In sales management, sometimes things get hot.

Uncomfortably hot at times…

Most sales leaders have no idea when a major argument breaks out.

They panic instead.

The Sales Management Argument

Your sales team is arguing over a hotly debated sales management issue at one of your sales meetings.

If its a really hot issue, then chances are it has something to do with money or bonus. The hottest sales management issues you face will involve one or the other:

“We’re getting screwed on this new compensation plan”…

“The sales tracking system is missing my sales”…

“Management just cut year end bonuses”…

“I’m not getting paid on all of my sales”…

Or any number of myriad sales management issues you have to deal with, that you have no say in…but have to diffuse somehow.

Things are getting out of control.

Your salespeople are angry, upset, unruly.

People are yelling, they’re angry.

You, the sales leader have lost control.

What do you do?

• Do you start yelling?
• Do you antagonize?
• Do you tell em all to “all of you…shut the hell up!!!!”?

You should do none of that.

You “diffuse the time bomb” instead.

Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) does it brilliantly here in Saving Private Ryan…

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) Knows About Great Sales Management

How does Miller diffuse the time bomb here? This is an extremely explosive and potentially deadly argument among a deeply divided group of soldiers who have guns.

In a brilliant stroke of leadership, he performs like Picasso painting just a few  brushstrokes on a masterpiece.

He diffuses the situation is a few key steps:

1. He is intensely calm

In a sea of absolute insanity, he is an island of calm, cool thinking.

This is an absolutely essential sales management quality that every sales manager needs to perfect… to restrain himself from giving into emotions, even when emotions run high.

2. He doesn’t pick sides

He doesn’t even address who is right because he knows that both sides are correct.

Oftentimes, when two sides are dvided, it doesn’t really matter who is right and who is wrong.

What matters most is that the situation gets resolution…and the misssion gets completed.

3. He diffuses the situation with a personal story

He divulges where he is from and what his occupation was prior to the war.

These two facts, for the first half of the movie, are deep albeit somewhat irrelevant mysteries to his squad. Miller is a bit of a mystery to his men.

In sales management this is not such a bad thing to procure. Don’t tell your salespeople everything. A few intrigues keep them on their toes.

They want to know this information so badly, that there is a pool created to be won by the first one who finds out.

He then divulges this secret information to make everyone stop dead in their tracks…they are so befuddled, the conflict is immediately diffused.

Can you do this in your sales management conflict situations as well?

4. He has vision of the true “mission”

The #1 mission is to win the war and even more importantly, go home.

Their #2 mission is to find Private Ryan.

The truth is they when they find Ryan they are that much closer to mission #1. He reminds his troops of this fact, making them realize that although mission #2 appears like true insanity…it will take them a step towards accomplishing mission #1.

This is “forest for the trees” sales management thinking.

Sales management professionals get muddled in so many details oftentimes they too forget mission #1.

Miller does not.

Do you?

5. He gives everyone the chance to disagree

In the army it’s a dictatorship. The Captain says go over the wall, you go over the wall.

The same could be said for sales management. You tell them, they go.

But that’s no way to gain followership and sales leadership.

John Miller knows this. He gives them an out at the end.

Do you do this in your sales management situations?

6. He displays his personal philosophy

War changes men and women.

Power changes men and women.

Sometimes it turns them into something they are not.

Oftentimes salespeople get promoted to sales management and no one recognizes them any more. I’ve seen it happen and so have you.

The sales management “power” goes to their heads.

In Miller’s case, the “power ” of the more men he kills the further from home he feels and if this means letting the prisoner go, so be it.

He does not succumb to the power, instead he does what he feels is right.

7. In the end, he gets on with business and leads by example

Miller is the first one to dig the grave of their fallen friend and solider. Thankfully his troops, even the reluctant Reiben does as well.

He leads, he sets the example, he does the dirty task and they…follow.

Do you lead by example this way?

Or do you sit in your sales management office on high sending emails and edicts down to your salespeople as you sit on your sales management throne?

Sales management is tricky stuff sometimes, especially when you are confronted with perilous, emotionally charged situations.

Let’s hope you won’t ever have a sales rep point a pistol at another’s head in a sales meeting, but chance are you’ve had some pretty heated debates.

The next time anything close to that happens, take a few leads from our sales management guru Captain Miller and make sure you always keep mission #1 always in mind….and diffuse the time bomb.