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Why Leaders Should Never Stop Being Curious

Why Leaders Should Never Stop Being Curious
by Simma Lieberman

Sarita, the CFO of a midsized sales organization, contacted me to ask for help with a problem. Her company’s customer base was getting increasingly diverse with many new clients from Africa and Asia.

Her sales team, who had been outselling their competition for the last several years, was starting to lose business. Almost all of the team were U.S.-born, white and male, and, for the most part, had little experience doing business with clients who were not originally from the U.S.

Their main competition was a newer company with salespeople who were a mixed group of men and women of different ages, races and cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

They discovered that several of the clients they lost were now doing business with the competition. The sales team was beginning to suffer from low morale, and had been complaining about “fickle” customers and lack of fairness.”

Sarita asked me what she and the rest of the leadership team could do to raise morale and "change attitudes." When I told her that while there were ways to create a better working environment, that wouldn’t solve the problem; she looked at me and said, "But you’re supposed to help create inclusive cultures where people love to work. That’s why I contacted you."

"You need to take the time to understand the cultures and needs of your clients. What is this other organization doing that you’re not? How is your team cultivating relationships with their clients? Are they curious about where their clients come from or who they are?," I asked.

She informed me that her sales team kept track of when their customers placed orders, and when they were running out. They knew when to contact people so they could reorder.

They didn’t think cultural or demographic information was important. In other words, there were no relationships being built, only transactions.

The other organization understood that many of the newer customers came from cultures where relationships were crucial to doing business. They took the time, effort and resources to send notes, birthday cards, ask about their business and families, as well as check-in by phone or email.

They made the customers feel that they cared about them as individuals, and not just for their dollars. They were curious, asked questions and listened to the answer. 

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