Diving To Success

Diving To Success
The affable president of a midsized privately held manufacturing company had worked himself through the sales dept. At least once a week, he stopped by the sales dept. to see “His Boys”.” How much money have you fellows made for me today? “he would ask, chortling. And they would laugh back at him saying, “Not enough for you, we know, but more than enough.”

The sales people loved the attention, for, they had great confidence in their president. They felt that his very presence was very lucky. As long as they saw his name on the door, they were convinced that they were unbeatable. Then the president retired. Almost immediately, the sales began to fall. The sales manager saw that his people were making fewer sales calls. They had become afraid: they believed that with their leader’s retirement they had lost their luck. In this case as in so many others, perception was reality. Fewer calls meant fewer sales. Fewer sales led to depression and a lack of confidence, which led to fewer sales calls. The downward spiral of depression had begun.
Soon the sales people were so depressed they couldn’t sell anything. All they could do was take orders.

The sales manager understood the problem. He even explained it to his subordinates. But try as he might, he could not improve the situation. Then one day he had an idea.

He called the sales organization together, but he didn’t say anything about sales calls. Infact, he didn’t mention sales calls at all. Instead he asked,” How many here have jumped out of an airplane?” No one raised a hand. “I’m told,” he continued, “that skydiving is lots of fun.” He had their interest now. “I’ve never jumped out of an aero plane,” he continued,” but I might like to. Who here would be willing to make a parachute jump with me if the company training, insurance and one parachute jump?”

After they realized that the sales manager was not joking, the sales people joined with questions and comments. I t was the longest discussion they had ever had on any subject.
Someone asked why the company would pay for them to go skydiving. “Oh, I don’t know.” He answered. “I guess the new boss just wants to know if we’ve got the stomach for it”. At last, of 31 people, 16 agreed to accept the challenge.

Note that the manager did not once mention declining sales or sales calls. His unusual proposal distracted his employees from their depression. They refocused on the challenge of jumping from an aero plane.

Two weeks later 14 of the 16 people showed up, completed their training and jumped. Five more jumped a week later and 3 more the week after that. Now the sales people started feeling good about themselves. They felt they were special. No other salespeople they knew jumped out of airplanes. In fact, they were hard pressed to think of anyone in the whole industry who did it.

Then a wonderful thing happened: Confidence Returned. The sales people felt that if they could jump out of an airplane, they could do anything. They began making more sales calls, in fact; they made more calls than they had before the president retired. As they made more sales calls, they increased sales. From these victories, their confidence returned and the number of calls and sales increased even more. Strangely, calls and sales increased even among those who did not jump. They caught the spirit from those who had. This confirmed that depression was an organizational ailment.

Taking dramatic action gets the depressed organization onto a different track and allows it to break out of a depressed cycle. Fortunately, there are other ways to distract an organization besides jumping out of airplanes. Many other actions, some quite simple, can get the organization focused on something else.

Depressed organizations tend to get caught in a sort of mental rut that sustains the depression. If you can interrupt this pattern, that one action may provide the necessary distraction and break the state of depression.

At Texaco one man did it with a speech.

In 1984 Texaco Inc. went into bankruptcy. When James W. Kinnear took over the company was still not out of bankruptcy. He started his treatment by doing something totally unexpected. He announced that he would address the entire company and he notified all the Texaco offices all around the world of the time and date. The employees thought they knew what was coming: criticism, announcement of more cutbacks, admonishing to work harder and be more productive.

They were in for a pleasant time. Kinnear began thanking everyone for staying and standing up for the organization when it was in the greatest of needs. He pointed out that their ability to do so gave him the courage and confidence that they would be an awesome organization. He shared his ideas for the development of the company and pointed out the bright future ahead of them and requested their support. This was totally unexpected by the employees who felt good and encouraged. A few years later Texaco Inc. became a company which everyone started talking about.