The VP of Sales for a Fortune 500 beverage company had initiated a project to exceed their annual sales objective. In the past, they had implemented the exercise as a project risk assessment which took months to execute, involved only a handful of very opinionated sales executives and delivered poor results, alignment and buy-in.
This time around and working as an extended project team, 250 sales leaders from 50 countries and 5 regions were engaged in an Obstacles Loop. Their mission was to identify and prioritize local and global project obstacles which could get in the way of achieving their sales target. Within two weeks each region had prioritized their top “red flag obstacles” and the extended group had agreed on the most important obstacles to focus on globally.
Obstacle Loops Deliver!
The most important benefits of the stakeholder engagement included:
transparency and speed of execution.
the healthy level of discussion and debate resulting from the psychological safety established.
the buy-in and commitment established; essential in implementing solutions later.
AND … yes, they exceeded their annual sales objective!