Tech Sales Hunter
Team up or go it alone?
In The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki shows that a diverse team will usually create a better solution than one person, even a very talented person. We often see that in action, whether we’re preparing a team sales presentation or the office Christmas party.
Teams can have obvious advantages by providing:
- Greater intellectual & creative resources.
- Broader skill & knowledge sets.
- Efficiency through division of labor.
- Capability for one person to engage while others are listening and problem solving.
- Synergy from building better solutions on top of each other’s ideas.
Despite that, deciding whether or not to assign a sales project to a team or to an individual isn’t always easy because teams can also have disadvantages. Most of their downsides are based on productivity losses such as:
- Lots of extra time required to plan and communicate.
- Information hoarding and weak transfer of important information.
- Unresolved intra-team conflicts or power struggles that can sabotage the effort.
- Conscious or unconscious laziness by individual team members.
- Domination by strong personalities rather than by the most capable team members.
Academic research and our own experiences demonstrate that sometimes teams create good solutions, and sometimes – they just waste time. Consider carefully before deciding whether to team up or go it alone for your next sales presentation or negotiation.
How do you determine whether to team up or go it alone?
8 Comments for Team up or go it alone?
The lone hero riding to the rescue is an all-American ideal…everything from “Have Gun, Will Travel” to the recent “Mission: Impossible” movies come to mind.
But experience & analysis have proven repeatedly that a team of people will almost always outperform a lone wolf operator. The catch is that “almost.” As Ms. Storms points out, teams can also be dysfunctional familes.
The decision whether to give a mission to a lone gunman or the cavalry is a tough one, but perhaps sports can give us a clue. There are team sports and individual sports. There is no way that a single player can cover every position on a baseball diamond. But by the same token, although a sprinter or gymnast or swimmer may be part of a team, the competition always comes down to individual performance.
So perhaps team sports vs. individual sports might give us some rules-of-thumb to decide whether to tackle a business operation as a team or as an individual. If the task requires complex subroutines (football), widespread coordinated action (baseball), or rapid-fire creativity under intense pressure (basketball), teamwork might be the way to go.
But if the job requires straightforward checklist preparation (training for gymnastics or track & field) oriented toward a single goal (running or swimming a distance), and ultimately comes down to the performance of the individual athlete (a golf shot or powerlifting), then it might be best to assign the task to one dedicated, talented person.
Bernard, your sports analogies are perfect for the team VS individual dilemma. And they offer good rules-of-thumb for making those decisions. Thanks for sharing yoru insights. Mary
I heard Mary give this speech at Toastmaster’s. Very well spoken. Enjoyed it. Never thought of it in the manner that Mary presented it. She gave me food for thought. Mary is an eloquent speaker. I can learn a lot just listening and watching her. So glad I have the opportunity.
I appreciate your kind comments, Stefanie. We all go to Toastmasters to practice & learn from others, even after years at the podium. Ah, umm, see you next month, where I’ll be working on getting rid of those annoying fillers.
The speech was well done and timely. It is amazing how many groups we have around us, but don’t really think of them that way. Of course, we have our Toastmasters Club, but did you think of your neighbors, church and other contacts in our life as groups? Take advantage of them!
I agree, Tom. Most projects & even many daily decisions are made in small groups. Husband/wife, parents/children, among friends, bridge clubs, neighborhood gatherings, Sunday School outreach committee for shut-in’s. Each of those ad hoc group interactions could be improved by simply articulating a goal for the meeting/team & increasing the amount & quality of communications between & among the group members.
Toastmasters is a perfect example of a well-run team. Why?
1. Clearly stated goals – to improve members’ presentation & meeting leadership skills.
2. Clearly defined roles & expectations for each person during each meeting. Then evaluations of how those responsibilities were handled.
3. Lots of communication & coordination about who’s doing what before & during the meetings.
4. Information sharing by every person at the meeting. Each TM at the meeting should have at least 1 speaking opportunity. And each person is responsible for taking a variety of roles throughout the year. So whether you’re novices, experts, juniors, or seniors, no one should dominate a well-run TM meeting.
5. And, very important, TM is about practice, practice, practice – as a team & as individuals within that team.
Mary,
Thank you for your Team Up or Go It Alone presentation. I agree with previous bloggers about your outstanding delivery.
Every workplace environment needs to hear your message. I can think of many past work situations when time was wasted in making a decision because the team approach, and other times it was very successful. Determining which approach to use is a challenge within itself. However, we must remember lessons are learned from these difficult tasks.
A grateful attendee,
Cenetta
