Wayne Gretzky and the Problem with Sales Managers

For those of you who were not alive in the 80’s and 90’s, Wayne Gretzky was the greatest hockey player of all time. He is know as “The Great One” and earned that title. He has 2,857 points (Goals + assists) over the course of 1,487 games (1.92 ppg) . To put that in perspective, the number 2 points player of all time, Jaromir Jagr, has 1,921 points over 1,733 games (1.11 ppg) While not quite double the production of the second greatest offensive player of all time, Gretzky did outperform him by over 150%.

I know. I gave you a ton of numbers all at once, and it was a lot for people to handle. All you really need to know, if you do not know anything about hockey, is that Gretzky is the hands-down champ. I could give you stats that will likely never be broken.

But I do not just want to talk about how great of a player he is. That is part of it, but not the whole.

In June of the year 2000, he was named the head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes, a new team expansion team into the National Hockey League (NHL). Coyotes fans were excited. Their team was going to be learning from “The Great One” himself.

They were soon very disappointed.

See Gretzky’s run as a coach was less than stellar. In his four years behind the bench, he never made it to the playoffs. Even though he was the most dominant offensive player to ever step in the ice, he was never able to break a .500 record, with his best year only having 38 wins out of 82 games.

This is not an isolated incident either. Great players often struggle in management and coaching positions. Michael Jordan (NBA) has been struggling as an executive of the Charlotte Bobcats/ Hornets. Since buying the Bobcats in 2006, (as of 1/26/2022) They have had a record of 523 wins and 712 losses (0.422).

Teddy Williams, one of the most consistent hitters in MLB history and the only player to have an above .400 batting average, had a record as a manager of 273-364 (0.429)

Patrick Ewing, my favorite player of all time, is now coaching at Georgetown University and is currently at the bottom of the Big East. Isiah Thomas is one of the worst coaches of all time. Mike Singletary bombed as the coach of the Chicago Bears. The list can go on and on.

So why does this keep happening? Simple.

TEACHING IS A SKILL.

If you know any teachers in your life, you know how true this is.

You do not need an expertise in communications to be an amazing athlete or to devout yourself to a single craft. You need to be able to relay and simplify information, and that is a different skill entirely. You need to keep people focused on one or two things at a time without them getting distracted. You need to have the patience to focus on something until it becomes second nature before moving onto the next.

So what does this have to do with sales and sales managers?

Well, how did your last sales manager get promoted? Did the owner of the company simply look in Salesforce, pick the salesperson with the best closing ratio and hand them a new name tag. “Congratulations. You are the manager now! Huzzahs all around.”

Yeah, thought so.

See by promoting “star players”, we have created an issue where managers do not know how to train salespeople. They never had to TEACH before. They just saw the pay-bump and a modicum of power and signed on the dotted line. But teaching and coaching is a skill, and few managers take the time to foster that.

If you are in a leadership role, make sure you are focusing not on sales, but on communication and training. Your job is to support your people and keep them focused on the one thing that will move the needle the most.

If you are not in a leadership role, keep an eye out and make sure you pay attention to teaching and training issues within your organization.