Job crafters and the network

Job crafting

Job crafting refers to the way that each individual shapes the job that he / she does in order to satisfy their own needs and desires.  This can be independently of the organization’s needs.  There are three main areas that job crafting affects:

·         Quantity of work (you can do more or less)

·         Relationships with others (these can be improved or can deteriorate)

·         Perception of work (an insurance agent sees his / her work as helping people after accidents, rather than just processing claims)

For more details, please refer to “What is job crafting and why does it matter” (Berg,Dutton & Wrzesniewski).

Jobs are crafted by different aspects of a person: ambitions, desires, skills, personality traits, personal interests, etc.

An interesting part of the job crafting approach is the finding that those who actively engage in it are more likely to be engaged and motivated workers.  If you are interested, you can find more informationby clicking here.

Job crafting is similar to job redesign, the difference being that job redesign is negotiated with the employer in a formal process while job crafting is done under the radar.

The job and the crafter

In a previous post (the company, the job, the person) we argued that the person and the post they fill should be kept separate within CRM systems because of the way that people move from one job to another in their careers.  Job crafting and its effects requires the person and the post they fill to be kept separate but for different reasons.

The job can be considered to be what the person should be doing.  It involves a list of requirements, expectations and reporting lines.  The crafted job is how the person currently holding that position fulfills the requirements, meets the expectations and respects the reporting lines.  The difference between the job and the crafted job will vary depending the person, but there will always be a difference.

Job crafting and the effect on the sales meeting

We can picture all the people in a network busily job crafting in their own manner (with a positive or negative outcome, knowingly or subconsciously).  The effects of this will filter down to many business situations, including the sales meeting.

·         The sales person who considers the job in terms of hitting his / her commission at the end of the month will have a different approach to one who thinks in terms of making the client happier.

·         The client who sees the purchase as part of a wider plan will use different criteria from a client who is looking for the cheapest, quickest to deploy solution.

       

As a manager of a sales team, I need to think about which aspects I want my individual team members to develop and which ones I think the whole team could embrace.  This kind of insight will help me to plan training and assessment programmes.

Job crafting and o2o

Within the o2o complex sales situation, job crafting will also play a role.  A new occupant, of whatever position, is going to bring his / her own way of crafting the job.  This could be in terms of

·         Priorities for business development (opening new markets in a given zone, etc)

·         Personal criteria for making decisions (carbon footprint, ethical business, etc)

·         Personal preferences for partners (size and profile of suppliers, etc)

As a sales manager, I need to think about which of my team, as job crafters, will be best suited to working on a particular account and with certain people within that account.  Using my knowledge of my team I am better able to not only cover the network (see our post onnetwork coverage in o2o) but also to cover it with people intelligence.

In addition, understanding how key people in my client’s ecosystem have crafted their jobs will help me to get a better understanding of the way that they fit into the network.  I can look for people who are making similar changes and possibly use this to my advantage.  The use of Key Opinion Leaders by pharmaceutical companies is an application of this idea.

Next generation CRM

Job crafting affects the way we as individuals work and the way we affect the organizations we work for.  And recognition of this is growing on both sides of the Atlantic.  It is clearly going to play a role in the way we think about people and the jobs they do. 

The question is: how will future systems manage this aspect of the person / post combination?



Cate Farrall

Client’s Corporate Culture and o2o selling

In the o2o selling situation, buying occurs when an orchestrated seller team is in a synchronized process with the buyer team. .Knowing about the buyer’s organization culture will help you to identify the working style of the buyer team you have to work with.



Four types of corporate cultures

These four types of corporate culture have proven relevant when trying to answer two basic questions:

-       How are decisions made in this company?

-       How do the people in this structure gain and build power?

In a bureaucratic culture, communication is tightly controlled and flows along hierarchical lines. Silos are an essential element of this culture. The power of any one individual depends strongly on his / her hierarchical position. The probability that the final decision is made by a single individual is relatively high.

In an entrepreneurial culture, speed is of an essence and short decision paths are a characteristic. Power comes from being an entrepreneur or from being an individual enjoying an entrepreneur’s trust. For this type of culture, there is also a high probability that the final decider is one individual because the entrepreneur or the trusted individual has the authority to make decisions. In fact, decision making will probably happen even faster than in the bureaucratic culture as there is a flatter hierarchy.

The consulting culture is composed of partnerships with high territorial and subject matter expertise. The members are highly autonomous. This kind of structure is a prototype of the individualistic culture. Here the source of power is influence. In its turn, influence comes from the individual’s competence and performance. The decision maker depends on the type of purchase. If I want to sell to one partner I can expect to have one individual as decision maker. When I want to sell to the firm as a whole, I am confronted with many individuals having major roles in the decision process. These organizations also have little experience in finding consensus. They only do this out of absolute necessity.

The collaborative culture is based on open communications. Power source is influence which is determined by performance. As in the consulting culture, influence matters more than hierarchy. However, decision making style is different. In the collaborative culture the decider wants to assure a consensus among all concerned irrespective of the hierarchy before taking a decision. The decider deliberately does not want to use his or her rank.  Decision making can be “democratic” by majority vote. “The decider” is then the role of a spokesperson for the team vis-à-vis the seller.

Consequences for relationship intelligence

Although the above cultures might often not appear in their pure form, being able to understand

the prevailing culture at the customer’s organization is the first act of relationship intelligence.

We must also consider that in large organizations separate specific cultures in part of the organization might coexist with a different overall corporate culture. In this case, the prevailing culture of the organizational unit involved or concerned by the decision is relevant.

The decision making process associated with one of the four culture types then determines the relationship network I need to understand in order to be able to effectively manage influence and decision making.

Consequences for influence management

For organizations with bureaucratic or entrepreneurial cultures, establishing a relation to the decision maker or at least somebody with direct influence to the decision maker might be sufficient to influence a buying decision in favor of my solution. Contacts with other individuals in the organization might be necessary for the purpose of understanding the subject and the type of argumentation I must choose to persuade the decision maker.

To get to a buying decision in organization where an individual or collaborative culture prevails, I need to establish relationship with all the people involved or considered in the decision making process. My added value as the seller is to help the organization to find the consensus in an organization with an individualistic culture or help build the consensus on behalf of the “spokesperson” in the case of a collaborative culture.

Conclusion

Success in complex deals with large organization undoubtedly requires the involvement of multiple people. This is the first step and will ensure that there is no single point of failure for the relationship between the seller and the buyer organization.

If in addition, you pay attention to the prevailing corporate culture this will help you to understand for what purpose you want to maintain and establish these multiple contacts.

What are your experiences about this topic? 

Christian Maurer

Don’t shoot the messenger! Or how to become a trusted advisor

The message and the messenger

People make decisions all the time: purchasing choices, reorganization decisions, recruitment, etc.  A large part of the choice is based on information received and / or understood.  And although relationships play a key role in influencing the decision makers, facts, figures, and statistics (lies, damned lies and statistics to quote probably Disraeli) are also crucial.  What is the connection between the information carried and the messenger?

Informed decisions

Obviously information is shared and discussed during a complex decision making process.  Sales teams prepare sales messages, kits, demonstrations, etc.  The potential client holds internal meetings, they look at the literature and compare solutions, they meet the sales force.  There may be a pilot study, the results of which are shared and analyzed.  There are probably some more internal meetings, during which the outcome of the pilot study is discussed: ROI, adoption rate, customer satisfaction, etc.

And yet, sometimes someone out of the blue stops the whole process and the whole thing is dropped.  This someone may or may not have had access to the information during the evaluation period.

Money makes the world go round

Holding the purse strings gives you the power to act, decide, veto, choose, etc.  You can step in at the last minute and decide to call the whole thing off.  But why would you call something off?  Your team has been shifting through and sorting information, facts, statistics, and comparisons. 

But oftentimes, decisions are cancelled or ignored not because of the quality of the information itself, but because there is a lack of faith in either the information or in the decision makers themselves.

Information and person: the powerful combination

Undeniable facts and trustworthy people are a powerful combination.  Putting the two together creates a very strong source of influence, one that will be very difficult to ignore.

The trustworthy people in my network are those that I have trusted in the past and who have come up with the goods.  I may not notice all the people who work well and achieve good results, but I will notice the unexpected.  For example

·         I am impressed and I remember when good results come from someone I hadn’t trusted.

·         I suddenly take note of a person who has been in my entourage and consistent for a long time.

I also remember the unexpectedly disappointing.

·         I notice if I trust someone who then goes on to fail to deliver or to make good on promises.

Trusting relationships, business, professional and personal alike, are built up over the years and stand the test of time.  We have built up a working history together.  A crucial factor for a trusting relationship is the belief in the absence of vested interests.

An envelope is as important as a letter

The information at the centre of the decision making process will be brought to me by people with whom I have varying levels of trust.  In addition, the way the arguments and logic are framed will make a difference.  I am more likely to understand (and as a result trust) a person who matches my way of thinking and uses the same level of technical language or jargon as me.

The road to becoming a trusted advisor

You may not hold the pen that signs all the forms, but there are ways you can build up your reputation as a trusted advisor in order to gain influence.

1.       Match your communication style to your listener and his / her level of knowledge

2.       Do what you say you’ll do.  Demonstrate again and again that you can be trusted.

3.       Be open about your relationships with others and any conflicts of interest.  Knowing in advance is far better than finding out by accident later.

4.       Communicate about the reliability of your information.  Tell people if you think this is a trusted document or if you think that the information is biased.  Be prepared to say why.  You’ll gain the reputation of being able to analyze information before you present it.

Cate Farrall