The Desire to ... Connect

May 23, 2019 | by Johanna Mickel

At the ATD Conference yesterday, I attended a presentation put on by our friends at Caliper (we worked with them years back when forming the basis for our Talent Assessment tools) entitled Mental Toughness – Desire to Conquer in Sports and Sales. Caliper looked at assessments in sports for “go/no go" draft picks (NBA, Baseball, NHL) that are used to determine if athlete has “it.” They  found six dimensions that are key in going from Division 1 college athleics to playing professionally. The psychological edge they term "mental toughness" allows you to be determined, confident, and focused under pressure. Comprised of self-belief, competition, emotional control and resilience, focus and discipline, this mental toughness, they argued demonstrates that a person has enough raw material to warrant training investment.

They identified six traits deemed necessary professional sports (and sales):

• Ego strength / resilience (dust yourself off and get back in the game)
• Level headedness (emotional control so “fight or flight” doesn’t take over)
• Stress tolerance
• Energy persistence (grit)
• Thoroughness (discipline)
• Self-Structure, or a preference for independently determining their own work methods.

As someone who works in sales, I agree you need to have these characteristics. I like to think of myself as "determined, confident, and focused under pressure." But there's a lot of research and commentary out there about using traits to decide who gets the job/promotion/raise in the workplace. There's so much more to being human than any brief checklist can communicate. And, speaking of communication, I thought the title of this presentation could have used a tweak. Yes, we business development folks like to "win" the contract, but I certainly don't think of it as conquering the client! Rather, if you are acting as a servant leader, you are listening to understand problems and find ways to help solve them, making suggestions, demonstrating a true interest in the other party's success. Especially in training and consulting, if you don't succeed, we don't either. Making that connection with others and feeling you've been of help is what makes sales fun. That and a little stress tolerance.

About the Author

Johanna Mickel

As Director of Business Development, Johanna Mickel possesses over 25 years’ experience  as a business development professional working with major organizations by providing IT related services for the planning and implementation of large, complex solutions.  Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johanna manages PM Solutions’ U.S. east coast and international business development.

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Johanna Mickel

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