Team

Nick Anderson

Nick Anderson

Focusing Change to Win

Nick has broad experience in managing and leading revenue improving change. After leading behavioral research, sales operations, productivity and change management projects over 30 years, he has a deep understanding of what takes to lead major projects that produce valued results.

His consulting work includes sales behavioral and organizational alignment research in aligning senior executives and their people to improve client engagement and retention in complex sales cycles. These often involve leading consulting teams in improving sales and rolling out large sales training projects across EMEA and North America.

He is co-author of “Focusing Change to Win – A Change Manual for Leaders” which gleans practical advice from over 1000 business leaders and change consultants comments of when and how they lead change across 80 countries and 19 industry sectors. He also has an extensive blog focusing on managing change for competitive success which includes many of his radio programs “Walk the Talk Radio for Agile Minds”.

His education includes a Masters of Human Resource Development with Distinction and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Emil Albanese

Emil Albanese

Strategic Thinking and Develoment

Emil Albanese specializes in organizational development with emphasis on business development; sales training; strategic planning; sales management; leadership development and team building. Emil has over 30 years of experience in the field having been Senior Vice President of the Leadership and Change Management practice for the Richardson Company in Philadelphia, PA where he provided training and consulted for a variety of companies such as JP Morgan; Panasonic; Grace Davison; State Street Bank; USF&G and the United States Coast Guard. For nearly 10 years he was in charge of world-wide organizational development for Henry Schein, Inc., a $10B Fortune 500® company, where he was Vice President responsible for global strategic planning, sales training; management development and succession planning.

Emil has provided consulting services in a number of industries including manufacturing, distribution; technology; finance and professional services. He has focused on cultivating company differentiation through entrepreneurial thinking and behavior through advanced selling skills. Emil works with senior managers providing them with techniques to generate and source insights that are essential for adaptive strategies and effective customer partnering. This work has been helping companies develop highly distinctive and differentiated value propositions.

Emil has lectured extensively at numerous corporations, management forums and business schools on topics related to his work. He received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University and two graduate degrees in organizational development and counseling from Columbia University. In addition, Emil also holds his Juris Doctor and is a member of the New York State Bar.

Brent Ruge

Brent Ruge

Delivering Results for Clients

Brent is an expert in measurement-driven change, employee engagement, and human capital strategy. His broad experience in organizational development and change management includes working with senior teams to develop measurement systems, diagnoses, and strategies for improving performance.

He has deep experience in organizational surveys including using multi-method data collection and quantitative/qualitative analyses to derive impactful insights. This work includes leading survey results discussions, root-cause analyses and training managers to act on survey results. Brent is also an executive leadership coach, helping leaders to understand and improve their leadership style and practice.

Brent has 25 years’ experience working internationally across industries, including financial services, transportation, healthcare, energy, government, pharmaceuticals, high tech, telecom and manufacturing and retail.

He was previously a regional director for employee surveys and insights at a top HR consulting firm. He developed and patented a high-tech recruiting solution for mathematically matching professionals to career opportunities, and a measurement system for aligning senior teams around their strategic priorities.

Simon Smith

Simon Smith

Creating High-Performing Workforces

Simon is an award-winning learning designer, systems trainer, and performance technologist. He has a proven track record of developing solutions that create the behavior changes necessary to deliver outstanding business results.

He passionately believes that every employee wants to do a good job and can, with the right training and support, perform exceptionally well over a long period. The challenge for managers and HR professionals is to convert this desire into positive action.

Over the last 40 years, Simon has worked with clients in the UK, USA, and Europe, helping them diagnose and fix performance problems. He has delivered solutions in the classroom, the workplace and online and has successfully led teams of designers, developers and trainers involved in solution creation and implementation. His exceptional analysis, design and project management skills are regularly used by leading providers of digital and blended learning solutions.

Simon’s background is in behavioral research, human performance technology and IT system implementations. He works with clients to identify the factors that make a real difference to employee performance and designs solutions which support individuals to deliver excellent accomplishments. Solutions can be as simple as a job aid or piece of instruction, or as complex as a customized performance support system.

Simon has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and French from Loughborough University of Technology.

Judy Frank

Judy Frank

Activate, Align, and Accelerate Sales Performance

Judy provides strategic insights on sales efficiency, performance, and process optimization as well as strategic account management. She has implemented scalable, integrated approaches to growing revenue in executive management roles in three Fortune 50 corporations and as a sales consultant.

She applies that experience to accelerate people and organization’s ability to integrate a revenue culture that closely aligns the sales, marketing, and account management. Working with sales leadership, C Level executives, and Sales Enablement professionals, she contributes to results and people. Key areas of expertise are sales effectiveness, acquisition of new accounts, increasing penetration of existing accounts, and strengthening relationships.

Leveraging thirty-years in leadership roles in sales management, strategic planning, organizational development, strategic account management, and executive coaching. Judy has delivered solutions in classroom, workplace and online settings worldwide. She pioneered new lines of business and delivered innovative solutions to corporations, State, Local, and Federal Agencies , e.g. Nike, Starbucks, Apple, Boeing, Lockheed, San Diego Airport.

Judy has consulted with brands such as PSAV, DoorDash, Corefact, Cartelligent, NHS Skateboards, BP3, ORIGO, and Valet Living. She personalizes solutions that elevate their ability to grow their business, attract new customers, and leverage their existing customer base.

A Philadelphia native, Judy attended Temple University, BA, and American University, MBA. She has lived in California, both north and south, for the past 25 years and rewards herself with hiking, biking, Pilates, tai-chi yoga, golf, and meditation.

Kelly Gibbons

Kelly Gibbons

Generating Intentional Communication Strategies For Leaders

Kelly’s career blends coaching, culture creation, strategic outreach, non-profit decision making, small business ownership.  Training college athletes to perform at the highest level led to training employees to lead in an empowered environment, while being cognizant of professional messaging to the community.

Kelly helps organizations and individuals create effective communication strategies with emphasis on individual accountability, empowerment, teamwork, and effective resource management. Her work helps build interpersonal strengths and strategically repurpose areas of ineffectiveness.

With decades of experience using various channels and tools, she brings perspectives to  the daily life of ever-changing climates in businesses, organizations, and nonprofit entities.

Her collegiate athletic coaching experience combined with research based education, and years of non-profit development work creates a versatile and effective palate from which to create solutions.

Her education includes Masters of Organizational Communications, University of Kansas, Bachelors of Public Relations, University of Idaho. She is an Emotional Intelligence Analyst, a Certified Health Worker, a Mental Health First Aid Trainer and DISC Behavioral Analyst.

 

Allen Annette

Allen Annette

Change Management

Allen Annett specializes in Organizational Development, Culture Transformation and Employee Performance with emphasis on organizational effectiveness, management training, individual and team coaching, leadership development. Over 30 years he has worked as CHRO for IMS Health and Director of OD for CAE providing internal consulting services to their senior management teams in North America, England, and Latin America. As an OD consultant in SE Asia for Towers Watson, he led organizational culture and change management projects for companies and government ministries in Malaysia, HK, Singapore, and Vietnam.

In North America, the UK and Latin America, Allen’s work focused on cultivating performance and innovative driven work cultures. His work focuses on adapting industry and academic best practices covering the behavioral sciences, learning theories, behavior change and BPR. This work helped companies develop differentiated employee value propositions, resulting in higher levels of employee retention, reduced employee costs and increased company performance. This included interventions at IMS that resulted in the company being recognized as a Best 100 and Top 50 employer three years in a row.

In Asia, his work focused on helping companies be more competitive and being employers of choice for high performing employees. His success with local Asian and regional head offices of multinational firms was due in part to his ability to adapt to the work and country culture of Asian businesses.

Allen lectured extensively at McGill University and in the MBA program at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. He received his Master’s degree in Human Systems Intervention from Concordia University. In addition, Allen is a certified coach and certified to use a number of psychometric instruments that support him in his line of work.

KK Lipsey

KK Lipsey

Creating Content to Attract and Engage Your Clients

KK Lipsey connects B2B professionals with current and prospective clients through clear, persuasive and engaging marketing content.  Many professionals believe they can’t write or write poorly when they simply need to share information and ideas with an adept translator – aka professional writer.

KK brings 30 years’ experience in B2B marketing including research, writing, coaching, content management and strategic planning. The core promise of ViewPoint B2B Content is expert writing, polished by astute editing, that is memorable, actionable and resonates with its intended audience.  Her clients have included architects, engineers and contractors, legal, IT and financial firms, creative professionals and non-profits.

She collaborates with clients to refine their brand, find their voice, and develop their unique marketing messages. KK understands marketing is a complex, multi-pronged challenge requiring collaboration and consistency with a keen understanding of the buyer’s viewpoint, needs and aspirations.

Whether working with C-suite or marketing, technical or non-technical staff, her ability to clarify and explain complex ideas translates into compelling narratives for all audiences.  KK develops content for websites, blogs, promotional collateral, social media, email, brochures, white papers and brochures.

KK earned a BS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. Always fascinated by advertising, her true calling is marketing and writing.

Terry Merriman

Terry Merriman

Building Personal and Organizational Performance

Terry brings a powerful analytical and personable approach to coaching and serving his clients, developed over a career in auditing and business consulting spanning more than thirty years. His diverse business consulting focuses on organizational performance improvement, , and practical approaches to governance and risk management. Terry also co-developed with Nick Anderson  tools and processes as AlEx™ for aligning expectations, CAM™ the competency assessment matrix, and the Deal Mover System™ for complex sales environments;

Today Terry continues to work with Nick and his clients to identify performance challenges and facilitate implementation of unique performance enhancing solutions..

Terry has consulted in the retail, food service, financial services, manufacturing, and non-profit industries. He has also organized and served as chair of two 501c3 organizations and created and managed several businesses.

Terry’s corporate background includes management positions in Auditing and in Systems and Procedures for Meijer, First Michigan Bank, and Gordon Food Service. He is a former Certified Internal Auditor, and Certified Systems Professional, with a Master of Science in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting. He worked in Plans and Systems at the Air Force Finance Center and was a Deputy Accounting and Finance Officer while on active duty with the US Air Force.

Getting the Best out of the Matrix

For 40 Years few have challenged Matrix Management’s viability. Most writers remain convinced that a matrix approach is superior to a hierarchy, but why hasn’t it been more successful? This blog looks at pointing the reader to answer…

The Effective Negotiator Research

Rackham & Carlisle’s research on the differences between successful negotiators vs. their average counterparts was illuminating. It had an impact as very few studies have  investigated what actually goes on face-to-face during a negotiation, mainly because: Real...

Vision: The Guidance System for Partnering

Developing successful partnerships can only be accomplished if there is a strong and shared sense of vision. It is the cornerstone, and launching point for successful partnering efforts.
Visioning in a partnership if different form other uses of the word. It is much more than a defined set of shared goals and aspirations. It exists to offer a tangible guidance system which provides direction to both parties and helps them carry out their larger goals. Such a system enables partnerships to overcome obstacles and achieve results. When they lack vision they tend to drift around, or fall apart. The following distills factors for successful partnering when negotiating outsourcing.

Out Thinking the Competition – 2500-Year-Old Lessons

Many people today are looking to the end of the Covid Tunnel and how to rebuild their sales pipeline. They may look to the latest app or system, but they have tunnel vision when it comes to understanding what their competitors are planning. It’s easy to buy technology...

Chamber Check In Interview with Nick Anderson

Chamber Check In – Pault Fleming (Boise Metro Chamber) interviews Nick Anderson on the the origins of The Crispian Advantage and its change management services based on AlEx (Aligning Expectations)

Getting and Keeping People on the Same Page

Webinar In Covid recovery, the challenge is trying to get people on a new page but where the status quo is assumed and unchallenged. Yet rapid recovery is critical, business leaders cannot afford the failures of the past if they are to seize opportunities. In this...

Why Name My Company The Crispian Advantage?

Hi, Nick Anderson, founder of The Crispian Advantage, here.

Someone asked me the other day,
“Why do you call your company The Crispian Advantage?”

I explained it and he said “People need to know that!” So, here goes…

It’s based on a painful personal experience and reveals some important lessons that I’ve learned in 30 years of coaching sales effectiveness and organizational change.

Balancing Top Down and Bottom Up Approaches to Successful Change

What are the problems associated with top-down or bottom-up approaches to changing an organization?
“Performance is Personal before it is Organizational”. None of us work in a vacuum. Improved workplace performance requires productive relationships with peers, bosses, subordinates, customers, clients, vendors, suppliers, and the community.

New Strategic Partnership Announced

The Hillgrange Consultancy are delighted to announce the creation of a new strategic partnership with US-based consultancy The Crispian Advantage. Together, the two organisations will be offering a holistic approach to the resolution of organisational performance problems.

Managing Change in a Time of Crisis

Unprecedented. Historic. A defining moment. Do you have that sinking feeling ‘that ship has sailed’ when you consider planning and managing change today? For most of us, radical change in our lives and businesses happened so quickly, we didn’t have time to plan. We know it will never be the same; this new normal could last a while with all its uncertainty. Even so, you CAN plan for change. Right now may even be the absolute best time. Where are you?

16 Negotiation Tactics Buyers Use (and How to Respond)

By Mike Schultz, President, Rain Group Buyers and seller negotiations are a fun dance. While these negotiations are usually partner-focused (win-win), buyers often use standoffish tactics to gain an advantage in the negotiation at the seller's expense. Even if you -...

The One Thing Missing From Your To-Do List

by Mike Shultz, President, RAIN Group If you have 40 items on your list marked as priorities, you might as well have none. In our latest Extreme Productivity Benchmark Report, we found that "The Extremely Productive" are 5.3 times more likely to prune their priority...

Moving Sales Leaders from Safe to Brave

Most sales leaders at some time get stuck trying to fix things with more of the same, rather than doing different things.
Typical reasons:
Fear of “sticking their heads above the parapet”(again)
Not trusting their bosses, peers or their people
Not trusting the new and different (aka “not invented here”)
Believing that previous success is an indicator of future glory!
Here’s a test to see how far you can Move from Safe to Brave to create greater competitive distinction

Getting Salespeople On-Board and Up to Quota

A whopping 45.4% of salespeople miss their quota according to the CSO Insights 2015 Sales Compensation and Performance Management Study, only 54.6% of sales professionals produce enough revenue to meet quota. This deficiency raises an important question: What is the...

Managing Relationship Tensions & Conflict

During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment challenges as a major factor in organizations not achieving goals
This changed our focus to ground our other work by aligning people’s expectations first before…….. designing learning, coaching etc. Over the last 10 years, we developed our alignment practice with AlEx™ by serving companies in Canada and the US.
Consequently, this approach has helped clients add millions in sales, bring construction projects in on time, and successfully transition family-owned businesses.
Building on last month’s theme on how almost half of those surveyed indicate that a significant number of change projects failed to meet their stated goals. This is the first of three pieces to help conventional Strategy planning be more successful, they are:
1. Managing Conflict & Relationship Tension
2. Managing Complexity
3. Improving Performance

Common Communication Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Accurate communication can be defined as
“an idea transplant from one mind to another”.
Unfortunately, between two minds there is often a breeding environment for misunderstanding and distortion. It’s where phraes like “I don’t think we are on the same page”…

How to lead at the Speed of Change?

This discussion starter gets leaders thinking about leadership and help them  move toward consensus before starting a major change initiative. (For more in-depth discussion please go to the Leading in Complexity Blog Series)…

How can you prevent Trust Decay in your people?

On both sides of the Atlantic, the employment compact is fracturing along the lines of manufacturing outsourcing, poor change communication and inconsistent leadership. The bottom-line is that “doing more with less”sounds macho in closeted executive strategy sessions. The reality is that those who get the work done feel the stress of over-work and unabated insecurity is eroding trust in their leaders…

Focusing Change to Win, a Leadership Change Manual

This report is a rare example of inductive research, which lacks the bias of many change management studies. This is because it works from the “bottom-up” looking for patterns first, then developing categories and finally to drawing conclusions. Unlike deductive research, which starts with a theory to be tested is based more on researcher prejudice than inductive research.
It is also unusual for its focus on change processes related to gaining or retaining competitive advantage. This distilled practical wisdom will help you optimize your change management approach to moving your organization from a state of just surviving to a thriving condition. With data from 1072 leaders and change management practitioners representing organizations from 80 countries, you will learn of the challenges and opportunities from those with over 11,000 years of change management experience.
About the survey
From March to December 2011 respondents replied to an internet-based survey. The survey asked 22 questions many of which asked for respondents’ comments. In total 6000, comments were categorized using an inductive process of analysis to create taxonomies from which conclusions were drawn. Based on these conclusions questionnaires and takeaways were developed
Report Contents (is ok)
This report comprises six sections, (168 pages with two questionnaires, 1 organizational assessment and six takeaways)
1. The Why and What of Change
Takeaway 1: Reducing Employee Stress to Manage Change Resistance
2. Why Do People Resist Change?
Takeaway 2: Managing Change Stress & Resistance
3. Why Bother Measuring Change?
Questionnaire: Contributor Questions that Change Metrics Need To Answer
Takeaway 3: Developing More Effective Change Metrics
4. How Can Implementing Change Gain Competitive Advantage?
Questionnaire: Contributor Questions on Implementing Change to Gain Competitive Advantage?
Takeaway 4: Focusing on Change to Gain Competitive Advantage
5. Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?
Assessment: The Thriving Organization
Takeaway 6: Developing the Thriving Organization
6. How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

Leading at the Speed of Change

Complexity is the “New Normal” making leadership more demanding and in demand.
The leader’s ability to relate, energize, and develop their followers is critical to empower them to act without direction. It’s a competitive imperative and requires a new balance of more effective and affective leadership. It’s the ability to produce results by being affective. That ability to influence people, in the way they think, feel and act is now paramount

Change and Culture: Like Two Badgers Fighting in a Sack

Leading in times of transition is at best a challenge. At worst it can be a leader’s darkest nightmare like two badgers fighting in a sack. Realistic? No, not as bloody, but nevertheless intense. Dealing with such intensity centers on ensuring those leading change are...

Focusing Change To Win Series – How Can You Lead to Thrive?

Based on our survey of over 1000 business leaders in 80 countries from 19 industry sectors, leadership skills that focus change to win are at a premium. Today, change is the norm. It is neither random nor regular but hovers somewhere in between. How these...

Focusing Change To Win – How Can Change Gain Competitive Advantage?

Even after 30 years, the connections between change management and gaining competitive advantage are not well articulated. The disconnects between commitments to change and actual competitive behavior are a major factor in change failure. Getting beyond imitators relies on understanding and measuring behaviour that distinguishes competitive behavior from other activities…

What Separates Thriving Organizations from the Rest?

Today’s disruptive technologies are accelerants that speed change, already fueled by customer and competitor access to competitive information. The key to thriving in such a climate is creating agile structures, processes and developing people that are change expectant. This can be achieved if leaders see their role as enablers rather than controllers and can distribute both responsibility and authority to the lowest levels in their organizations. For this to happen it means that everyone needs to be aligned and committed to the organization’s “Mission Intent” where leaders are translators and alignment specialists so that every change is not treated with casual assumption and arrogance that “everyone will get it!”

Leading to the Essence of Your Organization

My passion is implementing successful change that fulfills people and avoids the human cost of failed change.
We need a debate about how we develop rewarding working relationships today. (Rewarding not just productive). It is the competitive core – energizing people and harnessing technologies better than
anyone else. The ultimate standard for such rewarding relationships is a leader’s ability to sustain superior results over an extended period. The debate should focus three questions:
* What does it mean to lead?
* What does it mean to follow?
* When do you choose one from another?
Why is this debate needed for us to climb out of this recession?
People have lost trust. Many business leaders are seen as self-serving and subservient to shareholders.
So, I want to look at why leaders should focus on the essence of their organizations. The Essence is an amalgam of mission, vision, values, intent and ethics. These components are the focus of aligning and realigning people, and not delivering the corporate stone tablets down from Mount Sinai (or wherever the senior management strategic planning retreat was held).

Gaining People's Commitment for Change – Leader's Checklist

You would think that as leaders grow, their people would grow. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true. Leader’s growth leads to separation and misalignment with their people which leads reduced organizational cohesion. This is especially true when leaders implement...

How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

Too often people can see the value of a change for their organization (WIIFY -What's In It For You) but don't get how it benefits them (WIIFM - What's In It For Me). Recently, I tested how well  65 HR Professionals thought their organizations fared in getting their...

How well does your leadership development deliver results?

Leadership engagement at every level is an undeniable requirement for successful change.  Unfortunately many executives think a seminar or other training program meets this need.  No surprise that such palliatives have little impact. This is especially true when...

Are your sales people on the same page with you?

The sales profession has now matured to the point that those you recruit are schooled in the basics but come to you with a mix of good and bad habits. How do you get the sales organization headed in the same direction, while avoiding the worst and replicating the...

Leading Improved Performance in Complex Sales

This month I consider probably one of the most difficult areas is sales, especially complex sales.
What makes sales complex?
Classically, “Many to Many” Think of it like a bow tie. On the left side you have the selling organization and on the right Complex Sales.
So, more people across the company need to communicate with customers and prospects before, during and after the sale. This increases complexity and the difficulty of “Keeping Everyone On The Same Page”
Why are sales getting more complex?
Business is more turbulent changing and morphing. It places, the sales function at the fulcrum of value creation and innovation within the firm.
This challenge of increasing complexity is not unique to sales. But, as salespeople serve as an interface between their company and customers, they are particularly affected by rapid internal and external changes
How does this affect sales people?
What are the key issues and trends in this situation?

Leading Learning

When the urgent drives out the important, many leaders ignore what their “guts” are telling them that their people aren’t on the same page. They’ve sensed it before and seen the results. Yet, complexity and urgency mask how things mount up, misalign and make change more difficult. This blog looks at how leaders leading learning can help. It asks:
What standards should you set for your leaders to lead learning? Test yourself. How does your organization stack up?

The Pangs and Pains of Implementing CRM Software

By Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage &  Terry Merriman, the Performance Suite February, 2015 This outline summarizes our experiences with system implementation and sales management over several decades and provides the basis for our presentation on the Pangs...

Focusing Change To Win – How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

The following is based on 684 contributors who chose to add comments on communicating change. Unsurprisingly, contributors see their people at the heart of any successful change process. They see gaining stakeholder commitment as a force multiplier of powerful change ambassadors. Essential to creating that commitment are leaders taking their people into their confidence with honesty and courage…

Consultant Burnout By Michael D. Mitchell

The term “burnout” is very graphic – suggestive of extinguished fires and charred remains – and one may well wonder how it relates to consulting and what consultant burnout means…

Focusing Change to Win Series – How Well is Your "What" Connected to Your "Why"?

This is the second in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on The Why and What of Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting…

Why Bother Measuring Change? Findings from Focusing Change to Win –

Most of our contributors do measure change, but 37% either don’t measure change or they don’t know if they do or feel measuring change is too difficult. So, here’s some evidence why this is worth struggling with. For example, learning is the most mentioned benefit of measuring change (27.1%). Yet, if this is so important then why the lack of focus on vehicles like coaching, mentoring and training to capitalize on this learning…

Why do people resist change? Findings from Focusing Change to Win

Here’s the reality, Leaders need employee support and trust if their change is going to stand any chance of success. Our contributors underscore this.  If people are cynical about a change, pessimism will set in, and failure is assured. Our contributors show that there are no simple remedies, no sound bites or grizzly 7 step plans. Yet, at its core there are fundamental values that, if believed in, will offer a sound basis for planning and executing successful change. Change failures have left their mark on our contributors over the last eight years. Through their eyes, resistance is a brownfield site…

Tracking Expectations to Avoid IT Project Failure

Whether large or small, IT projects are complex change events. They need cross-functional collaboration between two or more departments or teams. Their success or failure reverberates throughout the organization and often impacts customers. Countless studies and papers on reasons for IT Project Failure cite two critical factors…

Using Behavior Analysis to Impact Sales Revenues

Observing and assessing what people to say and do in given sales situations is not new. It can have a powerful impact on sales effectiveness when done well. From sales ranging from inside to field sales, from direct to indirect, from simple to complex it is not so much which is the best system but which is most appropriate for the job you need to do. What follows is an overview of the case for BA in improving sales performance…

How to Make Sales Self-Coaching More Effective

Self-coaching can be a like the blind leading the blind. At best, the rate of improvement is slow and inconsistent. At worst, the group perpetuates behavior that is not competitive. This is also true of peer coaching where they exert their influence based on equally inaccurate perceptions of what they do and too often steers the colleague in the wrong direction.What follows summarizes why self- and peer-coaching alone can be ineffective in developing sales peoples’ self-analytical abilities – A critical component of sales mastery. Then we overview how to solve this problem.

Focusing to Win: Executive Seminar Series

This seminar series features Nick's new book Focusing Change to Win which he co-authored with Kelly Nwosu. These sessions provides business leaders with insights into critical areas to help focus their businesses and align their people for competitive advantage.  Each...

Rebuilding Trust is Productivity's Cornerstone

Globally there is a slow erosion of those binding forces for people to “go that extra mile” . The employee-employer psychological contract is  degrading.  The degree to which people identify with their job and consider job performance as important to their self-worth...

The Red Tape that Refuses to Die

Here’s an example. Many Calgarians voted for change last October or November because they didn’t see things changing, but how much more difficult is it to change organizations like the City of Calgary? (See Naheed Nenshi’s “cutting the red tape” podcast that contributed to his election for Mayor of Calgary) Here’s his latest comment on his cutting red tape campaign and how long it’s taking…

Change Management Fallacies – Survey

The continued high failure rates of implementing change owe much of their origins to the fallacies of change management and how people view research (based on Korzybski). We would like to know how prevalent these fallacies are in your organization’s leadership team…

Meeting Today's Leadership Challenges in a Complex World

Today leading in a complex world is one of the hot topics being discussed across organization and conferences. Every one faces complexity both in a small or large-scale industry. This complexity is driven by uncertainty and accelerating change…

Why do people resist change? Leadership Survey Findings

Since change management came into fashion, a litany of failure has left its mark and our respondent’s echo what many have gone through in the last 8 years. It seems through their eyes, resistance has to be viewed as a “brown field” site. Gone is the naiveté of “a job for life” and an enduring contract between leaders and other stakeholders…

Key Account Management Series: How do you really improve sales mastery to win more deals?

Over the last 25 years, sales executives have become jaded about sales training’s contribution to the bottom line. For many, memories of being pulled from the field for some grizzly sales training remain. Today there are hundreds such programs . . . from being customer value centered, to chasing foxes (tiring at best), to filling shark charts and don’t forget your green sheets…

Avoiding the Pitffalls of Strategic Planning

Introduction Getting people focused and committed on implementing a strategy has never been more difficult as von Moltke said: Strategic plans do not survive first contact with the enemy, and hence must be always open to revision. In today's competitive environment...

Getting Competitive in Turbulent Times

Introduction The avalanche of data at ever increasing speeds creates greater corporate ADHD. The result is decision making suffers from “24x7 news cycle” thinking where now is better than later. Competitively, it means increased market stress and rapid cycles of...

Offering Help and Advice to Mortgage Loan Customers

A key finding of our research (Nick Anderson and Linda Marsh) was that 40-50% of mortgage loan customers surveyed had concerns about their house buying process. Unfortunately, Mortgage Loan Officers recognized only half of these people had such concerns. Also, Mortgage Loan Officers thought that half the people who didn’t have concerns did.
So, one key factor on offering help and advice is correctly identifying people
who have concerns they need help with.

Problem Defining & The Consulting/Intervention Process

Calif Manage Rev. 1979 Spring;21(3):26-33.Kilmann R, Mitroff I. Intervention theory1 and the consulting process2 have developed to provide more effective methods by which organizational change is conducted.  These methods have emerged in order to operationalize a...

An Approach to Solving People Problems

People problems are very varied; they can also be complex. There is no all-embracing theory for
understanding them and no magical formulas guaranteed to solve them. The problem-solver, where people problems are concerned, must be an experimenter. There are, however, a few guidelines which, if observed, will help to save the problem-solver from wasting time and effort on ultimately unprofitable activities…

Managing Change for Competitive Success – Questionnaire

This interview structure is designed to help interviewees talk about their principles and core values about leading which guide their behavior at work.  In each section, interviewees are asked about their proposals for change and how they should be implemented and then asking why they feel implementing such proposals are necessary.  It is this “why” question which is the most important…

Presenting a Persuasive Case – How do you sell an idea?

A frequent and often crucial situation in management today is one in which one person is seeking to persuade another to accept proposals for change. This situation commonly occurs when a subordinate presents a case to his or her boss…

Getting the Best from your Sales Training: Methodological Agnosticism?

Sound weird, doesn’t it? Truth is . . . being tied to one training methodology simply isn’t productive.
There’s no “perfect training methodology” – whether it be focused on selling, managing or coaching. Any training should Advance Competence while Advancing Sales. Complex sales organizations need methodological purpose rather than one methodology piled on top of existing methodologies.
Additionally, people have been trained a lot in their lives. It seems obvious that we should also give them credit for the concepts, processes, and skills they have already learned. Adding methodologies (no matter how good they are) risks creating indifference. We know indifference does not change behaviors! Conversely, building commitment relies on giving your people and managers credit for what they already know, while at the same time changing behaviors that do not work.
So How about . .
• Working with what your people have?
• Delivering specific learning at the time of greatest need?
• Focusing on advancing sales rather than installing a methodology?
• Treating learners as adults and help them solve real problems?
• Using any necessary forms to advance sales and competence simultaneously?
Simply expressed, organizations need to “make hay” with planning tools their sales people already call their own! This makes economic and “good learning” sense!”
Here’s some things to consider:
Strategic Alignment
“Feeding the Bear”
Human Resources Alignment
Develop Evaluation Strategies

Ensuring Oilsands Project Success – Whitepaper

Mobilizing armies of skilled labor from diverse locations and cultures, moving large equipment into remote locations in harsh climatic conditions and managing to budgets while costs are escalating make oil sands projects among the most challenging ever undertaken. Perhaps the most critical success factor in managing such complex projects is establishing and developing productive relationships. This key factor is very difficult to measure yet is cited repeatedly as the
number one reason for project failure. Consistently, project managers’ expectations of, colleagues, teams, subcontractors, workers and project partners are substantially different from what they actually think is expected of them. Such misalignments result in expected tasks not being completed in the way required for project success, tasks being completed in a sub-optimal sequence or excessive time invested on “low return” tasks.
These misalignments cascade into scheduling conflicts, delays, cost overruns, personnel turnover, increased stress, safety and legal issues.
The take-away: New methods have been developed for the gathering and analysing of expectations from both the expectation originator’s and expectation receiver’s point of view. This enables the diagnosis of misalignments critical to project success, and facilitates the timely conversations required to align expectations and to keep projects on track before they become critical variables. Resource and competency gaps are exposed and addressed. High achieving managers can be identified. A culture of communication, alignment and accountability can be measured and developed.

Getting People on the Same Page – Seven Leadership Challenges

Like most consultants, we are often accused of borrowing the clients watch, tell them the time and then hand it back with a bill………So, given the threats to our economy, it’s a statement of the obvious. We live in turbulent times… only this time what follows is free…

Improving the Payoffs from Oil Sands Projects

In a recent survey of Oil & Gas Industry executives, most said they were:
Dissatisfied with project performance (40% of capital projects overrun); Highest ever level of dissatisfaction
Agreed that poor project performance is not acceptable when the market expects predictable strong returns.
Agreed that they can’t afford to miscalculate project risks, yet they don’t have a good grasp of how manage them.
(Booz Allen Hamilton “Capital Project Execution in the Oil & Gas Industry”)
You would think these executives would have their act together by now. What sorts of things did the survey identify were going wrong?
Good question. Another survey identified several things, includin
At the start of a project, construction people are under enormous pressure to “get on with it!’. So, they agree too readily to others’ expectations of them and accept others’ agreement of their expectations. This ready acceptance of expectations is especially true between professional disciplines and companies. The problem is people don’t really specify what is being agreed to. This only emerges when the expectation’s Receiver doesn’t deliver what was expected by the Originator and then the remedy is usually expensive. At its core is a lack of understanding of what alignment is really about. Alignment requires a Responsibility Shift between an expectation’s Originator and Receiver.

Implementing Sustainable Change – Leadership Challenges

According to the research, more than a third of the respondents (38 percent) undertake a small number of change initiatives per year (1-5 projects). Yet the top reason reported for failed change efforts is having too many “top” priority projects and the inability to coordinate them across the organization.
So I was looking on the web and for some reason I found myself thinking of our experience in PDS Group about what we have learnt and what drives us to prevent change initiatives from failing. And so my theme this month is what you can do to increase the odds that the change you’re planning will achieve its desired results.

Cutting Red Tape in State, Provincial & Local Government

This month’s theme: Cutting the Red Tape in State, Provincial & Local Government. Why? Many people voted for change last November because they didn’t see things changing, but how much more difficult is it to change these organizations anyway?
The first thing leaders have to cope with is more complex politics. On top of internal politics that exist in any organization they also have the political dynamics of executives, elected representatives and their appointees.
Secondly, most change is frequently opposed by at least some proportion of the electorate, population and political class. Change is difficult and unpopular for some of those affected. What this means is that when the @#$% hits the proverbial fan, it doesn’t quietly go away – it explodes and everybody knows about it (especially if the press, opposition and those adversely affected are doing their jobs). For good or ill, whether it is effectively managed or poorly handled, change in government is far more public.
Thirdly, the addition of an audience to any activity increases the strain on performers. Few audiences are larger, more demanding, or more critical than taxpayers. Few activities draw a larger crowd than those that purport to ‘change’ something.
Most leaders don’t appreciate the need for high-involvement change strategies to lower resistance and generate buy-in to change. Without such strategies to engage and involve people, organizations often fall short of delivering promised benefits. Even worse such shortfalls negatively impact productivity and morale. Add to this the time and money wasted and we should be concerned.

Leading Competitive Differentiation

This month I want to explore why planned and focused value discovery is vital to creating and implementing a successful sales strategy. Aligning where you are going with your resources gives you the best chance for creating new or additional revenue sources. This means being competitively clear about how you are going to choose the products (or services) you want to build.
Build the product you want to build,
Market the product you want to build,
Sell the product you want to build,
Service the product you want to build
Build the next generation
Determining where to differentiate based on market conditions is a strategic value conversation. You have to know your products as well as you know your competitor’s. Then determine strategically where competitors are most vulnerable and how to deliver those messages. You must regularly test your premise with the customer…

Who's got the best mouse trap? or How do Consultants Differentiate?

This Blog is about Competitive Differentiation in Professional Services. It covers how individual professionals like lawyers, accountant, financial planners can increase their chances at becoming their clients “trusted advisor”. It examines how trying to help a client understand expert advice can be poorly absorbed if they don’t feel understood first. Much of the lessons learnt will be based on research in financial and accounting Linda Marsh and I conducted.

Paying For Sales Performance – A Myth?

This blog’s topic looks at a cherished belief of many executives that pay for performance compensation schemes motivates people to higher performance. Yet, pay is just one thread in a tapestry that covers the state of motivation in organizations today.
In this piece, I want to challenge managers to stop relying on this apparently sensible idea and rethink what effective management has to provide in creating a Motivating Environment.

Leadership Skills Series: 4 Controlling Meetings

In this blog we focus of those behaviors that Chair People (Chairs) use during meetings to attain successful outcomes. These findings help leaders diagnose their meetings and how too much, too little or the wrong balance of these four behaviors can waste time and often make meetings very frustrating and ineffective.

Leadership Skills Series 3: Handling Difficult People

This is the third in my Leadership Skills series to help Leaders assess where they need to develop their people skills. In my last Post I introduced the research-based model that led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings. I covered the impact of Filter and Amplifier meetings which were the names the researchers coined to distinguish the different ways in which ideas or proposals were managed. This Post focuses on people who are difficult for many to handle or feel comfortable with, and you may be one of these people under certain circumstances.
Typically, you will work with one of these people who naturally behave this way and, in certain situations you may change the way you behave, often without realizing it.

Leadership Skills Series 2: Developing Profitable Ideas

This the second in my series to help leaders assess their interactive skills. In my last blog I introduced the research based model that led to many useful insights into what the more effective communicators do in different settings and focused on what happens when meetings become imbalanced by getting stuck in too much Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying.
In this blog I want to get readers thinking about getting more productive meetings i.e. generating more commercially viable ideas to compete and improve.
What type of research was involved to develop these models?
I want to focus on two key Initiating Behaviors and their relationship to meeting success, namely
* Proposing – putting forward ideas, suggestions courses of action
* Building – sounds like a proposal, which extends or develops another person’s proposal
The difference between them is the Proposing is an independent idea and Building must be dependent on another person’s idea.
What I want readers to think about is the proportion of these two behaviors in their meetings at work, church etc. and how it influences meeting outcome.

Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times

It’s a statement of the obvious ….. We live in turbulent times… I got to thinking what are the challenges of leadership in the times we are living in. Some years ago I noted this quote:
“Business is now so complex and difficult, the survival of the firm is so hazardous, in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day-to-day mobilization of everyone’s intelligence”
Konosuke Matushita, founder of Matsushita Electric
It struck a chord…to mobilize everyone’s intelligence… for regular readers you will recognize a theme in our work at PDS…releasing and focusing people is still a crucial ingredient to survival and sustained sucess
So, my focus this month is the Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times

Have you got your Change Shoes on? –

# Value the individual. Begin by affirming what the employee contributes to your organization. Be sincere and thorough. This step is critical because it frames the conversation.
# Ask the person to identify his/her biggest challenges. Ask the employee to assess his/her performance, including both strengths and challenges. This will help you pinpoint areas for targeted coaching.
# Provide targeted feedback. Give specific examples of behaviors to change.
# Agree on areas to develop for the future. The objective here is to focus the individual’s development and encourage him/her to practice specific new skills. You could also point him/her to training opportunities.
# Agree on the benefits of improving and the consequences of not improving. This step is designed to fuel the employee’s motivation to improve or change.
# Commit your support and reaffirm the person’s value. “When people feel valued, they can hear difficult feedback without being demoralized by it.”

Quality Sales Managers Matters

#1 High-performing sales manager’s impact reps engagement and financial performance. Reps reporting to great managers report high job satisfaction with four times more revenue than those working for poor managers.
#2 Coaching Is King—The manager activity most linked with sales rep success is coaching. However, their coaching ability to coach individual sales reps is the weakest.
#3 Who they coach is selective— Coaching low or star performers does not statistically improve performance. Core performers, the 60% center of the performance Bell Curve make significant improvements with coaching.
#4 Bottom-Line Impacts—Effective coaching hits the bottom line. Core sales reps receiving great coaching reach on average 102% of goal in contrast to sales people reporting poor coaching who achieve only 83% of goal. Good coaching can improve core performance by 19%. This is lower than with PDS’s and Huthwaite’s sales productivity projects (18%-30% sales increases)
#5 Great Coaching Is a Learned Skill—Quantitative analysis shows that five elements account for 77% of coaching effectiveness. Armed with this information, we can develop great coaches by focusing them on specific activities such as emphasizing the importance of targeting the best opportunities and spending at least three, but no more than five, hours coaching each rep per month.

Removing the Barriers to Sales Effectiveness

Some barriers to effectiveness are obvious – if the products are poor then no amount of sales skill can compensate sufficiently to build success. Many barriers are more subtle, and can sap the strength of the company over a long period without being tackled. Such problems usually fall under one the following three headings:
Misalignment
Inflexibility
Internal Focus

Managing Alignment Challenges (Part 3 of 3) – Improving Performance

During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals
Today I want to cover the second in a three part series on Managing Alignment Challenges to improve the odds of bringing successful change to the listeners’ organizations – Performance Improvement
It ranges from the formal to informal yet for any effort to stick managers and leaders have to constantly reinforce the need for effective delegation which inherently involves coaching.

Why Have Job Descriptions Anyway? – A Case of Three Frigates

Different job’s interpretation and implementation raises a number of questions, ranging from;
‘Why have job descriptions anyway?’ to
‘If there’s actually more individual freedom to “tailor” jobs than job descriptions appear to indicate. How can we use AlEx™ to extend that freedom in a planned and controllable manner?’
When individuals have identical job descriptions, there is an expectation that each person will performed in the same way. In jobs where all the tasks are programmable this is realistic. Fortunately, technology created an era where many people are no longer expected to perform such jobs. Now, invariably, it’s the user who determines which purpose will be followed within their team.

Getting Committed People on the Same Page – Disturb First, Enable Second?

How often, in your personal and work lives, do you have to spend listening to somebody drone on about the latest, greatest, best, more, more…their solutions for you….
So, How do you typically react? Why should it matter to Change Management?
It reminds me of a cartoon of a family sitting at a meal table (rare enough of itself) with heads bowed and the son texts mom to pass the fries!

Family Business Transition – Focus on Things You Can Control

Don’t waste time worrying about things you can’t change – Direct your focus to things you can control: Consider your options to transition well out of your business. This blog is about the need to be proactive…Since this recession started Baby-Boomer business owners still face the clock. The dynamics of their condition has not changed. There are only two ways to leave a business you own – Head First or Feet First!

Implementing Successful & Sustainable Change

This is the second in a series which goes to the heart of the challenge facing our economy West Michigan, especially with 60% manufacturing based. – Implementing Successful and Sustainable Change.
Since 1996 when Kotter’s research revealed that only 30% of change initiatives succeed. Even today, when McKinsey surveyed 3000 business executives this ratio of 1 in 3 still applied in 2009.
In both surveys, the number one reason was people not being or willing to be on the same page.

Aligning Expectations in Construction Projects

Potential Benefits of the Aligning the Eternal Triangle: Owner, Architectural Design Team & General Contractor
The Goal: a perfect building with proper design, highest quality, con-structed on time and last but not least, built within budget.
Introduction
What follows are three areas where AlEx™ can potentially help the “Eternal Triangle” of tension and mistrust that pervades many construction project relationships
1. Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension
2. Managing Complexity
3. Improving Building Performance

Meetings Bloody Meetings

 Meetings Bloody Meetings Interactive Skills Series – Part Four Meetings Bloody Meetings This is the fourth in my series to help people assess how good their interactive skills are....

Rewarding Change – A Conversation

All too often the failure to Reward change is the pivotal point where change efforts fail—which is what makes it so regrettable. A company has gone through the necessary steps and just at the point where they are implementing the change, they misfire. Rewarding change lags behind the other processes. Thus a company can embed purpose, remove distractions, align expectations and coach. But if the recognition and reward systems of your company are based on lagging indicators such as sales revenue and profit margin, you will only encourage people to do things differently, not “do different things!”

Aligning Expectations is a Two Way Street

This is the second in a series which goes to the heart of the challenge facing our economy – Implementing Successful and Sustainable Change.
Since 1996 when Kotter’s research revealed that only 30% of change initiatives succeed. Even today, when McKinsey surveyed 3000 business executives this ratio of 1 in 3 still applied in 2009…