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So he started putting his salesmen through an intensive training process, which set to establish their foundation and also, creativity. As he explained, people need to be creative thinkers to succeed in sales, but they first had to know what to be creative about. “You have to first give them the box and then move forward from there,” he said.
His story taught me this: When training and developing your team, make sure they have a really strong understanding of the basics first, before you challenge them to be creative and engage in broader thinking. This will allow them to gain confidence in performing the basics and set the tone for creativity later on.
For us at Michael Page, building strong foundations means giving our staff proper training in the various recruitment solutions we offer, a clear career progression path and arming them with professional and practical training and development to build a successful career as a recruiter. Back in 2009, we implemented a very clear six-week “boot camp” that involved classroom training with practical “client” and “recruiter” role plays and activity in between. This has evolved as we have grown but the core remains today.
Lesson #2: Be patient… and humble
A famous Chinese idiom goes, “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand”.
You need to be very clear and direct about your expectations as a leader, but patience is also critical in a variety of situations. It can take time for someone to understand different concepts, or to explain what you are trying to drive as a business. Sometimes, it can even take time because of a language or culture clash.
