Sales Leaders Rule #27: Sweeping Issues Under the Carpet Only Ruins Your Floor

Your credibility with your team is determined by how you handle tough issues. There are managers out there that see no evil, hear no evil, and say nothing even when problems are painfully obvious. Their default solution is, “If it's a problem in 72 hours, I'll deal with it.” But then 72 hours becomes 72 days, which becomes 72 months, and problems just fester. Problems have a tendency to compound on themselves, so immediately and directly confronting them is the only way to ensure that they don’t get exponentially worse.

When sales leaders have a team, and a team means there's more than two people, they’re going to have issues. Don’t sweep issues under the carpet. It’s important to attack problems with a vengeance even if it's not your personality type. If you are distressed in how to confront a conflict, tell yourself that you only have to address it for five minutes at a time. Once you’ve built up the courage to broach the topic additional five minutes get easier and easier to add if the problem is not quickly solved.

Addressing problems effectively and efficiently has become more convoluted as our communication channels are driven more and more by technology. If you see email bantering back and forth on a particular problem, proactively stop the emails, and tell the team to speak directly with one another. If they can't talk to each other, sales leaders should get involved.

Taking problem resolution offline is important for two reasons. First, people won't be as harsh or hard line in a direct conversation because talking with someone removes perceptions of anonymity. They’ll know who they are speaking with and how their reaction to a problem affects that individual personally. Second, recipients of digital communications infer emotion into an email which may or may not be intended. Inserting emotion on how someone feels about the sender or the situation often artificially increases conflict. These emotion start friction, so get your team together so that they are focused on solving a problem, not how they feel about the problem.

To resolve an issue, deal with the topics, not the people. For example, sit down with team members and say, "Listen, I'm sensing that there is a disconnect on this project. I think we have two different perceptions on how we should proceed. Let's spend 10 minute talking about it.” Notice that the message is not, "There seems to be a problem with you two. Why aren’t you moving this forward?" That will only serve to bolster the conflict and begin a process of bickering and blaming. Focusing on the topic is unemotional and intellectual which helps everyone get comfortable with solving a problem rather than who’s to blame for it.

Coming to a resolution is not formulaic and often not simple. A good first step for sales leaders is to analyze, from your perspective, is there a logical middle ground for us to actually come together? Often there is truth in differing points of view. Is there a way to collectively come up with a new path forward that takes the best elements from both perspectives? Collectively, once people feel like they've been heard and they have the ability to co-create another road, then people are more apt to productively tackle the issue.

The bottom line is, if you sweep issues under the carpet, you're simply ruining the floor. You will have people that are passively or actively aggressive, resistant to progress, resentful of their work, and won't respect you as a leader. Do what's right and clean the carpet as soon as you notice a blemish. Attack problems head on but in a way where people feel like they have been heard and are contributing to the solution.