As the NBA Championship Finals progressed, and Miami’s dream team slowly succumbed to Dallas, we kept hearing the saying that a team of 5 always beats a team of 3. I don’t follow basketball closely, but last year when Lebron James made a big deal about signing with the Heat, it caught my attention. To publicly proclaim that you can win multiple championships is a sure sign of confidence in your self and in your team mates, but it doesn’t show a whole lot of respect for the competition. James, Chris Bosch and Dwayne Wade together may be the greatest trifecta of talent ever put together on a team, but winning one championship in any sport requires a great amount of skill, hard work and luck. To predict your team will do it several times implies the competition is weak.
Confidence in sales is critical, but so is humility and I have always been a big fan of building teams of smart, hungry, humble people. People who are confident, full of desire AND grounded don’t take anything for granted. They do what it takes to achieve their goals and they don’t underestimate their competition. Study the culture of any successful team, be it sports or sales, and you will see a combination of confidence, passion and humility.
Perhaps with a better balance of these traits, Lebron and the Heat might have been this year’s NBA Champions. This serves as a good lesson for sales leaders who want to build a culture of success in their own organization.
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