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Thursday, September 29th, 2022
While conflict needs to be managed well, it can also be productive. Conflict is a frequent challenge among business relationships with customers, partners and suppliers. Inside organisations, conflicts within teams and cross-functionally are also common, yet sales professionals often feel ill-equipped to manage conflict well. Unresolved conflict can spread and grow, and result in stress and well-being issues for those…
Monday, July 4th, 2022
Almost every leader claims to be ethical in business, but do they have the character to foster trust? Ethics, necessary but not sufficient Corporate scandals from Enron to Freddie Mac occurred despite the fact that the organizations and individuals leading them were operating in environments governed by a code of ethics. Yet, people still behaved poorly. Why? Why do people…
Tuesday, July 27th, 2021
How applicable is agile leadership within a traditional organisational structure? The focus of my research project will be understanding what makes an agile leader and their ability to create and manage an agile organisation. What are the specific characteristics, cultural traits and mindset that define an agile leader and what makes them different? I investigate whether it is possible for…
Monday, July 26th, 2021
Nostos (Ancient Greek: νόστος) is a theme common in Ancient Greek literature. It was brought to life in Homer’s Odyssey. Nostos concerns an epic hero returning home by the sea and retaining both his status and identity. In a metaphorical sense, I planned to use Homer’s Odyssey to draw upon my business life experiences and journey. Little did I know…
Monday, April 26th, 2021
Literature review “The true measure of leadership is to confront the anxiety of the people of their time.” This quote by Jacinda Ardern, current Prime Minister of New Zealand, beautifully summarises the essence of leadership and reveals a depth in leadership qualities only acknowledged and explored by a few. Through introspective and autoethnographic work on developing and applying the ability…
Monday, April 26th, 2021
The theme of my research is to explore the extent to which companies need to adapt and change to cater to a multi-generational workforce, define what the distinct differences really are using facts data, and in the process also draw out similarities. I will look at how stereotypes and unconscious bias skew realities, responses and attitudes. My research seeks to…
Friday, November 6th, 2020
How to lead virtual (and hybrid) meetings. In spring 2020, meetings changed. Instead of physically meeting up with colleagues, everything moved online during lockdown. Of course, sales teams have been catching up with colleagues in the field by phone or video chat for years, but, in March, everything went remote: team meetings, client meetings and much, much more. While meetings…
Friday, November 6th, 2020
DO RIGID PROCESSES WORK IN TODAY’S WORLD…
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
The research review aims to help readers keep up to date with recently published research on sales-related topics. The review highlights short abstracts of academically peer-reviewed research. This selection of published research is from a range of academic journals. In this edition, the abstracts include three themes that focus on sales performance, customer management, and sales behavioural studies. Sales Performance…
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
What are the top sales leadership priorities for the coming months? What are sales leaders looking to accomplish? What would they do if money were no object? To find out, the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research surveyed 423 sales, enablement, and company leaders. Respondents were asked about the importance of 16 different potential priorities and asked the $64,000 question:…
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
Research led to the creation of a “Success Guide to Leading A Cross-Functional Team”. My aim with this research is to help cross-functional team leaders garner better team performance by providing an easily consumable, repeatable set of recommended behaviours and actions to help guide them to success. Team leaders can utilize the knowledge provided from these research findings for guidance,…
Tuesday, May 26th, 2020
How to introduce a collaborative change methodology to further support embedding of a sales academy into an organization. “How will I introduce a collaborative change methodology to further support the embedding of the SPARK Sales Academy into our organisation?” Simon Sinek (2011) tells us to start with “why”. My concern begins to formulate by asking myself, “Why did my sales…
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
How to manage and lead through the current crisis with the wisdom of Aristotle. In a recent London Business School poll, we asked an audience of over 1,000 senior executives how as leaders they would like to look back on the current crisis. They could choose from five possible outcomes – for them personally as well as for their organisations:…
Tuesday, June 25th, 2019
A Harvard Business School professor’s insights into the science of sales. In this interview with Deirdre Coleman, Frank Cespedes, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, dispels the myths surrounding technology’s impact on the future of sales and why the need to rethink sales also means rethinking sales leadership. He considers the social and financial impact of sales productivity, and stresses…
Tuesday, June 25th, 2019
The overwhelming priority for sales leaders is improving sellers’ ability to communicate value while their top challenge is hiring, a new survey from global performance improvement company RAIN Group finds. Top Sales Leadership Challenges and Priorities brings together the views of 423 sales, enablement, and company leaders to better understand their greatest obstacles and primary focus over the next 12…
Friday, March 22nd, 2019
This project from 2016 explores how to create a sales control system designed to deliver a company’s key objectives. Introduction Sales is no longer an independent isolated function within an organisation, but is an integral and cross-functional part of a company’s strategy (Storbacka et al 2011). Sales now not only executes the strategy, but helps create and drive the strategy…
Thursday, March 21st, 2019
The surprising thing I learnt from giving a 20-minute nonsense presentation to a well-known tech company. The greatest thing I ever wrote, something I’ve jokingly referred to as my magnum opus, was a 20-minute lecture on innovation for the executive team of a major US corporation. As they do not come out all that well in this story, I won’t…
Tuesday, December 18th, 2018
Participating in a Masters programme is a significant commitment. We asked two leaders about their journey. “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers” Stephen Gaskell is Director E-Commerce, Retail & Distribution at SONY Mobile. A member of SONY’s leadership programme, he has been on a journey of transformation in establishing his business unit within SONY Mobile. He…
Monday, September 24th, 2018
Can distributed leadership practice bring positive impact in a sales focused environment? Background The COE is a team of highly skilled and senior solution experts, each responsible for a specific solutions area, product line or area of focus. Their responsibilities include primarily sales pipeline (demand) management and revenue attainment for their responsible lines of business. Within these two main pillars,…
Friday, September 21st, 2018
For Camilla Harder Hartvig, the single trait that has defined her successful leadership has been a willingness to address uncertainty and get comfortable with it. She shares how she’s learned to transform complexity and ambiguity into something that creates enduring value. Some of the most important leadership lessons learned by Camilla Harder Hartvig were forged in the crucible of calamity….
