![]() We competed hard and had fun doing it.Getting into the boxing ring is an awesome feeling and fighting a real fight inside one is even more exhilarating, especially when victory is within reach. Over four years we generated industry leading sales results, while producing exceptional employee engagement scores, and dramatically increasing our retention rate. Not everything we did was as exciting, fresh, and successful as the boxing ring but everything we did was done with a purpose towards helping people become their best. A signal that we were going to be different. It was the start of something really fresh for the team. I get chills any time I think about that moment. Yes, the contestants and their coaches are nervous but they are being supported by their teammates who are loudly and enthusiastically encouraging them. After the real play is done they will coach the sales person. Accompanying each sales person is a coach. Other senior executives are in the room watching. Four sales people, one by one, enter a ring to do the real play with the SVP of our group. Slowly, people bought in.įast forward six months later. A critical one in our team's development. It was about a bigger moment for all of us. Over and over again we assured people this was not about being assessed. We introduced new sales skills and drilled them hard. We engaged them on what it would take for this to be a safe space for them. And then we started working with them and their coaches on the game plan to pull this off. And we let them be that way for a couple of weeks. Now, when we first told people they would step into a ring in front of their peers you could hear the gasp across the country. We needed an exercise to show people it was okay to try, to fail, to win, to grow. But it wouldn't be cool if people didn't first learn how to be vulnerable in front of their team. So why a boxing ring? It started with a discussion about how cool it would be for our sales professionals to do a "real play" in front of senior executives. And we knew we had to do things differently. We wanted people to take pride in being sales professionals. We knew we wanted people who had a will to win but with each other and not against one another. We knew we needed to install a sense of grit and resilience in our folks. What the heck were we thinking? Well, we knew we needed to create an environment where people wouldn't be afraid to learn, to grow, to expand their skill sets. And everyone is going to have a blast doing it. One of your peers enters the ring to do a real play with one of our senior executives and they are accompanied by their coach. A ring announcer introduces the first contestant. Approximately three hundred people file in and take their seats. And it is surrounded on three sides by metal stands. You are handed refreshments including drinks, popcorn and other snacks. Imagine walking into a ballroom at a hotel and facing a huge black curtain. Yes, we put some team members in a boxing ring. We wanted the culture to be supportive, competitive, creative, energetic, and fun. The previous team was a reactive resource support group and we wanted them to be a more proactive, professional sales team. Four and a half years ago I was part of a team tasked with creating transformational change in a sales team.
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