In my most recent blog post, which you can find here, I discussed the fact that the best employees do not necessarily make the best managers. And that this fact is perfectly okay.
I also claimed that aptitude, fit, and personal alignment were crucial for any position or function, including management.
At the end of that post, I told you to stay tuned for an upcoming blog post, where I would provide a couple of personal examples that exemplify the notion that the best employees may not make the cut for management, and that mediocre employees may be the perfect fit for management.
Without further delay, I will provide two personal examples that support this perspective. Here we go!
The first example is from a previous job. I was a salesman serving a tough and challenging market. During the initial months on the job, I made zero sales. I was slow on the learning curve and couldn’t seem to figure out how to connect with potential customers. After these initial few months, I was moved to an even more challenging market, where I had limited confidence in myself. However, I took the new challenge as an opportunity to “start over” and to rebrand myself as a successful salesman amongst my new coworkers and potential customers.
Almost immediately upon my transition to the new market, I began to sell! And not just sell a little … but sell a lot! And retain a lot of current customers! Granted, I wasn’t the best salesman the world had ever witnessed, but my performance grew exponentially, as did my enjoyment of the sales process! Truth be told, my performance primarily grew because I began to approach sales with feelings of enthusiasm and a genuine interest in building relationships with others. Zig Ziglar’s “Secrets of Closing the Sale” truly opened my eyes to the transformational, rather than transactional, component of sales.
And another truth be told – I also wanted to build credibility in the new market, so I was largely motivated by the notion to “fake it” until I made it. This motivation, combined with an entirely different approach to sales, elevated me to a mediocre level of sales that satisfied management’s base expectations. I genuinely gave my best effort, and mediocrity was the result.
Fast forward another couple months, and I found myself a couple weeks away from moving to another position within the company. I was charged with training and mentoring a new sales associate for the remainder of those two weeks, and I had no intention of cultivating mediocrity in my mentee.
What I may have lacked in salesmanship, I made up for in my writing, conceptual thinking, and passion for people. Before I met with the new sales associate, I created a document that outlined the critical components of the company’s sales process, as well as the procedures required to finalize the sales process and address different vendors on the backend. As a reflection of my learnings from Zig Ziglar’s book, I wanted to provide the new sales associate with the outlined processes and experiences that would have added value to me when I started.
When I met the new sales associate, I opted not to overwhelm him with processes and outlines that made little sense without context. Therefore, I spent the first few days building rapport with the new salesman, and I included him on all my prospective sales interactions. Whenever he had questions, I did my best to answer them. I engaged him in the sales process by allowing him to perform the backend processes required to finalize the sale, in addition to his observance of the sales transaction itself.
As a natural progression over these first few days, the new salesman immersed himself in all parts of the sales process, from meeting the client, to closing the sale, to completing the proper paperwork. All without pressure to do everything perfectly. All with an explicit expectation to ask me anything. As I observed the new salesman and worked through different elements of the sales process with him over these few days, I made sure to stay by his side and reassure him in his efforts. After the third day, I provided the new salesman with the processes and outlines I created, since he now understood the context and had experienced the processes himself. I told him to review the documents at his whim, to reach out to me with any questions, and to have a relaxing weekend after a great few days of learning.
Following a couple more days of “handholding,” I flipped the script. I let the new salesman take the lead with clients and engage the entire process himself. For the next week, I was simply a resource he could use to support his selling efforts. I wanted him to feel empowered and confident. I wanted him to own the sales process, yet feel welcome to ask me for support when needed.
Within that week of flipping the script, the new salesman had already started making his own sales. He had the knowledge, the confidence, and the enthusiasm to build relationships, close the sale, and take care of backend procedures. When I moved on from that position and onto another role, he already smelt success and was cooking up new sales to permeate his office with the overwhelming smell of high-quality and high-quantity sales.
What level of impact did I have on this new salesman? Minimal. Very minimal. He had natural talent in salesmanship that I did not possess. However, as a trainer and mentor, I was able to cultivate a transition process for this salesman to expedite his comfort, understanding, and development. The documents I outlined, alongside my proactive approach to the new salesman’s training, provided a foundation for the new salesman to leverage for his first, fiftieth, and thousandth sale.
The credit goes to the new salesman. He put in the work, and the results were his. What’s the moral of this story? Although I was mediocre in selling, I was able to excel in a training and development role (often a critical component of managers, depending on industry) because my natural skill set in writing, conceptual thinking, and energy transference were more important to the trainer position than my selling abilities.
Was this a one-hit wonder scenario? I think not. As I moved onto several more roles within the company, I ultimately finished my tenure as an assistant manager in a new market, previously unexplored by the company. In this managerial position, I applied my training/development capacity to onboard and familiarize a new saleswoman with the company’s processes and systems. Additionally, I exceeded KPIs, or key performance indicators, specific to that managerial position, which further demonstrates the difference in skill sets required to excel in a “technical” role versus a managerial role.
The second example is from my graduate studies. In one of my classes, the students were split into two groups. One group waited outside for further instructions. I was in the group that stayed in the classroom. As per the professor’s request, I was told to make a paper airplane. He explained precisely how to fold the paper to make the airplane he had envisioned. Every other member in my group executed the instructions perfectly and presented beautiful airplanes. I, on the other hand, failed to craft a beautiful airplane. I did my best to listen to the professor’s instructions, but my efforts resulted in a less-than-mediocre airplane.
Once the airplanes were crafted, the second group (the group that had been waiting outside the classroom) entered the classroom. Each member of that group was blindfolded. Every member of my group paired up with a blindfolded member of the other group, with one simple task – to guide your blindfolded partner in making the same airplane that the professor had envisioned.
Sure, I may be terrible at making airplanes, but I have a skill set in active listening, communication, and situational awareness. I knew the exact instructions my professor provided earlier – that’s where my active listening kicked in. Although I was personally unable to apply the instructions in crafting my airplane, I knew that I could effectively communicate those instructions to my blindfolded partner.
Situationally, I knew that my partner was an engineer (and, based on various classes we had together, was quite adept at making airplanes). Therefore, I knew that simple, intentional instructions were the winning ticket to effectively communicating with my partner. As I gave direction after direction, he followed suit in his actions. Any actions that were slightly off were met with a quick feedback adjustment. Ultimately, the paper airplane my blindfolded partner created was exactly what my professor had initially envisioned. In fact, the paper airplane he created was better, both aesthetically and functionally, than the airplanes of our other blindfolded classmates. And quite frankly, it was better than a few of the airplanes initially created by the first group as well (it goes without saying that my partner’s airplane was lightyears ahead of mine).
Once the airplanes were made, my professor was a little stunned by my inability to make an airplane without a blindfold, combined with my ability to help my blindfolded partner create an immaculate airplane. Granted, most of the credit goes to my partner, both in his airplane-making experience and his engineering background. However, I was able to leverage my active listening, communication, and situational awareness to guide my partner and produce a result that outperformed my partner’s peer group and some of the members of my peer group (including my own initial performance!).
And don’t worry – after the experiment, I finally figured out how to make that paper airplane. Although I couldn’t make the airplane initially, and therefore had minimal technical ability, I was still able to exhibit managerial ability and competence that translated to an exemplary performance from my blindfolded partner.
From both examples, we can see that managerial ability is different than a purely “technical” ability. Where my technical skills lacked, my managerial skills kicked in and enhanced the “technical” abilities of my counterparts, even though I was mediocre in those same exact technical abilities.
Management requires its own skill set. The best managers are conceptual thinkers, strategic, and holistic in their planning. They possess high levels of emotional intelligence, communicate effectively, and efficiently allocate their resources, including their human, financial, and social capital.
Just like the best employees may not make the best managers, mediocre employees can make extraordinary managers. Reference the prior blog post here to understand how you can differentiate between technical-oriented employees and management-oriented employees.
