A Sales Manager and an IT Manager walked into an office. As with any other day, the two had conflicting views on many things but knew they needed one another for their careers and dealt with their differences as best they could.
Bob, the Sales Manager, poured his morning coffee as Don, the IT Manager, greeted him with “Happy Friday, Don. How’s it going?”
He said the exact same thing to him every Friday morning at 7am for 5 years. Don grinned and said, “Great, and you?”
“Hey, I’m doing great. I’m working on a productivity plan for my sales team that I should have finished today. Fridays are great for finishing projects and then starting a new week fresh.”
Don smiled, remembering that he heard this at least a couple times a year from Bob for 5 years. The sales team isn’t any more productive than it was 5 years ago, but he didn’t dare tell Bob that.
“Oh yeah? What are you doing differently?”
“Well, I have an accountability system set up where they will be reporting on their calls made, time spent on retrieving, documenting and returning messages, call results and time spent per call. That way they’ll be more productive since the details will be right there on paper.” Bob smiled with pride at his cool new system.
Don tried to smile and nod but couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “So, you’re expecting your sales team to spend extra time logging their calls, minutes spent, messages taken and returned, notes on return calls…and then report their output honestly and accurately? And you think asking them to take these extra steps will actually increase productivity?”
Bob looked at Don and his forced smile slowly turned to a look of confusion, surprise and frustration. With a deep sigh, Bob said, “I appreciate your input, Don.” He walked away with his coffee and left his pride in the kitchen. Under his breath, he mumbled “I hate IT.”
“Hey Bob?” said Don as he followed him down the hall. “You know that awesome new phone system we just set up with all the call identification routing, voicemail-to-email and mobile connection features?”
“Yeah, Don. I heard you tell us about all that mumbo jumbo last week at the All Hands Meeting.”
“Well, you may be interested in another one of the integrations since you guys have been using that CRM app for a few months now,” said Don with a half grin.
“I’m not in the mood for any more IT mumbo jumbo right now, Don. It’s Friday. Give me a break.”
“Whatever you say, Bob. I was just going to tell you that the new phone system also integrates with Salesforce…”
Bob rolled his eyes.
“…and if you let me help you with implementation, it’ll perform every single task from your new productivity system automatically. And make your sales team much more productive and efficient in the meantime. I’m just sayin’…” Don smiled, knowing he had won the battle.
“Oh yeah? Prove it,” challenged Bob, trying to hold back his excitement and surprise.
“Sure thing, Bob. It won’t take long, I’ll just call our VoIP guy and it’ll be done in time for your Friday afternoon beers today. I love finishing projects on Fridays.” Don said with a wink and a salute of his coffee cup.
Bob gave Don a big hug before realizing what he was doing. Then he cleared his throat and told him to get to work.