Very interesting to read this at we start the New Year — a good topic to debate as we start 2016.

On your first point — we need to be careful how we celebrate our sales people. The way you have articulated here and many have believed over the decades, often Sales people get a lot of undue (and focused) recognition for the sale deals he/she closes overlooking the contributions from a lot of other members in the team. This “single hero celebrity” is much more in sales than in any other function of an Organization.

I have had the opportunity to work with Phaneesh Murthy who was a really great Sales man. He sold the story of Infosys and India some 20+ years back to big global Corporates when we were still wearing Bata hawaii chappals (and not flip-flops! — which may sound too cool) to office with un-corporate dress culture back in early 90's. I think he would be one of the greatest Enterprise sales person — given the context and what he achieved. But for 1 Phaneesh Murthy, we have had very few (I would like to say none, but I may be wrong) across all of Indian companies who have scaled those heights. This doesn’t mean that there were 100s more who behaved like him without showing even 1% of results he created.

‘If you are not a sales rep, you can’t claim for “I closed the sale” ‘— I mostly agree with you. But similarly, a sales rep cannot claim the complete credit for all the team work put in by the Pre-sales & Solutions team, Engineering team, Leadership team and everybody else who is part of the deal and work hard in the background to make it happen.

This “hero” treatment of sales people creates shallow leaders in most of the Organizations who can bluff their way up. More matured Organizations have required checks and balances, but most of the others fall into the “confident smooth talk” trap of promoting wrong people up the ladder much faster.

And assuming that good sales people automatically become good leaders is not right either. There are more instances of CxOs from Sales background struggling and coming more mistakes than people with non-sales background in the Organization.

Interestingly on point #2, I completely focus on learning what each Individual CAN DO by himself/herself. The earlier points we discussed have created a lot of individuals, particularly in the larger Organizations, who are good at talking, delegating, managing, forwarding emails and bluffed their way up to senior positions. In a startup, there is nobody to handle further delegations — one needs to roll up his/her sleeves and do whatever is necessary.

In this context it is very critical to understand all of “I did…” part of a Candidate’s story. Start ups, and I think every great Organization should be seen as a sum of individual talents and value each creates, rather than “Master & Command” setup which is becoming completely irrelevant in the Future of Work — encompassing changing Work and Workers.

On your Point#3 though I am completely in agreement with you. An ordinary idea/strategy well executed is more impacting than a great idea with an ineffective execution.

Wish you a very happy New year. I enjoy your tweets and keep them coming.