A man of letters and action, Saint-Exupéry is not only the author of one of the world’s best-selling books – The Little Prince – he was also an adventurer who, at the forefront of the technology of his time, risked his life – and gave it – to enable people to communicate. An Aéropostale pilot, it turns out that many of his phrases can be applied to team management – don’t we also say to pilot the performance of one’s teams ? Here are Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s best management tips.
Time Management is the most Important Thing:
“The future is never anything but the present to be put in order. You don’t have to foresee it, but to enable it” (Citadel)
When piloting a plane, there are two temporalities. The first is the journey that has been planned, anticipated, and defined beforehand. The second is the time of the journey, the present moment that must be lived fully, with concentration, in order to respond to imperatives and especially to unforeseen events that will inevitably arise.
For a sales manager, the task is largely the same: you need to set your team’s objectives, then chart the course that leads to their completion. In a very operational way, you must pilot the activities of your sales representatives to impact your results.
The Power of Agile Development
“In life, there are no solutions, there are forces in motion; you have to create them, and the solutions will follow.” (Night Flight)
This quote can be linked to Eric Ries’s Lean Startup model. Indeed, it presupposes that there is no ready-made template, established framework, or problems without solutions. The strength of an agile development model lies in an iterative or incremental approach to project execution.
We have all had to lead projects that may have seemed colossal to us. The simplest way to approach such a project is to carry it out in micro-tasks. Rather than working for months on a restructuring of the entire sales organization, start by making modifications within a small team, test the results, then extend it to the entire structure. The iterative model recommends carrying out a project brick by brick – the advantage being that each brick is already a finished product and can be presented to the end-user. An incremental model is more a system of additions: a v.1 is launched whose functionalities will either be corrected or augmented in the future.
This applies similarly to coaching a sales team: you can coach them in several different ways, implement challenges, communication tools, regular follow-ups – the best approach being to launch small operations regularly to test their effectiveness.
The Concept of Responsibility
“The leader is the one who takes responsibility for everything. He says: “I was defeated.” He does not say: “My soldiers were defeated.” (Flight to Arras)
This is a great management lesson from Saint-Exupéry, which also makes perfect sense in modern management. You are responsible for your teams’ performance, so when a result sometimes falls short, it can be wise to show them that you bear the responsibility – and the consequences. Furthermore, your teams will be more motivated to perform better if they trust you; because they know they can count on you.
But the concept of responsibility is not only measured in the face of failures. With successes, of course, but with each of your actions: your deeds and decisions commit all your teams.
Simplicity in Discourse and Action
“Truth is not what is demonstrable, but what simplifies.” (Wind, Sand and Stars)
Why today more than ever? Digital transformation has brought a multitude of new tools into sales organizations, and often these tools complicate the job more than they facilitate it. In an era of acceleration – of data, information, turnover, etc. – simplicity becomes an imperative for successfully completing tasks and thinking clearly. The primary simplicity must first reside in the vision for the organization’s future: having a clear objective that everyone wants to achieve.
The same applies to management: clear directives, simple objectives (which can be difficult as long as they are not complicated to understand), are better than overly complicated systems or software that will ultimately not be used and were originally intended to improve performance. The ultimate goal of your management should be to simplify what is not simple so that your teams can quickly move to the implementation phase – rather than wasting time with overly long or complex sales processes.
Individual Coaching
“One must demand from each what each can give.” (The Little Prince )
No secret to successful management: as much as possible, personalize your coaching. Give general directives then move on to individual advice, spend time with each person. This is the best way to give recognition, to give importance to the work of collaborators; it is attention that they will transform into concentration and a desire for the team to succeed.
It is also through the precise knowledge you have of each of your team members that you will be able to demand the right efforts from them, and especially to know how far they can go in their efforts.
Don’t ask the cheetah to run fast over long distances – use it for sprinting. For a marathon over distance, ask the wolf.
Share your Vision
“Order for order’s sake castrates man of his essential power, which is to transform both the world and himself.” (Notebooks)
It is an important point not to impose rules for the sake of rules – especially in a large company where processes are already sufficiently present and slow down implementation. If order is essential, it must serve something greater: a vision. If you share your vision with your teams, they will be able to appropriate it, and their efforts will thus be naturally provided. It is the greatest quality of a leader to make others adhere to their vision.
No one has succeeded in completing large-scale projects without instilling passion in others. Regarding Saint-Exupéry’s quote, the world should be taken as the company: order has the dual mission of keeping the company on its feet and driving the change, the transformation necessary for the company to adapt to its environment.
To conclude this article, a quote that summarizes the full importance of the manager’s profession – as well as its purpose beyond the company:
“The most beautiful profession of man is to unite men.” (Wind, Sand and Stars)
To develop your skills as a leader – manager – coach, download our white paper The Manager Coach