As I lie awake the other night, for some odd reason I started contemplating the similarities between a basketball team and performance-based reward programs, such as sales incentive programs or customer service award programs. The strategies employed by basketball coaches could easily be applied to managing a sales or customer service team.
In basketball, you have several different roles that players take on: most valuable players (MVPs), starters, sixth man, role players and reserves. MVPs are superstars and gain this title based on skills, performance statistics, leadership, perseverance and abilities. Starters may one day become MVPs but have not achieved status and recognition yet. They begin a game for their team and tend to play the most minutes per game. The sixth man is not a starter but comes off the bench much more often than reserves. This person can play multiple positions and helps to fill in for starters who need to rest. Role players come off the bench but are always focused on the game. They may have a specialty, such as being able to make three point shots or being a clutch player. Reserve players make up the majority of a basketball team but have the briefest amount of time played during a season. Reserve players are working on their skills in order to become another type of player later in their careers.
In the workplace, similar roles are often taken on by employees. A sales force can be composed of a couple of superstars, a few starters, sixth man and role players and the bulk is composed of reserves. Every team is composed in this way because of the nature of the workforce. An article on NBA.com by Steve Aschburner explains, “There are simply not enough superstars for every team to have three [MVPs]. The USA basketball efforts suggest there are 12 or maybe 15, although role players occasionally are valued higher these days than some of our so-called headliners. But even if that's right or the actual number is somewhere in between -- let's say there are 20 real superstars in the NBA -- that leaves a third of the league to go wanting.”
Since everyone cannot be a superstar but may fit into another role, coaches recognize the natural order of players and dole out goals and training according to the role of the player. Depending on what the player needs to work on and improve, a coach will work with assistance coaches to develop and implement a customized training program for each player. Much of the training program is developed with the player’s role in mind.
Managers can take a similar approach to their teams by identifying the roles of employees and developing a set of performance goals for each. When managers introduce a performance-based reward program into the mix, employees are given specific sales or customer service goals depending on what needs to be improved upon. By following the Pareto principle, managers can focus on the employees whose increased performance would make the most impact.
For sales incentive programs and customer service award programs, start planning a reward strategy to target your role players or the people who may have a specialty but could improve in other areas. Role players are valuable because although they only make up twenty percent of your workforce, they bring in eighty percent of sales and profits. When you target them with the bulk of your training and performance improvement efforts, the results are often phenomenal. It takes more than a superstar (or three) to win a championship in the NBA and similarly it takes more than just a handful of top performers to achieve goals.
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