A colleague of mine sent me this video, First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy and it’s full of counterintuitive notions about how behavior transformation happens. In watching it, the first thing I’m struck by is the fact that what really changes a group is the first follower to a leader, not the leader himself.
Yesterday, we introduced our new series, The Connectors, with former client Wayne O’ Neill Tadd Tellepsen. He worked for two years with Wayne O’Neill and Associates on The Connections Process, so he had more than one post’s worth of information to share about his experience. Today, we’ll pick up where he left off.
When you’re coaching abstract concepts, it’s not always easy to explain the impact it has. People have a hard time coming to terms with things that don’t equal to new numbers plugged in on a spreadsheet to determine value. Because of this, we’re reaching out to others in my network who’ve been through the coaching with me, have leveraged it, and made it out on the other side. They’ll be contributing to the blog periodically about The Connections Process, so you, the reader, will have another perspective on what we do at Wayne O’Neill and Associates.
First up is Tadd Tellepsen. Co-Owner of Tellepsen Builders.
Instinctively, when leaders of a startup begin hiring sales and marketing staff to start off their go-to-market strategy, they’re convinced that all they need is one warrior to go out there and build a warrior class beneath him. People who have selling skill have a big Rolodex, they’re smooth, and they know how to start the process. But that’s not all you need.
A friend of mine sits on five boards—he’s done so for years. Recently he came to me and said, “You know, I’ve been doing this for five years and I can’t honestly say that I’ve leveraged it or connected with anybody or I’ve used that.” And it’s not just him. Many of my clients struggle with leveraging a board position and making it worthwhile.
This is concept is like a commandment to me, yet few people get it. They want to get out in the field and sell, sell, sell–meet clients alongside their team members, talk about their product or service, and leave with a check in their hands. But they’re missing an important component when the entire team isn’t on board.
People use sales training to solve profit growth issues. They give the leader of their sales team a checklist of things a salesperson needs to know, and they think that’s enough. I’m not against sales training at all, but there are some major flaws in leadership thinking if they assume that sales training only will be a cure-all.
Being a manager would be a lot easier if it weren’t for people, so they say. Whether you’re managing a project or working as a change agent, setbacks are a given. There’s almost always that one guy who seems to just hate your product or service. What do you do when this problem comes up? How do you deal with push back?
Navigating a startup isn’t easy. I know firsthand how quick (and often) roadblocks can occur and how there’s often a lot of disappointments before there are triumphs. When speaking with others who are involved in startup companies, I’ve find that many entrepreneurs make some of the same mistakes.
Higher education is under attack for its deliverable. The deliverable is not only jobs. But a career in which you can make a good living – and that it leads to a career path. What’s going on here?
