INTEREST
The upshot and the lowdown on accountability HOW (AND WHY) LEADERS NEED TO SUPPORT THEIR SALESPEOPLE TO WIN
Jasmine Platt, Founder, Real Estate Leaders
You want results, but some of your salespeople aren’t doing what it takes. You’ve invested your hard-earned cash, made the career change to leadership, and their lack of activity is frustrating. I get it.
One thing I often hear from leaders who are frustrated with their teams’ sales results but have no real strategy is the catch cry: “We need to hold our salespeople accountable.” The only problem with this sentiment is that it doesn’t work. At least not when it’s accompanied by a resentful energy and without any strategy for ‘how’. Often, trying to hold people ‘accountable’ without an adequate understanding of the psychology of leadership leads to issues with culture, retention and reputation in the marketplace. Unless those salespeople have proven to be prohibitively high-maintenance (in time and energy) and low-value, they represent potential. That potential is worth harnessing. In this article, I’ll share three things: 1. The brain science that clearly explains why accountability doesn’t work; 2. The fundamental realities that make “accountability” risky; and 3. An alternative for lifting activity and sales that works.
What the brain science has to say about accountability If you want to hold your salespeople accountable, there are two key things you need to understand about the brain. The first is the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ phenomenon. The second is about the specific rewards the brain needs and risks if it doesn’t get it.
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The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand
You’ve likely heard of the fight, flight or freeze tendency of humans under threat. We all have a hard-wired, primitive part of our brains (called the limbic system) designed to keep us alive. When our limbic system is activated, we will perceive a threat and immediately and unconsciously work on resolving it — through fight, flight or freezing. When managers attempt to ‘hold salespeople accountable’ without understanding the psychology or taking care about how they approach it, they risk a significant likelihood of activating the limbic system within their salesperson’s brain, causing them to perceive threat. The second thing to understand, which is connected to the first, is what the brain needs. In his best-selling book, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus and Working Smarter All Day Long, Dr David Rock shares five things our brains fundamentally need to work well. According to science, Rock explains that our brains need Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. In other words, people want to: Have and maintain positive status (in their
own and others’ minds) Feel certain and safe about where they are Experience autonomy
