Ask more questions and help them reflect more.
Customer Journey Series: Kami
This article is part of a customer journey series following “Kami,” a sales leader in pharma managing competitive changes and new leadership.
Her journey explores building leadership confidence, managing up, navigating organizational change, and positioning herself for the next level.
Each post explores a real coaching conversation or leadership challenge from that journey.
This is the third post in the series.
A few months into coaching, Kami reported there were some leadership changes in her company. They had a new General Manager, Robert. Her boss, John, now reported to Robert, and she knew it was important to take her boss’s boss into consideration as she grew.
As she navigated the changes, she started thinking about her approach to managing up and managing down.
Managing Up
First we discussed her boss, John.
According to Kami, John wears his emotions on his sleeve. He came to one of her team meetings and his feedback afterwards was that they don’t know what they are doing.
“I felt like he was undermining me,” Kami said. “His comments were affecting morale on the team. He overcommunicates and can get abrasive.”
Although John frustrated her at times, Kami made a conscious effort to see the situation from his perspective. He had spent decades building the business and had seen the product succeed under a strategy he helped create. Many of the changes being discussed challenged assumptions that had worked for years.
Rather than arguing with him, Kami started asking more questions. What concerns did he have? What risks did he see? What was he worried might be lost if the company changed direction? The more she listened, the more she realized that much of his resistance came from a desire to protect what had made the business successful.
By validating his experience and acknowledging the value he brought, Kami found that their conversations became more productive. She didn’t always agree with him, but she learned that people are far more open to new ideas when they feel respected first.
Managing Morale on Her Team
Kami was concerned that John still saw her as a field salesperson. But she was really concerned about morale on her team.
As we had discussed before, I asked her to leverage her strengths, empathy and alignment. “Use your strengths to help you turn around John and morale on your team.”
She understood that. With John, she would ask more questions and help him reflect more. Also, she would be sure to report better numbers to make sure he understood her leadership value.
For her team, she started with a round of listening. If they aren’t aware of how they are limiting themselves, help them grow awareness by listening and validating them, while pointing out the need to improve.
Kami understood the approach. “My approach has to be unique to each individual’s needs, so I have to leverage my 1:1s. Even though it is exhausting, I love what I do.”
She committed to listening and letting them tell her what they needed. “I’m asking a lot more questions, and I want to walk with them in their process. I want them to feel like I’m side-by-side with them, not over them.”
In her meetings, she continued to stress the sense of purpose on the team. “We are saving lives, quite literally. What we do matters.”
As generics started to hit the market, she helped her team navigate. “Some customers are just price customers. Each of you have plenty of other organizations to work on. So, hone your message on your differentiators and go after the people who are not all about price and nothing else.”
She set up time for each of them to practice their pitches and answering objections in team meetings and giving peer review.
She also decided that the team needed more support. The sales force needs people in a supporting role, people who can talk to customers peer-to-peer, doctor-to-doctor. Someone who is not a salesperson but someone just to support decision makers.
She felt that two supporting people, each supporting three field sales directors, would make a huge difference. She started advocating for it and building out what that would look like.
It would take a few months for her to get her ideas about supporting the team and thinking ahead about future market changes implemented. As she worked to get approval, her strategic thinking about the future did not go unnoticed.
As Kami managed up and managed down better, she began to see more clearly how to influence others. As she listened and supported others, trust grew and that helped her achieve her goals.
Continue the Journey
← Previous Post | Next Post →
Keep Learning
Return to Customer Journeys Hub
Explore the Leadership Framework
