Problem-solving / Solution design
• Solution development (Sometimes referred to as an "intervention")
• Solution implementation using change management practices
• Measurement, evaluation, and guided adjustments until results are achieved

It’s unfortunate that many sales and sales enablement leaders seem to be unaware of the rich history of organizational performance improvement. The body of work includes the above-mentioned OD, HPT/HPI and Performance Consulting, but also disciplines such as?Organization Effectiveness ,?Organization Behavior ,?Business Process Management , I/O Psychology ,?Total Quality Management ,?Lean and Six Sigma ,?Change Management , and others. We need to fix this. (The links provided here are a good first step and many provide links to other resources.)

To further illustrate this point, I have two graphics that show the differences between typical sales enablement and what I refer to as sales performance consulting.

This first one shows the key differences:

And this second one makes the point that it's not Either/Or, in most cases, but Both/And (except for how executives view the function). It also shows how you can use a sliding scale or rating system to identify your current state and clarify where you need to improve:

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

It's probably obvious by now that I started with OD but am expanding too all related performance improvement approaches. So, why are OD, HPT, Sales Performance Consulting, and these other disciplines not recognized by more sales leaders and used by more sales performance improvement professionals (sales training, enablement, operations, effectiveness, etc.)?

“We Have Met the Enemy

and He is Us.”

~?Walt Kelly , cartoonist,?via “Pogo”

Speaking in generalities (with a wide margin for error but also a grain of truth):

• People that gravitate toward performance consulting roles?tend?to be highly analytical, measured, exacting, and detailed.
• People that gravitate toward top sales leadership roles?tend?to be Type-A drivers with a bias for action and bullet-point level communication.
• Putting the two groups together is often more like mixing oil and water than peanut butter and chocolate.

For anyone who has been around for a while in the sales profession, I’m sure you can see similarities between this and the common misalignments between Sales and Marketing. While that problem still exists in many organizations, the need for alignment gets airplay, at least, and we see progress being made. Improvements in technology, the published content of experts in sales and marketing alignment, demand generation practices with better handoffs, and Account-Based Marketing and Selling principles have all helped. The advent of a Chief Revenue Officer role, while execution varies greatly, has the right intent with the goal of alignment across sales, marketing, and customer success/service. While I wish the focus were more on the customer (outside-in) than revenue (inside-out), the cross-functional alignment is the right idea.

In contrast, the widespread, well-known ineffectiveness of sales training (or more appropriately, the ineffectiveness of many implementations with a rampant lack of reinforcement, transfer planning, and coaching to mastery) gets airplay now, too, and again, we see progress toward doing training more effectively.

That's a good thing, yet, OD, HPT, and Performance Consulting, et.al., go all but unrecognized in the sales profession (speaking broadly; I do recognize that there are pockets of awareness and excellence).

In the long term, enhanced education in business school curricula and an increase in corporate programs on managing performance improvement could help. In the short term, though, we need to find a way to engage and educate sales leaders and sales performance professionals on these methods, and better educate performance consultants on the rigors and stresses of a sales organization and how to more effectively work with sales leaders.

It’s Worth the Effort

No matter which side of the fence you’re sitting on, I encourage you to start thinking about how we can do this as a profession, and how you can encourage it in your company. The results are worth it. As examples, my book on?The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement ?includes an entire section on systems thinking and I write often about?Sales Transformation , highlighting the sales systems I work with most frequently:

• The Sales Hiring System
• The Sales Readiness System?(which includes The Sales Training System)
• The Sales Training System?(which is embedded in the readiness system and includes the 5 Stages of Sales Mastery & Behavior Change)
• The Sales Management System?(which includes The Sales Coaching System)
• The Sales Coaching System?(embedded in The Sales Management System)

These systems are built using the principles I’m discussing here. And the way in which one can determine which systems to apply or how to establish and prioritize initiatives for impact, follow the precepts of the performance improvement disciplines. Here are just a few examples of the results that companies have achieved by appropriately implementing one or more of the systems:

• Achieved a $398MM accretive revenue increase in one year from final project completion.
• Increased sales 600% annually while decreasing operating expenses by 21%.
• Increased sales results 28.7% over previous year.
• Increased performance of new hires, so that sales reps with 120 days on the job outperformed a control group of reps with 5 years with the company.
• Increased sales per rep by 47% in 9 months.
• Improved average profitability per rep by 11% in only 4 months.

How would achieving results like these make you feel? What could that mean for your sales force? And for you? It?is?possible. (If you’d like to dig in further,?consider enrolling in The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement Learning Experience .)

RESOURCES / NEXT STEPS

I’d encourage you to research OD, HPT/HPI, Performance Consulting, and the other performance improvement disciplines mentioned here, if they are new to you.

• Consider supporting the?Sales Education Foundation , whose purpose is to elevate the sales profession through university education.
• Join?ISPI ?and explore their?resources .
• Scope out the?Institute of Organization Development ?and their resources.
• Check out the?Organization Development Network ?(OD Network)
• Join?ATD ?and get involved with?ATD’s Sales Enablement Community .
• Get involved with?the burgeoning?Sales Enablement Society ?and network with members who are experienced in these disciplines.
• Read these books (not inclusive, just a starter list that you can choose from, to explore):
• The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement ?(my book)
• These other?Sales Enablement books on Amazon
• Performance Consulting ?by Jim Robinson and Dana Gaines Robinson
• Flawless Consulting ?by Peter Block
• Human Competence ?by Tom Gilbert
• The Handbook of Human Performance Technology , edited by James Pershing
• Training Ain’t Performance ?by Stolovitch and Keeps (and the related?Fieldbook )
• The Fifth Management Foci ?by Guy Wallace
• Analyzing Performance Problems ?by Mager and Pipe
• The series of books by Andy Zoltners/ZS Associates
• Any of the cadre of the?books on OD ?or the annotated bibliography?here .
• The links I shared above: Organization Effectiveness ,?Organization Behavior ,?Business Process Management ,?Total Quality Management ,?Lean and Six Sigma ,?Change Management
• And explore other books or education available through ATD, ISPI, ASQ , and the other OD/performance improvement associations.
• Reach out to the OD or OE department at your company, if you have one, and open a dialogue. Or do the same in a LinkedIn Group or with your connections.

If we want to elevate the sales profession, and the supporting professions involved in sales performance improvement -- and deliver better bottom-line sales results -- it’s time we step out of the dark ages and tap into the rich history of organizational performance improvement practices?and the large body of work that exists to support us, and to help us transform our sales results.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR...

Felix Krueger says...

We recently ran a poll here on LinkedIn. The question was:

Which Sales Enablement topic do you want to master in 2023?

And here is how 125 Enablers have responded...

This is an incredibly positive result because it shows that we're making headway. More and more enablers understand that that delivering business impact MUST be our top priority.

And since effective stakeholder management paves the way toward making a business impact, I'm happy to announce that we will be able to address the top two mentions of this poll in our upcoming webinar:

7 Steps to Maximizing Enablement's Business Impact !

WHAT

Some of the topics we'll cover include how to:

• Understand the maturity level of your sales enablement function
• Use a simple framework that will help you identify current shortfalls
• Get more done with less by effectively managing stakeholders
• Select the sales performance levers that will help your sales force the most
• Formalize a plan that delivers results and helps you gain momentum fast

WHEN

• US: Feb 2??at 1 pm PT?|?4 pm ET
• UK: Feb 2?at?9 pm GMT??
• AU: Feb 3 at 8 am AET
• Duration: 60 minutes

COST

• FREE for the webinar and content - you invest an hour of your time for your career.

If making an impact with enablement is your priority in 2023, you do not want to miss this event!

>>> REGISTER HERE:

https://bit.ly/3CJWGT4

_____________________

That's it for this week! Did you learn something new reading this newsletter? If you did, or if it just made you think (and maybe chuckle from time to time - bonus points if you snorted), share it with your favorite enablement colleague, subscribe right here on LinkedIn, and check out?The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement Learning Experience .?Felix Krueger ?and I are both Building Blocks Mentors for the weekly group coaching sessions, and we hope to see you there!?

Until next time, stay the course, and?#MakeAnImpact ?With?#Enablement !