Over Managed and Under Led

Walter Rogers discusses the difference between managers and leaders with Kevin Price on The Price of Business

[Kevin Price]:  Welcome back to the “Price of Business.”  I am your host Kevin Price.  Talking to you about you and your business.  It’s your business to make sure you’ve got the most efficient customer relations management system intact.  That’s how you grow your business.  That’s how you take your business to the next level.  That’s exactly why we invite Walter Rogers to spend time with us, to talk about this important subject.  How are you Walter?  Walter should be there…

[Walter Rogers]:  I’m right here.  Can you hear me? 

[KP]:  I can now hear you.  It’s always nice when your mic’s up.  It’s not your fault.  It’s technology on our side.  How are you sir?

[WR]:  I’m doing wonderful.  How are you?

[KP]:  Good, good, good.  Do you have a guest for us today?

[WR]:  No guest today, it’s just me and you.

[KP]:  Me and you.  Alright, I’m looking forward to it.  You do a great job on your own, not that your guests aren’t fun, but I love having you on and finding out your story and what you’ve got in the works.  You’ve been kind of taking people step by step through the entire customer relations management process, really from point one.  Doing the heavy lifting as to what kind of system you want and the very important process of building that system.  Last week we talked about 12…was it 12 habits of highly effective sales people last week?

[WR]:  Sale managers, that’s right.  The fulcrum point in all change is that field general, the sales manager. 

[KP]:  Right.  And now we want to just focus on those 12 characteristics by starting off with too many sales teams are over managed and underlead. 

[WR]:  Boy, isn’t that the truth.  Kevin, I hate to put you on the spot here, but let me just ask you what do you think the difference is between managing and leading? 

[KP]:  Oh, I’ll tell you exactly what my experience is is that managers kind of scrutinize and they kind of observe and they kind of consume a lot of time with conversation, none of which really requires a lot of effort on their part.  Leaders actually do it with, not for, with their sales team and inspire them and lead them mainly by example.

[WR]:  Yeah.  At its core, the difference between management and leadership is how that individual motivates the people around him, which may or may not be reports of his or her to achieve greater good.  It’s all around how you get people to do more.  Some people manage to that outcome and other people lead to that outcome.  There’s some real fundamental differences between those two strategies.  In most sales teams today, they’re managed to death.  They manage the number of phone calls that are made.  They managed the number of customer visits, their close ratios, all of those things which are very important.  You have to do those things, but that’s not really leadership.  That’s really management.

[KP]:  Yeah.  No question about it.  I think right now it just reeks of bureaucracy.  Instead of inspiring, it really kind of beleaguers people. 

[WR]:  It does.  It does.  Some of the real differences we’ll talk about em right now.  I’ve got a great article on this on the blog by the way.  You think about it.  Managers have subordinates, people that work for them.  They’re expected to do what they’re told, when they’re told.  Often times, there’s not a lot of opportunity for conversation or dialogue around their goals or responsibilities, all of that.  They literally have subordinates and they think of them as subordinates.  But on the other side of that, what do you think leaders have?  They don’t have subordinates.  They have followers. 

[KP]:  Yes!

[WR]:  Right?  They’re willing. 

[KP]:  Yes!

[WR]:  They want to follow.  They want to achieve the objective, because they’re part of that decision making process.  They’re inspired by it, because of the way in which that leader treats them. 

[KP]:  Yeah, no question about it.  Very, very good point.  Well said at that.  Followers are volunteers really, even though, yes, you’re getting paid and that type of thing.  The alternative are people who are really coerced. 

[WR]:  They are volunteers.  That’s exactly right.  They’re voluntarily following and that leads me to my next point.  Managers typically have a very authoritarian style and they’re very transaction focused.  Leaders, they’re charismatic.  They focus on transformation.  The reason people follow them is because they’ve got a reason to follow them.  There’s some transformational element that they’re going to personally achieve, whether it’s a personal achievement, a business achievement, whatever.  But there’s some kind of transformational element.  Another difference is that managers are really work focused.  So they’re going to appeal to the logic part of an individual.  They’re really managing what I call the head.  Leaders, they focus on the people.  They’re appealing to the heart.  That’s what inspires people right?

[KP]:  Right.

[WR]:  If you can get to that person’s heart, that’s what gets you that inspiration. 

[KP]:  That’s the difference between a place you want to go to and a place you have to go to. 

[WR]:  Yes, exactly right, because you want to get there.  That’s exactly right.

[KP]:  You’re ready to take your business to the next level.  Take the business you work for to the next level.  You want a leader that has ownership attitude, not an employee attitude, especially if they’re not a real owner.  Sometimes managers can be but they’re really not technically a real owner, but if they act like one, so will the employees, so will the rest of the sales team. 

[WR]:  Yeah, that’s how you inspire them.  One of the other things that managers do that leaders don’t do is managers typically seek comfort and avoid risk.  Leaders, that’s not what they do.  They seek change and they manage risk.  They understand that risk is part of change.  You don’t get exponential growth in a sales team if you don’t take risks.  But you have to manage that risk.  So, they seek that change and they accept that fact that risk is part of the formula.  Managers are also typically pretty short term in their thinking.  What do I have to get done this week or this month?  Leaders have a long term view and they inspire their team with that long term view.  Managers are all about enacting the culture that’s already in place in a company.  A leader is going to shape the culture. 

[KP]:  Yeah, no question about it.  He’s going to actually change the culture.  He’s not a thermometer, he’s a thermostat. 

[WR]:  Yeah, why accept the status quo, especially in this economic climate, where the status quo isn’t going to get you very far?

[KP]:  And another thing about our economic environment, not to interrupt but I did anyway.  Sorry.  One of the things about it is you have some great options as far as hiring these kind of people right now.

[WR]:  You absolutely do.  It’s an incredibly great time to hire talent.  There’s a lot of people, very talented people that are in the marketplace today.  It’s not like your typical cycles where, you know, there’s a lot of layoffs and people get rid of those that really needed to be let go so the available inventory isn’t that great.  Companies have cut so deep into the bone that now they’ve actually had to let go of really talented personnel.  If there was ever a great time to hire, it is now because there’s great people that have been let go just because or really, really tough circumstances that their employers faced.

Another key difference we find between managers and leaders is that managers are going to avoid conflict.  They view conflict as a bad thing.  They don’t want to have anything to do with it.  It creates problems in team, so they’re going to try to suppress it, get away from it.  Leaders, they use conflict constructively.  Conflict is not something that should be avoided.  In fact we have this whole notion of what we call creative conflict.  You typically get your very best ideas in a situation where there is conflict, because you’re forced to come up with new ideas, new suggestions.  A manager typically wants to be right.

[KP]:  Right, right.  Even if it’s at the expense of the business itself, even if it’s against the moral of the business itself, it has more to do with being right than being successful. 

[WR]:  Exactly.  Versus a leader wants what is right.  It doesn’t matter if that person is right.  It’s what is right.  I’ve got just two more and I know we’re running out of time.  Your typical manager is going to take credit, your leader is going to give credit because a leader recognizes that the achievement is a result of the people that are following, not necessarily himself.  The final one is a manager tends to assign blame where a leader is going to accept the blame.  He’s going to take the blame on behalf of the team.  So, my call to action for the listeners today is to just pick a handful of these.  Pick a couple.  There’s some that are really easy.  Pick the take credit one.  Don’t take credit.  Give credit.  Don’t assign blame, take blame.  Try a couple of these this week as a way to begin to shift your management style into a leadership style because that’s what’s going to drive your true outcome out of your teams. 

[KP]:  Yeah, no question about it.  I tell you it’s very important stuff.  Walter you do a fantastic job of keeping our people informed and up to date.  The CRM process, it sounds like…yawn sometimes.  Let me tell you, it’s the difference between a business on the grow and a business that’s quickly becoming history. 

[WR]:  It is.  I think most people recognize now that they just have to think about their business differently.  The old approaches just really aren’t working any more.  The whole purpose of this series, which we’re going to turn into a book as you’ve mentioned a few times, is to just bring some innovative thought leadership to the marketplace to help America become more competitive, which we absolutely, desperately need to be.

[KP]:  I want to mention Baker Communications dot com.  That’s BakerCommunicatons.com.  I tell you, phenomenal site.  Full of information.  Will keep you well versed and informed with what’s going on in CRM.  What’s your number?

[WR]:  713-627-7700.  That’s 713-627-7700.

[KP]:  That’s Walter Rogers.  Great individual.  Great leader himself when it comes to this area of CRM, customer relations management.  Alright, when we come back we’re going to have a lot more Price of Business for you, but we want to remind you that the program continues 24/7 at PriceofBusiness.com.  Also want to remind you of great articles at HoustonBusinessDaily.com, including an excellent one, a brand new article by Walter Roger on the difference between managers and leaders.  Make sure you check that out at HoustonBusinessDaily.com.  Stay tuned for more right here on CNN650.