George from Portland manages the Sales Organization.

Smadar, his EMEA director  is based in Israel. His APAC director, Ming (m), is based in Taipei. Smadar and Ming talk and sms (text) on their cellphones all the time.

George is about to have his annual sales meeting in Salzburg Austria. George has been asked by other members of his staff to ensure that Ming and Smadar turn OFF their phones during meetings, and surrender their phones to the admin at the start of each session.

George shot off an email to Ming and Smadar telling them of the phones off rule for the upcoming pow wow. George also said an admin will ensure enforcement.

Ming was highly offended; Ming believes that he must be available ALL THE TIME for his clients and agents. While Ming’s clients and agents would not be angry  were he not to answer, they would feel Ming is not respecting them.

Smadar thinks that George is ramming yet another rule down her throat and if there were less rules, there would be more Sales. Smadar believes urgent things are important things and answering calls is urgent.. She believes that a client who calls her NOW may not call her back “later”.

Ming and Smadar both believe George does not respect their way of doing business.

Smadar plans to take calls and will not surrender her phone to the admin; she will label each call “an exception”.

Ming plans very long and frequent bio breaks with a second phone he is bringing.

George will open the Sales Meeting with a lecture he will give on “Focus, Focus and Focus”. Ming will be in the lobby; Smadar will be texting.

Kevin wants the new software release moved out by two weeks for the sake of simplicity and serviceability.

“What do you all think?”, asked Kevin in the quarterly meeting in Vancouver.

Adi from Jerusalem said, “Bad idea; you are waiting for a state of stability which is never achievable. I am for staying the present release day and cleaning up the ensuing mess”. Adi has no unspoken message.

Som from Bangkok said, “Interesting idea, Khun Kevin. If the new release is more robust, then it could be a good idea. Her unspoken message was “could be, but is NOT”.

Watanabe from Japan spoke about the need to fully satisfy the customers needs yet  stick to  promises and suggested lots of hard work. He rambled on and on and his position sounded  totally ambiguous. His unspoken message was “be tougher on the troops and force people to work 24 hours a day”.

Laura from Manila said she supports the idea. Her unspoken message was “This is not the forum for me to tell the boss that he is wrong”.

Stanley manages a weekly PORM  (Plan of Record Meeting) where very aggressive software commitments are formalized with developers and project management.

Stanley has discovered that many people view commitments made at the PORM very differently.

Yaniv (Israeli male) believes that planning should be very aggressive and “even 90% success is good enough”. Yaniv’s peers think he is out to impress management and show other people up.

Arabella (German female) believes than planning must be accurate to the extreme because it is the ultimate control device. Arabella asks endless questions and piles on the facts high; her peers think she is stalling and foot dragging because it is very hard to get her to commit.

Jacque (French male) views planning as a logical and “non emotional” exercise. Jacques refuses to “negotiate” deadlines; he analyses things and is seen by his peers as “stubborn and unmovable”.

Tanaka (Japanese male) sees planning as what need to be done by whom in order to satisfy the demands as defined by the customerPeers see Tanaka as detached from reality at times, albeit highly customer focused.

Stanley from Ottawa sees planning as the way to “get us all reading off the same sheet of music.”

It appears however that without digging down into cultural assumptions about planning, Stanley’s band isn’t headed for a Grammy.

Khun Chumsai has resigned!

Khun is an honorific before a Thai name.

Chumsai is the Thailand based  “key account manager” for a German based multinational which supplies software for urban traffic control safely.

Reggie Pennington, a Brit who heads Thai, Malaysia and Singapore areas, called me in Tel Aviv and asked me to come to Bangkok as soon as possible to help do damage control and bring Chumsai back from the brink. Reggie is totally dependent upon Chumsai to complete the sales cycle of the new product in major Thai municipalities, which has being going on for 2 years.

Reggie told me that Chumsai has now accepted a job at the very client where he served as key account manager. Reggie  said that he was totally surprised. Chumsai had appeared to be working as usual and had no complaints whatsoever. “He was always smiling”.

Allon booked a week trip to Bangkok and had many  meetings during which he learned about issues contributing Chumsai’s desire to leave. These are exact quotes.

1-Khun Reggie has no time for small talk. So he must really care only about the business and not about the people.

2-When we work late, Reggie never asks us out for a drink after we finish work, he tells us to go home and spend time with our families.

3-Khun Reggie invited Khun Tom, the product expert from corporate HQ, to meet with the client. We planned the meeting in a taxi on the way to the client, so I understand I was being marginalized.

4-At the client meeting, Khun Tom spoke too loudly when the client raised concerns, saying that he was “convinced” that the roll out of the new product would be “seamless”. That caused me huge embarrassment since it was very arrogant; I fear that I will look bad in the local market.

5-After the meeting we debriefed, again in a taxi. “They talked so fast that I could not contribute.  My role as their “yellow face” is over”, and he smiled with anger.

I did not think it was possible to stop Chumsai from leaving. Reggie asked me if “a huge stay bonus may solve the problem”.

Reggie was not an easy client.

Victor from Raleigh NC had a twenty minute call with his global team.

Here are his main messages and talking points:

1) Given sagging performance, expect to put in extra innings in the next few weeks, till the quarter ends.

2) We are the bottom of the ninth, and if things don’t get better, it’s gonna be bad news.

3) If the team will focus on selling the product road map, it’s going to be a can of corn.

4) Jane’s new idea in her email “Breakthrough” is out of the ball park. From now on, this is way to proceed.

5) If we all do the best, we can get out of the hot box.

Paul in London, Jean Marie in Québec city, Paco in Mexico City and Angela in Aberdeen sat quietly though the meeting.

Archie in Boston texted  his boss Victor after the call: “home run”

Au urgent meeting was convened to discuss the ramifications of the 2 week delay on the “go live” for the project which was to impact 50,000 users in Australia.

Invited to the meeting were Arthur from the Australia (the account manager), Arturo from Mexico, Erez from Israel and Tim from Germany.

Tim came into the conference room 5 minutes early and asked for the (semi existent) agenda.

Erez called in to the meeting because he had to take his kids to a school play and one could hear his wife castigating him in the background: “why don’t you go and live at work”?

Arturo came in an hour late, asked everyone how things are going, and just as the meeting was coming to end, said, “I have a few important issues that are not on the agenda and impact the estimation of readiness for deployment”. Arturo then communicated really bad new. Arturo suggested that Arthur “bargain for an extension”.

Account manager Arthur maintained his cool until Arturo suggested bargaining for an extension with Australian client. “Listen mate, you can bargain in Mexico, but not in Australia!” Arturo fought back and Arthur got furious and lost his cool. Erez said: “This is the first time I see you care about the delay, Arthur; we can help you by working weekends!”

Tim mentioned that the plan would need to be adjusted to reflect reality. “We need to be transparent” stated Tim, who seemed irrelevant in the semi Levant.

Samuel is a change consultant and coach, based in Salt Lake City; he has bagged a job from a Miami based firm operating in Europe and Asia.

Sammy;s first assignment is with a company in which the staff circumvents and bypasses the purchasing process. Often company staff contact vendors who supply on the basis of email commitments, and Finance is then forced to pay due to local regulations. SAP had been introduced, yet compliance is low.

Samuel has interviewed 3 people to find out why there is such a low level of compliance.
Helmut from Germany, who is on loan as a SAP consultant, claims that there is “no consequence” to by passing the system.
Wang from China claims that he gets great prices in his oral and semi clandestine dealings with vendors with whom he has been working the longest time and using SAP would only “drive the price up”.
Igor from Russia claims that “ve don’t trust the system”.

Samuel, the global consultant that he is, agrees with Helmut. There is a need for consequence for non compliance. So a process is implemented to force all vendors to re-register before any business can be done.

Yet Samuel failed to produce any change and he was fired; another consultant, who name starts with A, was hired. After a month, here is what happened-

A Chinese-American expat was sent to China and after a year, he severed  China from SAP, in coordination with the CEO.

Russian-based Igor was transferred to the Dutch office, and, removed from his vendors is under intensive scrutiny, he has  began to trust the system.

Paul, the legendary North American product evangelist, was sent to France for a week to train the 5 top French technical presales folks.

Paul emphasized three points:

1) Project  full belief in the new product as a killer app.

2) Exude enthusiasm

3) Stress the fun of the product to minimize justified criticism

The French folks were to undergo three days of training.

Paul went home to Baltimore after day two and “shot off” an email that there is a morale problem in the French office, which over analyses and critiques the product more than the competition.