Adapting to Change: How to Develop Resilience and Adaptability in Sales Teams

For the delivery of training content, learning management systems (LMSs) have been the preferred tool for quite some time. This is a logical choice.

With the increasing digitization and globalization of work in the 1990s and 2000s, companies recognized the need to foster business-level cohesion and provide role-specific training. To achieve this, they understood the importance of implementing systems for distributing knowledge and engaging their workforce.

As the impact of COVID-19 unfolded in 2020, the workforce underwent further decentralization, leading to an increased adoption of Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs) on a larger scale. The shift to remote business operations highlighted the need for digital, cloud-based solutions accessible to all employees, regardless of their industry sector.

Is Our Approach to Unpredictability Misguided?

In the realm of business culture, we have grown accustomed to a sense of directionality, with concepts such as digital transformation and remote productivity providing consultants and executive decision-makers with a tangible framework of ideas and priorities. However, anyone claiming to predict the future today is likely peddling an uncertain outcome.

In an era where the demand for geopolitical risk management is increasing, is the conventional LXP still the most effective means for delivering training content? The fundamental concept of the LXP framework revolves around businesses leveraging insights from the past to educate and train their sales forces in the present, enabling them to tackle tasks and navigate situational challenges in the future.

Moreover, considering that the rate of productivity growth reached its lowest point since 1947 last year, is learning alone sufficient? While Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs) evolved from simpler Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and matured during the productivity-focused market of 2016-2020, today's business landscape demands that companies shift their focus from learning and training as isolated objectives. Instead, they should direct their attention towards learning and training initiatives that demonstrably enhance sales productivity and overall performance.

To put it differently, when businesses disconnect learning and training from the outcomes influencing their growth and solely deliver predetermined lessons deemed relevant, they overlook a crucial resource: the inherent strength of their sales force. Shifting the focus from lessons, which impact a somewhat intangible aspect of workforce capability (knowledge), towards activities is essential. These activities involve specific tasks and productivity-oriented recommendations that instill training through practical application. Perhaps the objective should be to empower rather than merely educate.

In the current business landscape, companies need to shift their focus from viewing learning and training as isolated objectives to recognizing them as tools that can effectively boost sales productivity and performance in quantifiable ways.

The Shift towards Enhancing Sales Performance

While I won't claim that the LXP is an outdated fixture, in the business realm, it is crucial to advocate for change and evolution. This is especially pertinent as numerous companies grapple with trends and challenges such as declining productivity, increasing uncertainty, and an unstable consumer market – issues that their core technologies may not directly address.

The environment in which Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs) thrived often prioritized training for its intrinsic value, placing significant importance on the completion of training. Prior to the pandemic, and perhaps even during it, businesses had a relatively clear understanding of the foreseeable future. As a result, they primarily focused on instructing the sales force on how to respond to anticipated events.

How can we characterize the progression of sales training technology? Instead of merely offering lessons detached from business outcomes, envision technology that empowers the sales force to adeptly respond to diverse scenarios by honing their skills and reflexes through real-time activities within the workflow. Furthermore, this technology should be capable of tailoring the activities presented to individual sellers, aligning with their unique interests and goals. The focus shifts from mere learning to actionable tasks that directly contribute to personal and professional benefits.

More recently, this approach has been termed 'performance enablement.' Regardless of the label assigned to this model, the objective is to transition from traditional LMS and LXP training content delivery models, which rely on the predictability of inputs and outputs, to a model that focuses on training and education with the goal of enhancing the productivity and adaptability of the sales force in the face of uncertainty. In today's business landscape, amidst ongoing narratives such as digital acceleration and remote work, which remain highly relevant, the emphasis has shifted to the centrality of uncertainty and unpredictability in fostering growth.

Enablement technology can be conceptualized as technology that delivers training and learning content in synchrony with various other types of content, presented as activities. Examples include sales incentives and customer relationship management (CRM). In this context, the objective of such technology is not merely to "teach," but rather to cultivate, reward, and reinforce desired behaviors by integrating specific sales productivity-related tasks into the individual's goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). The focus is on tangible tasks relevant to the workflow, as opposed to abstract lessons detached from the day-to-day work. This approach underscores a more comprehensive assessment of performance, prioritizing practical application over theoretical knowledge, recognizing that knowledge is just one component of the broader revenue-generation equation.

Stabilizing the Vessel: Addressing Fresh Challenges with Innovative Technologies

In the realm of business where uncertainty is a constant, companies must depend on an agile sales force. The larger the organization, the more challenging it becomes to adjust its trajectory.

In the end, directing attention towards enablement rather than solely relying on training benefits not just sellers and companies, but also leaders in training. In the 'golden age' of LXPs, these leaders often had the financial resources to acquire and implement these systems without necessarily linking their success to tangible revenue generation.

In a challenging market characterized by uncertainty, today's training leaders have the opportunity and responsibility to play an active role in the boardroom. They should showcase their department's contribution to revenue growth, opting for technology that prioritizes such growth through effective training rather than viewing training as a standalone objective.

In a broader context, companies will need to empower their sales forces to tackle challenges at the grassroots level, shifting towards a bottom-up approach rather than adhering to the paternalistic LXP model. As market dynamics become more unpredictable, the significance of leveraging skills development technologies grows, aiming to cultivate sales forces that are agile, proactive, and creative—individuals who not only possess knowledge but are genuinely capable of applying it.