Sales Culture: Get Your Sales Reps to Commit to these “15 Commitments” from Conscious Leadership

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You may have heard the author of “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A new paradigm for sustainable success” book.

I think every C-level executive including every VP of Sales and CRO have had people on our team that we knew were talented but we also knew they needed to level up and become more accountable for their own behavior/actions, get more candid and focus more on a “win for all”.  If you know what I mean then I highly recommend getting your sales team to download and read these  “15 Commitments” PDF and then commit to this.

If this list comes off a little too soft or cheesy then you know this is not for you and it won’t help you but you may want to first listen to the author Jim Dethmer on the Farnam Street podcast.  He is an expert at helping organizational leaders create high quality and very productive cultures.

One of the things I liked about Jim is he talks about how people should stop being defensive when they get feedback (and feedback is a big part of sales coaching that can be easily misinterpreted as negative or critical whereas it is really meant to help the sales rep improve).  Jim Dethmer mentions that one shouldn’t be asking whether the feedback is true or false – instead he suggests to ask what in that feedback is true.

Now, when you get your teams to commit to the 15 items in the PDF, your people thus agree to such principles as these (and more):

  • “Responsibility: I commit to taking full responsibility for the circumstances of my life… I commit to support others to take full responsibility…”
  • “Candor: I commit to saying what is true … I commit to being a person to whom others can express themselves with candor.”
  • “Gossip: I commit to ending gossip, talking directly to people with whom I have an issue or concern, and encouraging others to talk directly to people with whom they have an issue or concern.”
  • “Win for All: I commit to creating win for all …(win for me, win for the other person, win for the organization, and win for the whole) for whatever issues, problems, concerns, or opportunities life gives me.”

You get the idea.  And while this is “personal” to the individual, it does help in the organizational environment because, after all, people work at the company and these are in fact individuals who need to bring their best selves to the workplace.  Basically committing to these will get everyone on the same page about being in a leadership role for themselves and communicating and working with others in a way that is called “above the line” (acceptance and trust – responsive, focused on growth and learning) vs. below the line (i.e. defensive, resistant, feeling threatened, reactive).