My 16 Year Old Drove Me to Baltimore
I am sitting in downtown Baltimore at a video game tournament with my oldest son right now. We travel around locally for these as much as we can as he is improving every day and competing more.
He recently got his drivers permit, and we have to drive with him for 50 hours before he can drive on his own, so I decided to let him drive down to Baltimore tonight from Delaware.
This is where I realized having a teenage driver is EXACTLY like a sales rep who was just promoted into their first sales manager position.
Let me explain.
The skills of being an individual sales rep and the skills of being a sales manager are different. Unfortunately, most companies take the best sales rep and promote them to manage the team they were on, and then don’t give them any training on the skills it takes to be an effective sale manager. Kind of like driving one day – and then sitting in the passenger seat and watching your teenage son merge slowly directly in front of a speeding 18 wheeler truck. True story.
When it comes to driving, you know how to do it.
You are better than the person you are helping.
You see everything that is going on, and can’t quite understand how they don’t see it yet. You know exactly what to do.
The problem is they don’t.
In my mind and heart, my son just needs experience. He needs reps. He needs to make decisions on his own, see the outcomes of those decisions, get feedback on what can be improved and learn how to trust himself to adjust the next time.
Not much different than being a new sales manager.
There is ALWAYS more than one way to get to the same outcome, and maybe the way you did it that led to you being promoted isn’t the ONLY way that works. It is time to sit in the passenger seat and observe.
Pay attention to the details.
Give feedback.
Listen and watch.
And coach them by creating the environment for them to learn.
And in both cases – after hitting a few curbs, some awkward lane changes, navigating a rain storm and learning what intermittent wipers are – both of them are going to get better.
And once that happens, you can let them drive on their own.