Once upon a time, in a business far far away, a well meaning manager sat in a training session. He read a book. He sat with his Sr managers. This manager was struggling to get the results everyone wanted.
His sales team wasn’t generating enough opportunities. They didn’t have enough first meetings and they most certainly didn’t have enough revenue.
He heard a consistent message. You need to have more accountability.  Your team doesn’t want it enough.  They aren’t working hard enough.  You should have them check in: daily, weekly, and they need quotas.
This advice was very well meaning. It is built on two rather big assumptions:
- Your team is not motivated
- The way to motivate them is accountability
Once upon a time, in a household far far away, a hard working employee is sitting down for dinner. He is talking with his wife and venting. Â He is dialing the phone, he is meeting with prospects and he is loaded with ideas of how to do it better. Unfortunately, no one hears those ideas other than his wife.
He doesn’t seem unmotivated. Accountability will not change the results.
This is a story I hear and see over … and over … and over again.
To this day I have never seen the problem be motivation. Thus, the solution for more meetings, more accountability rarely changes the results.
Change your volume, change your frequency – get the same results with more meetings
Change the system – Change the results.