• Home
  • Academy
  • Book Shop
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Our Sponsors
Global Sales Operations Association
  • Planning & Analysis
    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    Introduction to Sales Operations

    US Tech Market Forecast Shows a Best-Case 5% Drop in 2020

    Forecasting in a Time of Uncertainty: Tech Markets

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

  • Sales Compensation
    • All
    • ICM Tools
    • Incentive Travel
    • Plan Design

    Sales VP Compensation – Sales Plan or Executive Plan?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

  • Excellence
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

  • Enablement
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Which Sales Methodology?

    Which Sales Methodology?

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

  • Technology
    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    How the New AI – Authentic Intelligence – Can Improve Sales Productivity

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

  • Performance
    What to Measure in Sales?

    What to Measure in Sales?

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

No Result
View All Result
  • Planning & Analysis
    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    Introduction to Sales Operations

    US Tech Market Forecast Shows a Best-Case 5% Drop in 2020

    Forecasting in a Time of Uncertainty: Tech Markets

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

  • Sales Compensation
    • All
    • ICM Tools
    • Incentive Travel
    • Plan Design

    Sales VP Compensation – Sales Plan or Executive Plan?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

  • Excellence
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

  • Enablement
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Which Sales Methodology?

    Which Sales Methodology?

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

  • Technology
    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    How the New AI – Authentic Intelligence – Can Improve Sales Productivity

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

  • Performance
    What to Measure in Sales?

    What to Measure in Sales?

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

No Result
View All Result
Global Sales Operations Association
No Result
View All Result
Home Excellence

Why we need Role Clarity

David Brock by David Brock
in Excellence, Insights, People Office
Reading Time: 4 mins read
101 6
0
Why we need Role Clarity

Role Clarity

259
SHARES
1.5k
VIEWS

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend on role clarity. By that, at the base level, I mean, “What’s my job?”

There’s an odd dynamic that goes on, at all levels. We get so busy in the activities we do in our jobs that we don’t understand what our jobs are. Of course, we have some idea–if we are sales people, we have to get out and sell, we have to make our quotas. If we are SDRs, we have to follow our scripts, make our numbers for outbound/inbound calls, create SQLs or SALs. If we are managers, we manage……

But as I talk to people in these roles, I start scratching on the surface of these, seeking to get a deeper understanding of what all that means, what’s important, and why. That’s where things start falling apart. At all levels, people don’t know or don’t understand.

RelatedPosts

The 21 Buying Methodologies

New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

Finding ‘A’ Players for Every Role

What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

But they are so busy doing things, they can’t take the time.

And when they start asking these questions, they don’t know who to ask, or those people they do ask, don’t know.

But why’s this important? If sales people are selling, if SDRs are calling/answering the phones and managers are managing, why do we care?

The clues to this are pretty obvious, they start with continued declines in sales performance, continued declines in job tenure (currently about 16.5 months), declines in employee engagement.

Role clarity is important. People need to understand their jobs/roles–not just the activities they do, and their metrics/comp plan.

They have to have a deeper understanding or context. Some things they need to understand (some of the most obvious up front, some of the more important follow):

  1. What is the job, what are the key responsibilities?
  2. What are the performance expectations?
  3. How will they be measured/compensated?
  4. How does what they do fit/contribute to the organization’s priorities/strategies? We need to connect the dots between the contribution of every person/role/job to the corporate goals and priorities (I love OKRs and the process of establishing OKRs as part of this.)
  5. What is our culture and value system? What does this mean to them and their jobs?
  6. What are the “sacred cows,” why are they important, what happens if we don’t pay attention to them? (For example, in my very first sales job, I had huge freedom in how I did my job. But there were a few things that I learned were “fireable” offenses.)
  7. Why is this important to them, why is it important to their customers (In the generic sense of customers–for example, the manager’s customers are their people)?
  8. Who are our customers? What do we stand for with those customers? Why is this important, how do we leverage these in creating value for our customers?
  9. Who are my customers?
  10. How do we get things done in our company? Note, this is probably more about the “informal” organization than the formal org chart, roles/responsibilities, and so forth.
  11. Where do I go to get help? How do I get it?
  12. What are the resources to help me do my job? How do I leverage them? How do I use them? This includes not only training, tools, processes, systems, programs, but also organizational, partner, and other resources.
  13. How do I grow and develop in the job? Who can help me? How do I leverage them?
  14. What should I be learning to be more effective in my current role? Who can help me, what are the resources?
  15. What should I be learning to grow in the organization and to move into growth roles?
  16. Beyond making my numbers, how do I contribute to the organization, how can I express my ideas?
  17. What happens if I disagree? What is our process for resolving these?
  18. What is our problem management process? How do I help my customer when there are problems? How do I escalate?
  19. What can you (my manager) do for me, what expectations should I have of you?
  20. And more…..

Most of these aren’t part of a formal job description and shouldn’t be. Many of these are things that cannot and should not be part of a formal onboarding process (“Take these training programs, go to these resources on our internal site….”)

Many of these will be revisited and evolve over time, both because we mature in our roles and our companies/priorities change, so we have to reset our expectations and understanding of the roles and expectations.

But many of you are probably thinking, “Yeah, Yeah, Dave. But why is this so important to our jobs and role clarity?”

I think there are several areas:

First, as our businesses, markets, customers, and lives become more complex, we struggle to understand and make sense of what’s going on and what it means to us. Just as “sensemaking” is important in helping our customers gain greater understanding and confidence in the decisions they make, everyone in our organization, at all levels struggle with the same issues.

Related to the first point, we can never anticipate all the situations that arise, we can never develop rules, procedures, processes, scripts, playbooks that address every situation each of us faces. (Though for some reason, many organizations and managers try.) In order to do our jobs and perform, we have the ability to figure things out. The richer the context each of us have about our roles/jobs give us greater capability/confidence in doing our jobs.

Role clarity is critical to building, reinforcing, and growing the values and culture of the organization.

Our companies evolve and change constantly. As a result, our roles/jobs are constantly changing. Too often, we get stuck in what we have done and how we always did it, when those things are no longer effective or impactful. We have to consciously reset ourselves and our understanding of what we should be doing.

Too often, we simply stop paying attention. We are diverted by being busy, we focus on activities, finding out too late, that things have changed, our jobs have changed, the world has changed.

Tags: CultureMotivationRolesTeam design
Previous Post

When The Incremental Cost Of Stupidity Is $0

Next Post

Beware of this sales productivity trap

David Brock

David Brock

Dave has spent his career developing high performance organizations. He worked in sales, marketing, and executive management capacities with IBM, Tektronix and Keithley Instruments.

Related Posts

The 21 Buying Methodologies
Enablement

The 21 Buying Methodologies

144
New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes
Excellence

New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

202
People Office

Finding ‘A’ Players for Every Role

1.6k
Next Post
Beware of this sales productivity trap

Beware of this sales productivity trap

Sales And “Product Led Growth”

Sales And “Product Led Growth”

Please login to join discussion
  • About
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2021 SOPSA -The Community for Sales Operations Professionals - by Global Sales Operations Association.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • Calendar
  • Community
  • Courses
  • Academy Home
  • Podcast

© 2021 SOPSA -The Community for Sales Operations Professionals - by Global Sales Operations Association.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

Setup Community Access

-
00:00
00:00

Queue

Update Required Flash plugin
-
00:00
00:00