Develop Your Team's Talent Through a Private Sales Debrief - Sandler Training - Canadian Energy News, Top Headlines, Commentaries, Features & Events

Written by Hamish Knox; President of Sandler in Calgary, Canada

Creating accountable, sales focused organizations in Calgary

You’ve identified a high potential team member to develop. You’ve given them opportunities to perform in the role you want them to take on eventually (e.g. by leading a sales meeting), but you are missing out on a crucial talent development opportunity if you aren’t debriefing those opportunities.

Using the sales meeting example above, whether it’s their first time or their 10th your team member is stretching their comfort zone, which is an uncomfortable feeling.

When humans feel uncomfortable they seek assurance. A private debrief with you gives your team member an opportunity to be reassured that they performed well and an opportunity for you and they to unemotionally assess their performance and build their confidence.

Best practice is to book that debrief in your calendars when your team member agrees to lead the sales meeting so it doesn’t get forgotten. Verbally agreeing to meet typically means that “something” will come up and your debrief won’t happen or it will happen to far after the meeting to be of use because our memories degrade over time and we end up judging or performance to be better (usually) or worse (occasionally) that it really was.

Respect your team member’s communication style. Someone who is a more “active” communicator could debrief the same day after each of you have time to review their performance separately. Someone who is more on the “reserved” side would appreciate debriefing the following day because they need more time to process their performance. Key is their communication style not yours.

A side benefit of debriefing is rapport increases with your team member because your only valuable as their leader is your time and you’re investing your time with them.

When you put your team members in positions to grow and stretch their comfort zones set up a debrief with them in advance and you’ll develop your talented team more effectively than letting them wonder “do they (you) think I did well?”

Until next time… go lead.

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Leadership for Organizational Excellence

When: Thursday October, 25

Time: 11.15AM-1.30PM

The Roadmap to Organizational Excellence

“Excellent” caliber businesses are growing and expanding, and constantly moving beyond comfort zone to adjust to changing technology and market conditions.

Join us on Thursday October 25, 2018 from 11:15am-1:30pm for an interactive discussion on the 6 Ps (Planning, Positions, People, Processes, Performetrics and Passion) that support mitigating or eliminating the 13 common leadership blind spots.

This workshop is best attended by CEOs, Owners, Presidents and their leadership teams:

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