It’s true that the salespeople should be selling my stuff.

We are the little brother – a small subsidiary that have to share salespeople with the other subsidiaries.Therefore we systematically and consistently loose any power battle or prioritizaton.

Its a strategy which is very strictly being adhered to, although very few people understand it and a lot of people agree that it is inefficient.

Would you agree with me that just pointing the finger at the salespeople won’t get me far?

I am too small to turn the supertanker by myself – and I don’t have time to start an uprising – I simply have to get my stuff sold so I’ll take the strategy a bit light and do it myself.

What do you think about such an attitude?

Aser

Isn’t getting customers the job of salespeople? What are these people so busy doing that they don’t have time to do their jobs?

I am accepting the fact that not everyone buys in from the start. People are slowly understanding the new boss’ way of working and it’s a question of time before everyone is at least not against what is happening.

To go faster – Alexander is right – I would need to spend more time here. I am not sure I have the choice right now, and if it’s a question of priority I am quite sure my boss will take me off this job and leave me to the other one (and leave this company in the dark).

So the challenge is also becoming personal: How do I get everything done without cramming?

I’ll get onto next post tomorrow evening.

Please let me know how it goes!

What I’d like to do is utilize this information to and get a group discussion going. Everyone performs just about the same job, but each person has a specialty somewhere. I’d like everyone to discuss the job description and re-write their own, incorporating what makes them happy into it. For those that just want money, I’m interested to see the reaction I get.

I think you’re doing great and I really like your approach.

A couple of thoughts came to mind while I read your post:
1: What you did for your deputy, could you do that for everybody, and Let everybody re-write their job descriptions according to this method:
http://positivesharing.com/2006/08/lets-lose-the-job-descriptions

2: Is 2 days a week enough? I think you must really ask yourself this question. If you want to affect fast, radical, lasting change in this subsidiary – can you do that on only 2 days a week? Or do you need to, temporarily at least, spend more time there?

3: Can you get people to buy in to each other?
Right now, you’ve presented a plan and asked people to buy in to that. Some have, some haven’t. What if you asked the people themselves to think about whether or not things need to change, and what attitudes they expect from each other in order to change this.

This way, it’s not a matter of them having a commitment to you but to each other, which is a more sustainable situation.

Keep up the good work, this is fascinating!

Thank you for this Starkin!

ps. Fear never works, you could post this as a fact to your seniors :) The first time you pull up the “…or else…” card is the cue in for the people to just stop working and start looking actively for the next job. This is unless you are the only company in the planet :D

pps.I have seen that the positive and ongoing people will eventually get the others going too. If this does not happen, and the negative critics just continue on whining, you can ask yourself do you need these people in the first place? Sometimes it is just easier to change staff.

Alexander Kjerulf started this blog, see. It is about happiness at work, see. And I think it is the…