T-Shaped People and Sales - The Cultivated Management newsletter
Hi,
Welcome to this week's Cultivated Management newsletter. I hope you're having a good week.
Earlier this week I did my very first online conference presentation for OnlineTestingConference. It was a great event and all of the talks were remote. It's always weird delivering a presentation to just your laptop with no feedback! Did that joke resonate? Are people enjoying this? Good fun though and my talk and slides will be available. I did my standard Keynote talk - 10 Behaviours Of Effective Employees.
T-Shaped Employees
The T-Shaped model is a simple way to talk about performance and skills. I like it as a starter for a conversation.
It makes a lot of sense to talk about someone's core skills as being the vertical part of a capital T and the other complimentary skills as the horizontal part of the T.
Like all models it is not correct but it can be helpful. Anyone who’s been managed by me will have been through an exercising of mapping themselves to a set of behaviours that come with their job.
These are categorised in to things like communication, product impact, company impact, problem solving skills, mentoring abilities etc. Some of these are just part of their core skills (the vertical part of the T), some will be extra skills they can add (the horizontal T). The more skills you can add to the horizontal T the more valuable you become, not only to a company, but to the marketplace.
A few things to consider with the T model though.
Think hard as to whether the skills and abilities across the horizontal bar should just be part of the core T.
The horizontal skills should emerge and evolve. If you are pre-assigning these to individual’s, then shouldn’t they be part of the core T? Does that individual want these extra skill? Does it play to their strengths?
The T-Shape is a useful model but some people will end up being different letters. For example, those that become very skilled in two different disciplines. A W maybe? Don't try and force everyone in to a T - it's a starter for a conversation about performance and careers.
Some people will want to specialise, reducing the horizontal but growing the vertical.
Some people may not yet have a core vertical – try not to develop too many other skills without building the core. It is important to have something. “Jack of all trades, master of none” is a term that springs to mind.
It is only a model and hence it is useful, but it is incorrect.
Over time you may find that the bar rises for an entire role and hence what was horizontal skills for people in that role now become part of the vertical. This is feedback that your people are growing and changing and the role is moving with them.
I like this model a lot. It’s a good starter for a conversation about the core skills and those that can compliment. Always get back to why you are doing this though. Is it to create transferable skills? Is it to grow them in to a different role? Is it to make them more valuable to the business in their current role? Or is it to provide a way for people to see their career progression? All are valuable in my mind.
The key thing to remember though is that the extra skills being added must be in alignment to that person’s strengths and career ambitions. If not, there will be little enthusiasm and drive to achieve them – and that is essentially going to mean this coaching and growth works or it doesn’t.
Why do we not teach communication?
Isn’t it weird that we don't teach people how to communicate in the workplace? Especially given I'm sure we can all find examples of poor communication rife in many organisations.
It’s why I created my Communication Skills for Professionals course. Most business problems are caused by poor communication. I’m trying to help change this.
Why not join me and learn a superpower in the world of business. I’m running my first public course in January – check out the details here!
Book of the week
This week’s book of the week is The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.
What? A sales book? Is Rob mad?
We are all in sales though.
If you’re a manager you will need to sell ideas and plans. You’ll need to navigate people through periods of stress and uninspiring work. You’ll need to sell your company to talented candidates. You’ll need to sell ideas to executives in exchange for money and resources. You’ll also need to build products and services for customers. If you’re self-employed you’ll need to sell your wares.
This book is intense and much of it requires re-reading to really get in to it, but it’s worth perservering. The author, Chet Holmes, is a well respected and talented sales person. He’s amazing at what he does and he’s put this knowledge in to this book. It’s worth a read.
“USP (unique selling proposition). The problem with this thinking is that it’s focused on you. It asks the question, “What is special about us or what do we have or do better than our competitors?” In addition to this internally focused approach (which is the minimum every company should know), you should also know that your best possible ultimate strategic position is to devote yourself to helping your clients succeed.” The Ultimate Sales Machine.
My writing this week
If you were building a software company from scratch what would you do?
Knowledge can only be gained by studying.
The Blazingly Simple Guide To Turning Around A Team - published now on LinkedIn
Until next week….
Rob