Rainbow Thinking is a term that encompasses the ability to champion neural diversity within a team as a means of delivering high performance. In this series of 6 blogs, I'll discuss this in more detail using DiSC® as a tool to highlight our different styles, ways of thinking, approaches to different situations, how we interact with each other. The subject requires more than I can deliver in a series of blogs and so there workshops that can be delivered to bring this to life within your own team. In the meantime, I hope that some of this reasonates with you and your sales management life.
In Conclusion
Sales Leaders and salespeople can come with many styles, each style has strengths and weaknesses. In tech, sales management styles have typically been dominated by the pure D style for hard hitting, fast moving, high growth - with more Di style in more embryonic sales and DC styles for more established sales. With more organic diversity across organisations, the increase of hiring expertise from within vertical industries, and improvements in the gender balance in leadership, the style of sales leaders and salespeople is broadening and the definition of a good sales leader is changing.
The need to improve retention due to skills shortages and the costs of recruitment and training, is changing the emphasis of sales leadership to be more inclusive and provide better wellbeing and so this broadens the requirements of style beyond the default D Style. The D Style leader can embrace this change with situational adaption but it takes a conscious effort to do so and continuous self reflection.
For example, a leader or salesperson with a D Style can adapt their hard hitting approach to encourage new creative ideas by including people with the I Style, to be more considerate to people's concerns and wellbeing by including people with the S style, and to analyse the available information by including people with the C style. This can be done through their team recruitment practices, and through investing in the relationships with their extended management team (operations, customer success, HR, finance). The best D sales leader I have experienced made a conscious effort to build strong relationships with their finance, HR and marketing peers, embracing C, S and I style skillsets respectively to balance the overall management culture.
With the change of tech sales towards cloud and subscription, the role of the salesperson is changing so that continuous customer contact over a more sustained period is required, the days of selling a deal, moving on and then going back 3 years later are numbered. This change requires a spectrum of skills from the 4 DiSC® styles, be driven to gain results (D), to find creative solutions (i), to support a customer through their journey (S), while being across the data and detail (C).
The DiSC® methodology helps all leaders and sales people recognise their default style, their natural state, but coaches them to flex and widen the spectrum of their natural style to include and encourage other styles and improve Rainbow Thinking within their team. Everyone is a mix of all the styles and it's in everyone's ability to adapt their style when needed to be more inclusive and more rounded without losing authenticity.
Therefore although we each have a default or natural style, with better self awareness, and understanding of the styles around us, we can adapt, stretch and include all the Rainbow Thinking around us, and to be the most effective leader or great team member of a diverse and colourful sales organisation.
Although DiSC® is not a panacea its just a tool, it is a well thought out process which works and has helped me significantly in each of my sales management tenures. Post pandemic, many people have moved jobs and industry is adjusting to AI and so we are in a period of team creation, renewal and rebuilding. DiSC is a great way for a new team to get to know each other and can be used to quickly build trust and understanding as a strong foundation for Rainbow Thinking, gaining fast cohesion within a sales team.
DiSC® can also be used as part of a broader development program which, for example, blends DiSC®, and Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team together to help build a high performance, aligned team culture.
I hope these 6 blogs have been useful in helping you think about your own style, the style of the people around you and how you can adapt to become a more effective and inclusive sales leader or salesperson, and a great Rainbow Thinker.
If you want to get more specific, I can provide a full individual Workplace Profile for you and one for each of your team, with a team DiSC® map and an individual feedback session for each person. This can be followed by a half day team workshop which is fun, light hearted but informative and impactful.
To find out more, please contact me directly at timhearn@skylark-development.co.uk
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