Principles 10, 11, 12

vital qualities are exceptional self-awareness, self-regulation, and personal empathy, a combination that he has termed emotional intelligence.

Manage relations, Identify personal implications and convey your character.  Frances Hesselbein, who led the Girl Scouts for more than a decade and then led an organization for nonprofit leadership, emphasized the value of personal mentoring, flattening the hierarchy, and hearing dissent.

For researcher Daniel Goleman, vital qualities are exceptional self-awareness, self-regulation, and personal empathy, a combination that he has termed emotional intelligence.  An academic team that studied middle managers in financial services, food processing, and telecommunications in 62 countries, ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe concluded that leaders should avoid developing autocratic, egocentric, and irritable styles.

ACTION POINT:  Seek to develop your emotional intelligence.

Tools and Analytics to Heighten Productivity

Arguably, the sales force is one of the most critical elements of a distributor's business.

In today's environment, achieving greater productivity is crucial; for distributors, this goal begins in sales.  Arguably, the sales force is one of the most critical elements of a distributor's business.  For many customers, their sales force representative is the distributor--their first point of contact, the person who knows them best, and the individual charged with understanding their needs and ensuring those needs are met.

Given the important role these individuals play, it is essential that distributors equip them with the tools, technology, insights, and information they need to effectively do their jobs.  Also, considering the intense competition distributors face in serving their customers, it is equally important that key resource within the organization be freed from low-value activities so they can focus on more productive work.

ACTION POINT: Identify the tools, technology and insights your sales team needs to be effective.

Retaining Talent II

many long-term personnel can be persuaded to stay involved with the business via flexible working arrangements. 

At the same time that  a new generation is entering the workforce, the aging of the existing workforce creates its own unique set of retention challenges.  Fortunately, retaining these valued employees is no longer an "all or nothing" proposition.

Given lingering uncertainties in the economy, declines in the value of retirement funds, drops in home prices, and an interest in staying more active and engaged, many long-term personnel can be persuaded to stay involved with the business via flexible working arrangements.  Such arrangements can include working on select days of the week or during set hours of the day, or may be structured more along the lines of consulting arrangement, with individual skills employed on an as needed basis.

ACTION POINT: These scenarios are truly win-wins for distributors and their employees.

Retaining Talent

today's younger employees have integrated technology into their lifestyle, decisions, and communications--in ways not even imagined five years ago.

Given the sizable investment required to recruit, hire, and develop employees, distributors would be wise to focus additional efforts on identifying and retaining top performers.  Building relationships with today's younger generation is a complex undertaking, and must reflect a deep understanding of these individuals' specific wants, needs, and concerns.

Looking at the new generation, many of today's younger employees have integrated technology into their lifestyle, decisions, and communications--in ways not even imagined five years ago.  For example many of today's teenagers and 20-year-olds view phone calls--even cell phone calls--as outdated, and rely instead on text messages sent via their mobile device.  In addition, they expect information to be rich, searchable, and at their fingertips.  The relevance here is that the next generation of employees will expect heightened access to information and technology, and bring new communication styles to the organization. 

ACTION POINT: Engaging and retaining these individuals will require cultural shifts for many distributors.

Assessing Performance

identify high performers, and craft training programs that address key skills gaps

Though larger distributors place more importance on each of the industry's three key assessment areas (sales force productivity, warehouse/transportation productivity, and customer service productivity) than smaller companies do, there is little differentiation from a performance perspective.

Research shows that some wholesaler-distributors are trying to stay ahead of the curve on many of these issues.  As they look to assess their workforce, identify high performers, and craft training programs that address key skills gaps, forward-thinking distributors are working with outside experts such as Caliper (www.caliper'online.com) on hiring, training, and organizational development issues to define the characteristics of top performers.  Others are looking to sales performance consultants such as Miller Heiman (www.millerheiman.com) to define a new sales process and integrate that with its customer relationship management solution--with the goal of better leveraging available planning and execution tools.

ACTION POINT: Consider the expertise of outside experts to enhance your process and performance in the three key assessment areas, sales force productivity, logistics productivity and customer service productivity.