Hi Reader

There is a type of commercial leader who is, genuinely, impressive with data.

Fast, precise, prepared. Pull the numbers up on a Monday morning and they've already read them. Ask them what's happening in the pipeline and they'll tell you - accurately, specifically, with a clear view on what needs to happen next.

They are also, in many cases, almost completely unaware of what is happening in the room.

Not occasionally. Not under unusual pressure. Routinely. As if it’s a default operating mode.

And the commercial cost of that specific blindspot is one of the quieter, more expensive things I have watched happen across many years in commercial teams.

The most dangerous version of this leader is not the one who ignores people. At least that's visible!

The most dangerous version is the one who genuinely believes they are paying attention. They ask questions. They listen to the answers. They note things down and move on.

But what they miss is the temperature.

Now, I don’t mean the content of what's being said, but the quality of it. The particular way someone says "making progress" when they mean something else entirely. The moment a room goes quiet in a way that has learned to look comfortable, because that's what the environment rewards.

There's a distinction I keep coming back to. A bit left-field but stick with me.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't develop an opinion and then gather evidence to support it. He gathers everything first i.e. the detail, the anomaly, the thing that doesn't quite fit, and only then allows a conclusion to form.

Now contrast that with most commercial leaders. Under pressure they do the opposite. They see a number, feel something about it, and the meeting becomes a search for confirmation rather than truth.

In that scenario your field of vision narrows under pressure. Then everything else fades away.

What fills that narrowed field is the data. Clean, legible, apparently objective. What disappears from view is the person generating it.

I've a small favour to ask. Are you' finding this edition of Fine Lines useful and/or interesting? If so please share it with one friend or even on social media. Thanks in advance!

Salespeople and commercial staff are a particular combination. They’re harder than most people give them credit for; genuinely resilient, outcome-focused, able to carry rejection in a way that would floor most people. They’re also more sensitive than almost anyone acknowledges. They want to know that somebody has their back. They want to feel that the person across the table is trying to understand & not just trying to account for them.

When the entire vocabulary of a commercial relationship is numerical, something specific happens. People stop telling the truth in pipeline reviews. It’s not that they're dishonest but more that honesty stopped feeling like it had anywhere to land.

They say "making progress." They bank a deal to next quarter that could close this one Why? Because stretching stopped feeling worth it. They sit in the weekly review, take their medicine, head for home and replay what they didn't say as they sit in traffic.

Meanwhile, the leader leaves the meeting thinking it went fine.

The damage that unfolds from this is accumulates quietly. You never get upstream of the problem. You morph into a version of Pavlov’s Dog; always responding to the number on the page and never asking what conditions, what ingredients in the recipe produced that outcome….."Why is it like this?", "What needs to be different next week?", "What do you need me to do to help you?"

Those questions require a room where people feel safe enough to answer honestly. That room doesn't build itself. It gets built (or doesn't) in the hundred small moments when a leader could have looked up and away from the report.

Numbers & data are not good or bad. They just are.

They carry only the meaning you attach to them. What determines whether a room produces honest data or curated data is not the CRM, not the reporting structure and not the target-setting process.

It is whether the people in the room feel genuinely understood by the person asking the questions.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that none of this requires a new system. No CRM upgrade or restructured reporting line or off-site team-building day.

We’re back to my Performance Equation: C x A = P; through that lens connection is not a soft add-on but the mechanism by which capability gets built and sustained.

And without it, you don't have a commercial team.

You’ll just have a reporting system with people attached; and those people, eventually, will find somewhere else to report to.

Another Newsletter you might find useful....

House of Sales Join 1,850+ professionals and transform your B2B sales results. Learn to sell the way big companies buy. Get insights delivered every Sunday - read in minutes, use forever. Subscribe​

Thank you for being part of this community. The work on how to lead better is something you have to do alone. But you don't have to do it on your own. Onward and Upward, Paul Clarke https://www.paulclarke.ie Connect with me at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulclarkeperform/​

​​​

Beechmount Vale, Navan, Meath C15
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​