The Chicago Bulls and Competitive Sales.
Like many of us, I loved watching the ESPN documentary on the Chicago Bulls this Spring. It was amazing to see how competitive Michael Jordan was and the way his mind shaped all the scenarios he was in to his advantage.
The other side was seeing how Michael Jordan was not the best teammate to have around for many years. Especially early in his career, MJ seemed fairly toxic. He did not play well on a team, and it took years for him to operate as part of a whole on the court, even if there were occasional fist-fights behind the scenes.
As I was watching the documentary, a job posting kept popping through my heads. “Looking for highly competitive sports-minded salespeople”. At the time it made sense, you wanted people who strove to do their best at all times and break new records. However the people it attracted seemed to create a toxic work culture.
You see in a competition, there are winners and losers. There is the Ricky Bobby mindset that “If you aren’t first, you are last”. While this sounds counter-intuitive, this is the OPPOSITE of what you want in a salesperson.
If there can only be one winner, then you are purposefully creating a scarcity mindset among your sales team. If only one person can be “the best”, then people will do whatever they can to get there. Everything becomes part of this win-lose mindset.
This trickles into customer interactions. If a salesperson has a scarcity mindset, they may do things unethical or outright illegal in order to be the top dog. Simply look at Wells Fargo and the fraudulent accounts their salespeople opened up.
Rather than a scarcity mindset, you need to foster a win-win mindset. That your team only wins if EVERYONE wins. Certainly you cannot expect everyone to contribute equally, but you need to make sure that Luc Longly feels as welcome as Scottie Pippen.
You see the Bulls were forced into a scarcity mindset. There really is only one NBA Champion each year. They needed to behave with a scarcity mindset because there was a real scarcity. Sales does not have that same problem. Business is an infinite game where the is no “end of the season”.
Stop only rewarding scoring titles and focus instead on championships.
I fully believe the Knicks had all the pieces they needed to win a Championship when Marbury and Crawford were on the team together, If Marbury learned how to play as a team rather than shoot everything he got his hands on.
If you want to foster a competitive sales force, makes sure they are competing against the person they were yesterday, not each other.