1: Stu was mad as hell.
“We got screwed,” he told Fred Kofman, Fred relays in his book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.
Stu was a sales executive for an enterprise software company. Fred served as an advisor to the firm and was leading a workshop with the sales team.
Several months earlier, the company had introduced a highly-anticipated new version of its core product.
“We announced this product as the hottest thing since sliced bread,” Stu continued, “but after we sold it to our best customers, the Product and Finance people realized that it was not as profitable as the earlier version. So, they withdrew it from the market. Now I’ve got a lot of pissed-off clients who have lost their trust in us.”
But there were issues with the new version. It required extensive training and technical support, making it more expensive than previous versions.
So, the company pulled the new version.
The sales team learned of this decision at the last minute, making them look even more foolish to their customers.
This move felt like a betrayal to the sales team, including Stu.
“The product people screwed us,” Stu exclaimed. “There was nothing we could do about it!”
2: “I disagree,” Fred said, challenging Stu’s conclusion.
He continued: “There is always something you can do about it, and even more things that you could have done before it. But to see the things you could have done, you must give up your victim story and take the position of the player.”
Stu threw up his hands and shook his head. “The product people screwed us,” Stu reiterated. “How can customers trust us anymore?”
Fred: “Do you have any ideas?”
Stu: “Sure! If a decision to pull something off the market is being considered, we should be involved in the discussions. And if the decision is made, we should have a strategy to announce this to customers with plenty of time to let them adjust with minimal consequences.”
Fred: “That all sounds good to me. Can you do it?”
Stu: “No. It’s not up to me. This is something that Product should do. Right now, we sales executives have no say in these matters.”
Fred: “So then why stick to that story? It gives you a justification, but it doesn’t give you a solution.”
Stu: “What’s the alternative?”
Fred: “Consider the situation as a challenge that you are facing, rather than as something someone is doing to you. Can you describe the essence of this challenge?”
Stu: “The challenge is that I’m trying to build a relationship with customers based on trust, where they believe that I have their interests at heart and that I will take care of them, while other parts of my organization are destroying this trust by discontinuing products that I sold to my customers.”
Fred: “Excellent. Now comes a really hard question. How have you contributed, by doing or by not doing, to create this situation?”
Stu: “What? Are you saying this is my fault?”
Fred: “No, Stu. I’m saying that you are part of the system, so you must have been involved in some way in co-creating this. If you want to be the solution, you have to place yourself as part of the problem. This is not about your faults but about your ability to influence things.”
Stu: “Okay. I’ll give it a try. If I was going to blame myself…”
Fred (interrupting): “Please don’t blame yourself, Stu. I am asking you to empower yourself.”
Stu (laughing sarcastically): “If I were going to empower myself, I would say that I sold the product to the customers, making an implicit commitment that we would continue with it for some time. I never discussed this openly with them, but it’s an obvious assumption that we all made. I didn’t check this assumption with the product organization. In fact, if I were going to be really hard on myself, I’d have to admit that this is not the first time that something like this has happened. So, in the back of my mind, I was worried that this product would not make it. But I didn’t say anything to my customers or to the Product people in my company…” He paused and said, “I feel terrible saying this.”
Fred: “I get it, Stu. But you’re doing great. This is the price of power. You can do something about the problem and perhaps regain the customer’s trust. The next question is, Could you have done something to prevent this from happening?”
Stu: “Clearly, yes. I could have negotiated with Product some conditions about maintaining the product for a certain time. Or if I couldn’t do that, I could have told the customers that this product was in a testing period and that we couldn’t guarantee that we would continue to support it. I could have negotiated some conditions with the customer—maybe they could test it with a discounted price, or be reimbursed if we discontinued the product, or something. I don’t know if my boss would have let me do any of this, but I could have raised it.”
Fred: “Did you ask?”
Stu: “No. I guess I was too eager to sell the new product. And I was afraid that I’d get chastised for not being a team player.”
Fred: “Since we’re practicing here, let’s take it to the limit. Let’s say Product doesn’t budge and the company doesn’t allow you to negotiate any conditions with the client. Is there anything you could do to preserve trust with your customer?”
Stu: “I have to answer yes to your question. Man, I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of this before…If worse came to worst, I could have told the customer the truth. I could have discussed the potential for any new product to not become what we call ‘commercially viable’ and being discontinued summarily. Once a product has been out for a year or so and it becomes part of our core, we are very careful about any changes in it, but until it proves its worth it’s at risk. If a customer doesn’t want to take that risk, I would advise them to not buy it, at least right away. Right now, that disclaimer is, literally, in the small print that nobody reads.”
Fred: “How would you feel about doing that?”
Stu: “Like I’m betraying my company.”
Fred: “It sounds to me like you’re being responsible and acting with integrity. If the company is not willing to back the product, and even puts that caveat in small print in the contract, it’s not a betrayal for you to be straight with your customers. You know that their assumptions about the continuity of the product are mistaken. Alerting them about the truth is what a trusted salesperson would do. My next question is: What can you do now?”
Stu: “I can talk to my customer and own up to the fact that we were not as transparent with them about the product as we should have been.”
Fred: “We?”
Stu: “Sorry, I wasn’t as transparent as I should have been. But before I do that I need to speak with my manager and clear it. And I also want to ask my manager and my teammates to join our voices to discuss the matter with Product. And if we can’t get satisfaction, then we can take the matter to the CEO.”
Fred: “What lesson do you take from the experience and from this conversation?”
Stu: “It is much easier to be the victim in a situation like this. But the only way to solve it is to be a player.”
3: The story Fred shares above is an example of our ability to shift from being the “victim” to becoming a “player.”
As players, we take “response-ability:” The ability to choose our response.
Fred writes: “Each person is accountable for the way in which he or she prepares, responds, and learns from the challenges that he or she has to confront. There is no blame for events that depend on factors beyond one’s control, but there must be full accountability for preparing and dealing with them with effectiveness and integrity.”
It’s easy to fall into the victim mindset to escape from being accountable and avoid embarrassment.
But the price of doing so is high.
“If we want to be transcendent leaders,” Fred writes, “we need to accept full accountability for ou actions in any circumstance, even in circumstances that are not of our doing.”
More tomorrow!
_______________________________
Reflection: Consider a difficult experience I am having right now: An ineffective meeting, a harsh conversation, or a business or personal problem. How would a victim respond? How would a player respond?
Action: Discuss with my team or with a colleague.
What did you think of this post?
