How to Pick Your Spots
Trust, control, and why your training doesn’t stick
The VP, the Sales Trainer, and the Brand New Thing
Meet Kate. She’s the VP of Sales at a small software company.
Kate wakes up at the end of Q3 and realizes something: She’s spent almost none of her training budget for the year.
Kate shops around, asks a few salespeople in her network, and hires a sales trainer. The sales trainer spends a day with her team and teaches them a “new thing.” Maybe the “new thing” is objection-handling, or negotiation, or prospecting. Or maybe it’s more of a mindset shift; a pump-up session that injects some energy and alters the sales team’s perspective on their job.
Kate’s team likes learning about the new thing. It provides a respite from the drudgery of cold-calling and chasing down customers. Learning about the new thing gives them a break.
But the next day, when the training ends, the team goes back to their desk. What’s different? Not much. Just a gentle tug of guilt that wasn’t there before. A quiet voice that says to each of them, “You learned something new yesterday. How can you apply it?”
But the voice comes from inside of them. Kate never asks the question. Kate never follows up.
Not the day after the training. Or the day after that.
After a few days, the voice — and the new thing — are gone.
Oh well. Back to work.
Trusting vs. Controlling Leadership Styles
Kate’s situation is, unfortunately, very common.
Companies spend billions of dollars on employee training each year. Much of this money is wasted teaching people new things that (i) aren’t reinforced and (ii) don’t stick.
Why does this happen? The answer has to do with leadership style.
In the 1960s, MIT psychologist Douglas McGregor developed a management framework he called “Theory X and Theory Y.” The two theories explain the differences in how managers perceive their employees.
Theory X leaders are more controlling. They believe that people tend to be a bit lazy. Left unsupervised, they will shirk their responsibilities and dodge opportunities to improve. They believe their team needs direction and oversight to get the job done. Theory X leaders tend to be process freaks. They create step-by-step diagrams for everything. They build and share playbooks, scripts, and standardized templates. They turn their job into an assembly line. They think: Without clear, step-by-step directions my team won’t know what to do.
Theory Y leaders are more trusting. They believe in enabling their team to solve the problem on their own. They believe that, in the right environment, people tend to be self-motivated. When things get crazy, these leaders tend to take their hands off the wheel and put their faith in the team. They avoid constraining their people with process and command-and-control. They trust their team will figure it out if given the space. They don’t need my direction, Theory Y leaders think. They only need my support.
McGregor also found that most of us have a default leadership style. When stressed or stretched, we drift towards one end of the spectrum. Towards control (Theory X) or trust (Theory Y).
When I introduce Theory X and Y, I always get the same question: “Is there a best style? Is it better to be controlling or trusting?”
What Are You Scared Of?
Well, both types of leaders — trusting and controlling — have their problems.
For one, they’re both afraid.
People who shun process — Theory Y people — are afraid of micro-managing. They don’t trust themselves enough to create and enforce a clear standard. They’re afraid to tell capable adults how to do their jobs. Admit it, Theory Y people — you’re a little uncomfortable in your seat; in this place of managerial authority. So you stay out of people’s way and call it empowerment. I trust my team, you say. They’ll figure it out if I give them the space.
Theory X people are afraid of dropped balls. As I’ve written before, with more responsibility comes less control. And that, my fellow control freaks, scares the hell out of us. We don’t trust our team to do things the right way. Not the first time at least. I have to help them, you think. I need to make the work so foolproof, so clear, that mistakes won’t happen. I need to stay on top of everything.
While these fears can drive useful behavior, neither of these stances are ideal. When you put all your trust in your team and don’t follow-up, your team flounders. When you micro-manage, your team tunes you out or stops thinking for themselves. Take a lesson from one of my favorite management books, Goldilocks and The Three Bears: The best option is usually somewhere in the middle. Teaching people something new takes balance. Too little detail, too little follow-up and your team won’t know what to change. Too much detail, too much needling, and organ rejection is all but assured. You need to pick your spots — just a couple — and coach, recognize, and remind your people about what you expect from them.
How to Pick Your Spots
Great leaders expect a lot from their teams. But they also do the work to keep their training simple and focused. Like an expert acupuncturist, they first think very hard about where to put the needle. They focus on a few important, enforce-able “new things” at a time: The couple of behaviors that help the team get from A to B.
Going all the way back to Kate’s sales training example, these might have been:
How to respond to a customer objection
How to clearly and concisely explain “how our product is different”
Remembering to set next steps before the end of a sales call
Any one of these “new things” would have moved things forward. They would have helped her team hone their craft, close more deals, and make more money. But with no focused follow-up, gravity takes over. The old way is always easier.
Keep this in mind after your next training. Focus on the 2 or 3 key behaviors you want the team to adopt. Then forget about the rest of what you just taught them. Seriously. Coach, recognize, and remind your team with those few behaviors in mind. Repeat until the new thing sticks. Then (and only then) find a few more new things to focus on.
Here’s a good test. For each behavior you plan to reinforce, ask yourself: “Is it observable, controllable, and impactful?”
Observable — An observable behavior is something you can see on videotape. It’s something you can demonstrate or act out. Something you can point to and say “do it like that.” Think of it like this: A recipe isn’t observable. A video of Gordon Ramsay making perfect scrambled eggs is.
Controllable — Do people have agency over what you’re telling them to do? Can they actually control it? For example, “close the deal” isn’t a controllable action. Remembering to ask specific question or set a date for a follow-up meeting is.
Impactful — Will this actually make a difference? Or are you nagging people about something stylistic? Impactful behaviors should address some kind of gap. Here’s a simple two-question impact test: (1) What’s getting in the way of results for your team? (2) What small change would help address that specific gap?
Training is Just the Beginning
Unenforced training isn’t training. It’s intellectual tourism.
Like a good documentary, most training inspires reflection but changes nothing. It gives you something to think and talk about, but it doesn’t make you better at your job.
It makes you more interesting. It does not make you more useful.
Yes, train your people. But don’t stop there. Pick your spots — just a few — and create a standard.
An observable, controllable, impactful bar you ask your people to meet.
Then coach, recognize, and remind people until they meet it.
But please — be patient. Remember: “When you are sick of saying it, they are only starting to hear you.”