Building A Team Culture In a Sales Organization

I got a telephonic call from the vice president (VP) of Sales of a large multi-divisional company.

VP speaking on the phone: Hello, Atif, I want you to help me to restructure our sales force. I want to change the culture of my sales team because they are going in different directions and I am interested to converge their efforts for maximizing their productivity. When we can meet for an initial chit chat in this context.

Atif: It seems to be an interesting problem to probe and reflect. Let me check my calendar, I can spare around 50 minutes on Thursday at 1:37 PM and the venue will be my office. We'll have lunch together. (I was genuinely curious about what restructuring a sales force and changing the culture coupled with it could mean in the diction of VP Sales.)

Vice President of Sales: Let me narrate the problem as I see it. We have different product lines, each with their own sales force, but they also report to a corporate sales manager who consolidates and integrates all the marketing and sales activities. We're receiving a constant supply of complaints from our customers sharing with us that our salespeople belonging to different divisions of the company are not able to sell coherently, they sometimes contradict each other and sometimes even compete with each other. I want you to design a training program that will lead to building a culture of teamwork and harmony among the salespeople.

Atif: Can you give me some examples of how the current reward system works and what you imagine the ideal future reward system would look like? (I was attempting to pin down what he meant by a "culture of teamwork" through asking questions that forced concrete behavioral examples. It is only when the desired future state is defined behaviorally then I can assess the existing organizational culture is acting as an enabler or as a showstopper.)

Vice President of Sales: At present, Atif, each division makes their sales calls independently, and that is why, individual sales people do not coordinate their visits to the customers. I would like them to go out as teams and plan their sales pitches together so that the customer would get a more unified picture of what we are selling and what kinds of deals or discounts we are willing to make. What is happening now, that different sales groups actually offers deals that contradict and nullify one another and things get worse when our customers get the impression that our sales teams are competing with each other and it adversely affects the image of our company.

Atif: Let me rephrase in my own words what you have just said to confirm that my understanding is aligned with your perception. Currently, in your company, a customer might see salespeople from different divisions at unexpectedly different times and might get disjointed stories on the discounts and deals as being offered by your company.

Vice President of Sales: I must say that you have exactly understood what I wan trying to convey. I want you to teach my salespeople to coordinate their visits to existing and potential customers, convey the same story to the customers, and visit them as gelled teams, not as individuals.

Atif: I see. Now, let me know that if salespeople went out together as teams and were successful in selling what the customer really needed because they are now working together, how would you reward them? What is your current reward system, and would that have to modify consequently? (I asked this question to make my client realize that we can create a "culture of teamwork" only if the reward system of the company incentivize teamwork and collaboration among diverse sales groups. I was aware that most companies go for individual incentive system, have quotas, and are rewarded as competing individuals.)

Vice President of Sales: Obviously, like all sales teams, they are on individual incentives and quotas, but I want them to develop team attitude and team spirit when they visit clients together.

Atif: Do you think that is possible to happen given the present reward structure.?

Vice President of Sales: I am perplexed, can you unfold the different layers of your question?

Atif: Let me explain. Would you, for instance, ready to institute group incentives if they went out as teams and were successful in helping each other solve the customer's real problems. Are you ready to reward your salespeople for their skills of cooperation and helping one another.

Vice President of Sales: I don't really see that happening in this organization. We are deeply committed to individual performance measurement. The DNA of our organizational culture recognizes and promotes individual super stars and inclined towards hero worship.

Atif: I understand. Let me ask can you design adaptive moves (small and incremental changes) within your existing individualistic culture that would minimize the customer complaints? (With this suggestion, I nudged the client to think about small changes or adaptive moves to address his real concern of reducing customer complaints without going for a total change in the present reward system of the company.

Vice President of Sales: Well, I assume we could develop a better cross-divisional scheduling system for sales visits and have someone coordinate these visits, or if we find salespeople going to the same customer, have them coordinate their sales pitch prior to their meeting with the customer,....or have them meet periodically around given customers to see how they could each benefit from a conversation about that customer.

Atif: Yes, all these small changes seem to be viable and will help in reducing customer complaints (Remember, Customer complaints was on the mind of my client when our discussion kicked off).

Vice President of Sales: In fact, you are right and my discussion with you helped me to see where I was not looking. Maybe, we do not need a training program and we can sensitize our salespeople about the significance of team culture by tweaking with the modalities related to the visit of our sales people at the sites of our customers.