Revenue leaders are on a mission to understand what creates a winning sales culture, where engagement and productivity can flourish, and results follow. 

The Cross Section of Sales and Culture

What exactly is sales culture? How do you define it, and moreover, what does a successful sales culture look like? These are the questions global revenue leaders brought with them to our recent GDS Group RevGen summit. 

“All of our companies already have some sort of culture,” said Lindsay Lackner Davey, the Culture Curator at Imperial. “We’re trying to change it a little bit. We’re trying to tweak it. We’re trying to choose the right behaviors, the right experiences, to figure out how that might help us get to the next level.”  

Davey gave the keynote address at the summit, starting off with the meaning behind her rather distinctive title of Culture Curator. She came up with the term to describe what she’s trying to do at Imperial, and what she advises other sales leaders to do, too. She likens it to a curator at a gallery who selects some paintings to showcase up front, and perhaps puts others toward the back of the room. “I’m not here to create culture. I’m not here just to manage it,” explained Davey. “I am here to highlight to the organization what is the ‘best of’ and also what might not be the ‘best of’.” 

Common Language

So, if a sales culture already exists, how do leaders start shaping it to be more successful? Davey says common language helps here, and not just a new mission statement or corporate purpose talking points. She urged executives to find words that connect people to purpose. Words with emotion. So, she’s broken it down to something she hopes hits people in the feelings: 

“What we’re trying to do here, in terms of changing our culture, is give people more good days at work.”
– Lindsay Lackner Davey, Culture Curator at Imperial 

Who Wants to Change?

A common challenge revenue leaders find is that it’s easy to get people to agree they want to change the sales culture, yet no one is in a rush to change themselves. This is something Davey saw when she began in her role, as well. “When we ask people, ‘who wants change? Who wants change in terms of culture?’ We see hands go up everywhere. Everybody wants change,” recalled Davey, continuing, “when you ask them, ‘who wants to change?’ Well, I was getting crickets.” 

This prompted Davey to look at whether the organization had an accountability problem. She resolved to find out if employees feel like change is within their span of control. Do they feel empowered to make an impact? If they see something that needs attention (good or bad), will it be heard? 

To address this, Davey assigned an employee to find good stories, stories of employees doing great things within their teams or for customers. She then pushes these stories out company-wide. It’s especially impactful for those employees who aren’t as vocal, or boastful, with their accomplishments. Broadcasting wins in this way shows employees that they are seen, noticed. And this further invites them into initiating the kind of changes that impact culture positively.  

The Missing Piece

In fact, new research from Gallup and Workhuman shows that formal recognition may just be the missing piece in a winning sales culture. According to the study, more than half of employees who say the recognition they receive at work is not authentic or equitable are right now looking for a new job!  

What’s more, 81% of senior leaders say recognition is not a major strategic priority for their organization. This could be detrimental in terms of attrition and bottom line, as an analysis by Gallup shows that an organization of 10,000 people with an already engaged workforce can save up to $16 million in turnover cost annually by making recognition a big piece of their culture. 

A Movement, not a Mandate

A framework that’s been instrumental in helping Davey shape culture change at Imperial came from a Harvard Business Review piece that proclaims, “changing company culture requires a movement, not a mandate.”  

Movements start with passion. And this goes back to the emotion contained in the language referenced earlier, how Imperial’s corporate goal began to center around giving people more good days at work. The words became mobilized when the wins were broadcast throughout the company, and momentum, and a movement, began to take shape. “Where culture lives and breathes,” concluded Davey, “is really in the millions of little interactions that we have with each other on a daily basis.” Make the moments matter, and you’re on your way to a sales culture that wins. 

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