151 – Balance performance and engagement

Successful leadership requires a balance of performance and engagement. Listen to hear how a Country Head improved his numbers without his number one salesperson.

Handshake during meeting

Anecdotally Speaking is back! We kick things off for the second half of 2022 with a story Mark found in his story bank from 2010!

You’ll notice we’ve made a small change! From now on, we’ll name our episodes based on the business point made by the story we share. We will miss the puns masterfully put together by Dave Stokes, who engineers our podcast, but we hope this change will help you navigate our future episodes a little easier!

Thanks for tuning back in!

For your storybank

Tags: caring, employee engagement, engagement, leadership, performance, values

This story starts at 01:20

In October 2010, Mark heard Mike Shove speak at a conference in Sydney, Australia. Mike was the CEO and President of Asia at CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) and talked about his previous role with the company, Managing Director and CEO of Australia.

Mike described how his first year in the role was a struggle. His boss was in the United States, 10,00km away, and all he seemed to want was a bag of money every 90 days.

His boss had said, “Mike, I don’t know how you got this job but hit your numbers, and everything will be okay.”

But in that first year, Mike didn’t hit his numbers.

He wondered what he could do about it and, knowing sales would help, decided to hire a new sales guy.

Well, his new sales guy was a real gun. In Mike’s second year, they not only hit their targets, but they exceeded them.

But only at one level.

There was another problem. At this time, Mike often had the HR Director in his office, describing a trail of disaster left wherever his sales guy had been. People were complaining about the problems he was causing, how he behaved, and how he treated them. So, even though he was hitting his numbers and helping Mike achieve what his boss needed him to, Mike decided his behaviour was unacceptable.

And he fired him.

He was concerned about the ramifications, but the positive feedback he received from across the business was astounding. More astounding was the fact that after he fired his sales guy, the numbers continued to improve.

About  Anecdote International

Anecdote International is a global training and consulting company, specialising in utilising storytelling to bring humanity back to the workforce. Anecdote is now unique in having a global network of over 60 partners in 28 countries, with their learning programs translated into 11 languages, and customers who incorporate these programs into their leadership and sales enablement activities.

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