Knowing when to say ‘No’

In my life these days the issue of having to say “No” is raising its head in many different contexts. The most recent one came about as I was interacting with the general manager of a company’s service department, where we got talking about how to deal with customers who are so difficult, so unreasonable, that one considers no longer doing business with them. Indeed, on just the previous day he and a colleague were handling just such a case.

The problem was that they were unable to meet the customer’s expectations. But not because of under-performance. Rather because for some strange reason he completely refused to take any advice from them.

As a result, they reckoned the work that would be required to keep that customer happy would by far outweigh the level of business already received or expected, never mind the profitability of such business.

Fortunately, the customer had only acquired a relatively small item and was unlikely to ever become a major buyer. So the risk of losing him was not so great. Sure, he might well never return for future purchases, and also talk ill of this supplier and of the break-up that separated him from them. But the cost of holding on to him seemed likely to far outweigh the downside risks.

The decision of a supplier to part ways with a customer is never easy. Never mind if the customer is a major one and has been with you for a long time. One can live in the hope that the relationship will improve, perhaps that the unreasonable player or players there will give way to more reasonable ones.

One can also justify holding on to unprofitable and unsatisfying clients by considering them as “strategic investments”, prudent to hold on to for other than pure commercial reasons. But sometimes it must come to divorce.

My service manager friend asked me if I had ever had to tell a customer I no longer wanted to do business with them. As I thought about it my mind immediately turned to a different, admittedly much easier to answer, question: what kind of customer would I not wish to do business with in the first place?

Such a question was very important in my days of selling high-end IT solutions. For if the prospect looked like they lacked the competence to see the project through, the blame for its at-best delayed implementation and at worst its failure to take off at all would too easily and most likely be displaced onto us.

Indeed it was this kind of behaviour that led me to coin “Eldon’s Law”, which states: “The more incompetent the user, the more they blame the supplier.”

In my exceptionless experience, however, incompetent or uncommitted the user may be in handling the inevitable disruption that installing transformative IT systems involves, they certainly do not lack the savvy to know how to pass the buck.

As I have shared Eldon’s Law with others who deliver large complex solutions, whether in IT or any other field, no one has ever seen it be disproved.

The question is how to identify such potential clients. One criterion is the way the terms of reference are expressed, and what opportunities exist for supplier and customer to align as responsible partners, each playing their role as they should.

Then, how does the prospect come across in seeking the best value for money as opposed to simply looking for the lowest cost option? No need to spell that one out, right? We also don’t need to delve into the specifics of prospects whose main objective is to benefit personally from any transaction.

Whether one is dealing with an awkward prospect or an existing client, my best advice is that there should be discussions between colleagues in the vendor organisation, as there was in the case I mentioned.

So pessimists can engage with optimists, risk-takers with risk-avoiders, for them together to ultimately toss the coin as to whether to say “No” or not.

Another prudent move is to escalate to higher levels in the organisation, to those with more experience, and more scars from previous wounds, who can look down from their balconies and advise. If appropriate also intervene at higher levels in the prospect or client hierarchy, to nurture a more win-win approach to the relationship.

In conclusion, don’t rush to say “No” prematurely, but accept that sometimes it’s the least bad way forward.

Corruption rife in the West too

I was in London for a few days in December, and there I came across an article on corruption in the Sunday Times by Matthew Syed—a management consultant like me—about how it works in western liberal democracies. He reckons the cancer of corruption has been growing there for decades, resulting in such consequences as the stagnation in their economies, the rise in inequality, and the collapse of trust in government.

He accepts that some may challenge his diagnosis of the underlying disease, pointing to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) where Western nations continue to score favourably. But while the US, the UK and the EU countries tend not to engage in the kind of “transactional” corruption measured by the TI survey, what is seen in the West is a different kind of decay, subtler and more insidious.

He mentions the significant number of politicians who pass through the revolving door and earn huge sums of money from companies over which they once had oversight; notes how political parties are funded by an even smaller number of mega-donors; and observes that those who chair public committees and tribunals know that their elevation to the peerage is in the gift of those over whom they sit in judgement.

So it’s not about straightforward bribes. Rather “it is a covert edifice of nods, winks and reciprocal obligations that has created a parallel system of political power”. Thinkers over the ages like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek have noted that corporations are not seeking to act in the public interest but “to protect themselves from the cleansing power of open competition by advocating sweetheart regulations, covert subsidies and other barriers to entry from insurgent rivals”.

Syed also quotes Luigi Zingales, who noted that “the best way to make lots of money is not to come up with brilliant ideas but to cultivate a government ally”. The consequence of such activity today is that dominant companies are staying ever longer in the main indices, and start-up rates are dwindling on both sides of the Atlantic.

Syed then quotes Matt Ridley, who saw that of Europe’s 100 most valuable companies, none was formed in the past 40 years. “Free markets have been replaced with rigged markets,” concludes Syed, “capitalism with a cronyish impostor.”

How extraordinary. In among all one reads about the contemporary trend of corporate social responsibility and about how we are becoming much more sensitive to the environment, to social issues and to good governance, here’s a contrary view, a really gloomy one.

As interesting as Syed’s observation of “corruption’s revolving door” are his proposals for how to seal that door before it is too late. His first one is to impose a ban of at least five years on ministers and regulators working for companies over which they had had oversight.

Meanwhile, he would significantly increase the salaries of ministers, which he accepts would be an extremely unpopular move. His logic is that higher-quality candidates would be attracted to such positions, and that they would be happy just serving the public interest rather than using their jobs in the subsequent service of corporate clients from whom the real money would be earned after leaving office.

One more suggestion, hard to imagine how it could work even in the environment Syed was writing about: a voucher system for funding political parties, where each person would have, say, £50 to contribute to the party or the candidate of their choice, encouraging parties to engage much more widely with voters. Alongside this, a cap on private donations. Without such remedies, Syed is convinced, the body politic risks being fatally harmed by the corruption cancer within.

As I read the article, I first wondered how mainstream Syed’s views are, and to what extent his suggested remedies are being considered. But mainly I thought about how what he spelt out relates to what happens here. Our position on Transparency International’s CPI is low, as we are expert at indulging in what Syed describes as “officials asking for bungs; ministers giving jobs to nieces and nephews; politicians siphoning off funds from state coffers to Swiss bank accounts”, the kind of corruption that has eased off in the West.

For sure here, “knowing people” so as to have allies in government is as important as anywhere; and offering soft-landing jobs to former politicians and senior government officials is commonplace.

It’s all relative, isn’t it though? While we are worse off than many, we are still not as bad as plenty of others. The struggle continues, here and elsewhere.

Why board voting comes last

A while ago I read an article about boards and voting by Roger Hitchcock, a senior partner at the Sirdar Global Group which guides boards to become more effective. I met Roger when I was a participant in his Sirdar Applied Directorship Programme some years ago, and as always in this article he was full of common sense, leading me to completely agree with his line of thinking.

While board voting can serve as a mechanism to resolve conflicts and make decisions, he writes, it should be approached cautiously and used as a last resort. This, I may add, applies equally to all kinds of organisations.

The reasons board voting should be the last resort are fairly obvious. By its nature, suggests Roger, it pits directors against each other, potentially leading to divisions within the board.

An “us-and-them” mentality can undermine the overall cohesion and effectiveness of the board, hindering its ability to function as a united entity. Indeed where I am a board chairman I work hard to avoid situations where there are winners and losers — even without that ultimate victory— and defeat outcome that results from voting.

Beyond sustaining cohesiveness among directors, avoiding contentious voting lessens the likelihood of straining relationships between board members, which would create a negative atmosphere within and beyond the boardroom.

This can have long-term implications for collaboration, trust and open dialogue, all crucial for effective board governance.

But it’s not just the soft relationship issues. Avoiding voting improves the quality of decision-making, asserts Roger. When a vote becomes necessary, it signifies a failure to reach a consensus through open dialogue and deliberation.

In such cases, the decision made may not be the result of a thorough exploration of all perspectives and alternatives, comprehensive analyses, and robust debate with the best interests of the company. Yes, voting offers a speedy approach to decision-making, but the lack of these key elements too often leads to sub-optimal outcomes.

So, Roger insists, we can avoid the need for voting by allowing for robust discussion and debate. Encouraging open and constructive discussion among board members is vital, I have seen in my many years as a director and chairman, going back to the late seventies.

By fostering an environment that values diverse perspectives, the board is relaxed and open enough to explore alternative viewpoints, identify common ground, and uncover innovative solutions without having to resort to voting.

This approach involves finding agreement among board members through compromise and negotiation and ensures that decisions that are in the best interests of the organisation are made with support from all board members.

This cannot be accomplished merely within board meetings, I have found. Where I am the chairman I frequently engage with individual directors prior to the formal board meeting to seek the spread of views and build towards consensus. Some may call this manipulation, but given that it is always pursued in the best interests of the organisation I do not hesitate to invest time in such activity.

Boards should establish clear decision-making processes, recommends Roger, like designing appropriate reports and dashboards, or using the normal board committees or temporary task forces to thoroughly analyse and vet proposals and come up with recommendations.

These processes and structures enable boards to engage in deep discussions, gather relevant information, and seek input from subject-matter experts before bringing issues to the boardroom.

Roger identifies a further benefit of boards consistently seeking consensus and making decisions based on that togetherness, which is that it leads to stakeholders gaining confidence in the board’s ability to navigate complex challenges, thereby enhancing the company’s reputation and its stakeholder relationships.

So, seeking consensus fosters a culture of collaboration and teamwork among board members. It promotes shared ownership of decisions, leading to a more cohesive board and stronger boardroom dynamics. Consensus-based decisions tend to be more comprehensive and well-rounded. All those in favour, please vote “Aye”.

This is my last article of the year (my 440th ), so I wish you a happy and relaxing time in the coming days and look forward to re-engaging with you in January.

What graduates ought to do

At the beginning of this month, Strathmore University Business School held its Executive Education graduation ceremony, and I was invited to be their keynote speaker. It was a wonderful occasion, where more than 300 of the nearly 2,500 participants in the executive programmes that had been running this year were receiving their certificates, with many others online.

After an exhilarating rendering of the National Anthem led by the Spellcast group, the School’s Executive Dean Caesar Mwangi addressed the gathering, telling those present that while they were graduating at a time of unprecedented challenges, Strathmore expected that they would find ways to contribute significantly to shaping a sustainable and prosperous Africa.

The theme of the day was “Developing Sustainable Businesses for Africa”, and this was re-emphasised by the next speaker, Vice Chancellor Vincent Ogutu, who talked about the university’s mission of developing ethical and transformational leaders.

He then introduced the Chief Guest, yours truly.

In their remarks, both had referred to how they have known me since they were students at the University of Nairobi when I had engaged with them through my involvement with AIESEC, the international association for students in economics and commerce (now broadened to include other disciplines).

As a result of their informal tone, I felt at ease to open by stating “No protocols observed,” before greeting “Vincent” and “Caesar”. I am a protocolophobic fellow and enjoyed the friendly atmosphere that encouraged me to indulge my preferred relaxed style.

In my talk, I referred to my early life experiences with a variety of cultures that formed me as a citizen of the world and prepared me for my life here in Kenya, where I launched my management career in the late ’70s.

This is when I began nurturing Adult-Adult, I’m OK-You’re OK, Win-Win relationships among my staff and others, and which I have been promoting ever since.

Strathmore’s broader theme for the year is “Caring for our common home”, derived from Pope Francis’s appeal. I shared examples of how this is being applied in Kenya, through such organisations as Kepsa and its member organisations, as it engages with the government to care for Kenya.

Those involved in such initiatives, which include some who are members of the UN’s Global Compact and of The Blue Company, plus others who indulge in personal social responsibility through volunteer clubs like Rotary and Lions, take the longer-term view.

They are up for gratification deferral, in support of sustainable futures.

I also talked about Charles Handy, who was a colleague of my father’s at Shell and later became a global management guru. He founded the Sloan Master’s Programme at the London Business School – from which, as it happens, I graduated in 1974, as part of its sixth cohort.

I later got to know Charles Handy myself, and to learn from him personally, I revealed.

I mentioned that in his 1989 book, The Age of Unreason, he summed up the emerging trend in Western workplaces as: “½ X 2 X 3”, seeing that companies were tending to employ half the number of people they used to and expecting twice the output from them, in exchange for which they were being paid three times as much.

In the ’80s we were already seeing the transformative inter-related effects of globalisation, liberalisation and technology… with its consequences being the need for educated and mobile knowledge workers.

But no one had described the brave new world of “survival of the fittest” as succinctly as Handy, who worried before many that so many people (the other “½”) would be woefully unfit to meet the needs associated with more and more of the world’s modern-day jobs.

I added that in a 2019 article in the London Business School Review, about which I wrote a piece in this column, Handy advocated a form of learning at business schools that was “experience understood in tranquility”, and I assumed it was like this for them.

I urged the graduates to be active in caring for our common home through the kinds of organisations I had mentioned, so as to help build a critical mass of leaders with high values, able to influence the direction in which our country will head.

Caring for our common home: Developing Sustainable Businesses for Africa

Speech by Mike Eldon at the Strathmore University Business School Annual Executive Education Programmes Graduation on 1st December 2023

Click here to download the full speach (PDF, new window)

Board hand in culture change

A while ago, I facilitated a session with the board of a major Kenyan organisation, where I had them reflect on what they were proud of as a board and as individuals, and what additional aspects they wished to be proud of later.

The team is undergoing a review of its culture so as to take it to the next level, and as the directors reflected on the initiative they felt they could and should be more involved.

This is very much the norm at the director level. They are typically far more concerned about the numbers, the financials, which is what led the two Harvard professors, Kaplan and Norton, to come up with their Balanced Scorecard.

Through this framework they had company leaders place equal emphasis on the factors that deliver the numbers: the products and customers; the systems and processes; and the people – the element they described as “learning and growth”.

It is of course the people who define and live the culture, perceived through how they behave, which reflects their attitudes, these being a function of their values.

How many directors feel competent, and hence confident and comfortable dealing with such soft issues? Not many. “Leave it to the HR people,” they may well say, as they return to their easy-to-measure revenues, profits and suchlike.

I have written before in this column that few people at any level possess the expertise needed to enhance a culture.

At best they may find ways of defining the existing one, with all its ups and downs, and of sketching out the aspirational one, with the usual words to describe it: trust and openness, innovation and collaboration….

But as for how to migrate to that better world and overcome present challenges, don’t ask them. Indeed some will tell you it’s a waste of time, as most culture-change programmes fail to make a difference.

Then, as I read what others write on this subject – not least at the national level – too often I again see descriptions of how awful the present culture is or how wonderful living Utopian values would be, calling for a transformation to that ideal world but without in any way guiding us on how to travel along the journey towards it.

Yet while it is true that many culture-change initiatives fall way short of what they were intended to achieve, some do deliver both significant and sustained impact. What differentiates the two?

First, it’s investing time in bringing people together for open conversations that generate what I call “purposeful reflection”, where participants discuss and agree on what they will do more of and less of, start doing, stop doing and continue doing.

This requires the presence of a safe space, or as it is now sometimes described, one of “psychological safety” – which, allow me to state, is more readily created by external facilitators skilled in creating such a space and conducting such activities.

Without going into other critical success factors for culture change, let me jump straight to the need for enthusiastic support from the board.

Everyone must know that at the top level, it is accepted that culture does indeed eat strategy for breakfast – or, as I put it, that there must be a culture strategy component within the overall strategy.

The directors must be part of the strategy development and then participate in the conversations about culture, adding value to them and being role models for the desired culture.

They must also appreciate that changing a culture is much more than a one-off event but a continuous journey, one that requires focus and time, plus the relevant specialised skills and experience among those driving it.

And the performance management system must be such that those who embrace the desired culture are recognised and rewarded – which is why “Change Champions” are often identified as part of the process.

These days it is expected that directors undergo training, and this is now indeed the norm. But beyond programmes that relate to governance issues of oversight, compliance and risk management, how many cover the softer areas of leadership, like culture?

Happily, the organisation that invited me to spend time with their board appreciated this need, and I am confident that their directors will now ensure that matters to do with culture remain firmly on their radar.

CFO’s day with board directors

I was recently invited by professional advisory firm Ronalds East Africa to be one of the keynote speakers at their training event for Chief Finance Officers (CFOs) and other leaders of the finance function. My session was about advising the participants on how to interact effectively at the board level.

There was quite a spectrum in the room, from senior finance folk who regularly attended board and board committee meetings, to younger, more junior ones. Some of the CFOs were executive directors on their boards, with a regular seat at the top table, while others were only invited to contribute on specific items.

I asked them if they held responsibilities beyond financial management, and one lady told me she was the finance and administration manager – a not uncommon combination. (To me “administration” has always sounded rather old-fashioned and bureaucratic, and I suggested they think of a more contemporary term).

Elsewhere I have seen CFOs also oversee functions such as strategy and performance, risk and compliance, investments, mergers and acquisitions, and ICT. For obvious reasons, those whose portfolios are broadest are the ones most likely to climb further up the managerial ladder, I emphasised.

In my session I asked a series of questions, first about their alignment with the CEO. Did they work together as a close team, with mutual trust and respect? And then about management’s relationship with the board – individually and as a team. “Do you look forward to engaging with your directors, or do you dread the interactions?” I posed, before also asking if the directors looked forward to engaging with them.

Not very positive responses here, accompanied by several statements admitting that they only speak if asked to do so.

So, what holds them back? Why do so many CFOs underperform when they appear in the boardroom? My first point was that too many heads of departments, including CFOs, feel intimidated when in the presence of directors, and these feelings are reflected in their behaviour. It’s why they keep their contributions as short as possible, they don’t project their voice, and avoid eye-contact.

Others, however, are over-confident, perhaps being expert at spouting the numbers, despite lacking either the holistic organisational perspective or communication skills. They are inadequately prepared, not having translated their overcrowded spreadsheets into easy-to-absorb graphics; not having been coached in how to communicate for this level of engagement; and not having been through rehearsals to the meetings.

My next slide asked “Are you just Dr No?” Here I had them probe the extent to which the image they felt they should portray had them play too much of a stern-parent role, exception-reporting on the over-spenders and the under-deliverers… while remaining silent when the numbers looked good. Alongside this, many of their tribe enjoy being the most risk-averse in the room, displaying consistent worst-case pessimism and merely focusing on why any new initiative will not succeed, and in any case is unaffordable.

“Are you just book-balancers, number-crunchers, cost-minimisers?” I asked provocatively. “Or do you also see yourselves as advisers, consultants and coaches to your colleagues – including directors?” And how good were they at managing relationships, I inquired, whether internally with other functions, departments and locations, and between levels; or externally with investors, bankers, auditors and others?

To help them here I delved into my favourite topic of emotional intelligence, explaining how those with high EQ interact in ways that result in win-win outcomes, where everyone feels adequately satisfied and so owns the plans and commit to their implementation.

Whether in their technical financial skills or their non-technical skills of 360-degree relationship building, they need not only to be competent, I stated, but to match that with a healthy mix of confidence and humility, making others feel comfortable when interacting with them.

It is by expanding their comfort zone through developing new and broader skills that their circle of influence would expand. Their constructive, helpful voice will be listened to more, and those around them will see their potential for both higher cross-functional and boardroom responsibilities.

Downsize with heart, not hurt

Around the world organisations are downsizing, whether because of the generally tough economic times or for other reasons. And as we observe how this is being handled we see a whole spectrum of employer behaviour, from the brutal to the caring.

Some have simply sent texts to staff, informing them that they are being laid off. How cruel that is! No wonder, as I wrote in an earlier article, leaders like Jack Welch felt one of the most important and challenging skills for managers to develop is holding difficult conversations, such as ones to do with downsizing inevitably are.

The task of those who must inform staff members that they have been laid off is incredibly difficult, admitted Welch.

They feel guilt and anxiety before, during and after. And he was surprised that he couldn’t identify any programmes that helped people develop the skills needed to conduct such meetings.

I decided to write this column as I was recently exposed to a manufacturing company that needed to downsize its staff and made the hard decision to do so.

Despite the difficult financial situation in which it found itself, the board and management were clear that they would provide those leaving with as soft a landing as possible.

Their approach was to offer voluntary early retirement to staff, with reasonable benefits beyond the payment of their notice period, in the hope that no one would have to be asked to leave against their wishes.

A considerable number applied, including a few senior staff who’d been with the company for many years – which gave an opportunity to younger employees to inherit their responsibilities.

Those leaving were offered training sessions that prepared them for seeking new opportunities, and as Welch recommended, they were encouraged to believe that there was a better life ahead of them, aligned with their interests and aptitudes.

As I wrote in another of my articles, about directors reaching the end of their terms, when people retire they go through a grieving process, with the usual steps of denial followed by acceptance, mourning and eventual healing.

I was referring to a different kind of situation, but my point there is valid here too, finding ways of helping the leavers to deal with their loss, while those remaining make their exit much smoother and more graceful than many turn out to be.

The advice I gave to the retiring directors was to accept that their positions were never meant to be for life, and that as one door closes others may open. Keep giving your utmost till the last day of your term, I insisted, and hand over on the due day with no regrets.

Your inner motivation and sense of commitment may have dimmed somewhat, but let this in no way affect how you perform your duties. Be proud of your legacy, and have others speak well of you.

As for those remaining, they should understand that their departing colleagues are likely to be indeed grieving, however stoic they may appear. Therefore, show generous appreciation for where and how they have made a difference.

We are all in need of empathy and appreciation, so say farewell nicely, and have them continue to speak well of the place they are about to leave.

Farewell lunch

The organisation that I witnessed going through downsizing hosted a farewell lunch for the retirees, giving them an honourable send-off. The CEO invited each of the newly promoted team members – also present – to say a few words, before asking those who were leaving to speak. Without exception, everyone was positive and appreciative of their time with the company, whether it had come to an end or not.

And the retirees were also exceptionlessly optimistic about the company’s future, saying they were leaving it in safe hands to deal with the present challenges.

Several of the leavers stated that they could always be called upon for support and one, with a light touch, suggested if their younger replacements came across a problem they could blame him!

Several directors were also present, and when they spoke some expressed how moved and encouraged they felt, saying they would miss those who were leaving.

The retirees were wished well in the next stage of their lives, and the “youngsters” who were taking over were assured that they had the full support of the board.

My strong sense was that here the grieving was much milder than usual. Indeed the whole spirit was an uplifting one. So if you are having to downsize, do also behave humanely with those who will be leaving.

Women leaders can fight smiling

I am sharing with you a conversation I had with three young women leaders, launched by one of them about a situation in which she found herself. “I am the only woman on this board, and one of the men asked me to get him a cup of tea,” she narrated and asked how I would have reacted.

Earlier I had shown myself to be a champion for women, so she was surprised and dismayed when I replied that I would have brought him the tea. I explained that otherwise I would have risked provoking resentment on his part, and hence quite likely jeopardised our relationship.

My suggestion was that she should be building her status as a board member by making high-quality contributions, leading people like him to perhaps think again about such requests.

However, I would not have left the matter there. I hoped her chairman — or another director — was someone she could have approached after the meeting, requesting him to speak to his fellow board member and suggest he find other ways of getting his tea.

She revealed that she had indeed refused to be the “tea-girl”, and quite assertively so, but it turned out that at the subsequent board meeting and consistently thereafter other staff provided the service.

She wasn’t aware of how this came about, but she was relieved that she no longer risked being placed in this awkward situation.

Others in our group now had their say, with one suggesting she would have just put the tea on the table without actually serving the man, and another saying she would have smiled as she responded, whether accepting or refusing his request.

I now had two of the women role-play the situation, with one acting the part of the man. How did he feel when his request was strongly rejected? Was he embarrassed and remorseful? Did he resent the snub? It’s good to put oneself in the other’s shoes.

As we continued, I decided to call my wife, who has over the years often been the only woman on a board. Had she ever been asked to be the tea-girl? And if so how did she handle the situation? No, she hadn’t, she told me, but if asked she would have done so – with a smile and a light touch.

I then brought the conversation to the subject of emotional intelligence, which I suggested is about negotiating win-win outcomes. The challenge here was how to deal with the tea request in a way that both parties ended up feeling OK about it all.

And for me that meant giving way at the outset, while finding gentle ways of preventing a recurrence. Not necessarily by engaging directly with the other person, but perhaps seeking the intervention of a third party, a mediator.

One aspect of emotional intelligence is that sometimes we need to find the strength to separate how we feel from how we behave.

For sure, the lady board member resented being asked to be the tea-girl. But my thought was for her to swallow her short-term pride to allow for an easier long-term resolution.

Here we were talking about a small matter, however demeaned the lady in question felt. But the pluses and minuses of the different approaches we discussed among us regarding the tea-serving apply much more broadly. And not just between men and women.

It can be between older and younger people, senior and junior ones, the more and the less educated, and other pairings where one side feels unduly entitled to favours.

A final word on women’s empowerment. Any time I hear about women “fighting” for their rights it worries me. For in fights there are winners and losers.

Where such aggressive women win their fight, one of their key measures is that men will lose. No, I say. I am an absolute supporter of women’s rights, but wherever possible to go after them in graceful, elegant ways that allow for win-win all round.

Going back to the days of the British suffragettes who struggled to obtain the right to vote for women in the early 20th century there were two groups: one that was confrontational and dramatic, and one that operated more quietly but at least as effectively. I would have been with the latter.

So to the women reading this I say, smile rather than frown as you advocate for your cause. And to the men, go get your own tea.

Training relationship managers

I have recently been exposed to a couple of situations where the manager of a salesperson has been playing an unnecessarily high proportion of the role that could and should have been carried out by the salesperson. In each case, the salesperson was an “account manager”, or “relationship manager”, two terms which I like and to which I relate closely, as when I started my career in IT vendoring in the late 1960s this was my position, one from which I learned so much.

In these recent situations, I was acting as a coach to both the managers and the salespersons, helping them migrate to a situation where the managers could leave much more of the customer engagement to their subordinates, allowing them to deal with more strategic issues.

I suggested launching the process by preparing for meetings with customers where this would happen, and agreeing on how each would contribute to the flow.

It helps to rehearse, to role-play, with the two acting as themselves and someone else playing the part of the customer who’s been used to dealing with “the big man”. So we did.

Needless to say, this assumes the account manager is actually fit for purpose, particularly in dealing with people at a higher level than theirs, for if not their skills must be developed through training, coaching and other exposures.

In my recent examples, the relationship managers were indeed capable of engaging effectively with more senior people in customer environments, possessing the necessary combination of competence and confidence to fulfil both the technical and non-technical aspects of their work.

Too often, however, the more junior person lacks the confidence to deal with more senior customer representatives.

In my first ever sales training course I was introduced to the notion of “the nodding manager”, who as much as possible merely listens to their subordinates interacting with customers, with a supportive body language that shows their endorsement of what they are hearing.

So, as the meeting progresses, the manager says less and less and their junior ups their contributions and hence their credibility and acceptance. One must surely study the behaviour of the customer, to assess their readiness to be “degraded” in this way.

For in one of my recent situations, the senior customer person who’d been used to dealing with a manager had to be nudged to have their counterpart in the vendor organisation now be at a lower level.

Where their ego had assumed they’d be dealt with by their counterpart, they were now being asked to be humble enough to agree to the downward switch.

For me as a customer that wouldn’t be a problem, as it seems obvious that everything should happen at the lowest possible level. If the more junior person in the hierarchy is fit for the job, that’s all that matters.

Provided that between them and me as their customer we know where an issue is beyond their pay scale and we need to escalate higher office.

That’s an important point for relationship managers. As I wrote in an earlier article, where a matter needs escalation, whether within their own organisation or in the customer’s, they must develop the skill to know when and how to do so.

It should neither be too soon nor too late, and it should be pursued with emotional intelligence so that no one is offended. Escalation management is as important a skill as delegation management.

When all those years ago I was an account manager, I was allocated a small number of large customers where I was the one coordinating the software and hardware technical people supporting them, as well as the finance folk.

What a learning-by-doing experience this was, where I had to motivate and coordinate those involved on my side and help them not only to perform the technical aspects of their work effectively but also to communicate well with the customer staff.

And despite having these responsibilities I was not their line manager, having no direct authority over them – just influence.

My sense is that most account/relationship managers receive inadequate preparation for dealing at multiple levels with their customers.

They are insufficiently equipped for either handling problems that arise or proactively initiating new sales.