Sales Belonging

There's an adage that nothing in life is more rewarding than being involved with others all joined in shared pursuit of a particular aim.

Whether that be alongside one significant other, or a multitude you may never fully know, as the wisdom goes, it is the journey and not the destination that provides the flow.

It was a while back now that I first heard of DEIB.

A private enterprise with strong public ties making their addendum to the hijacked, captured, thoroughly disfigured concept of workplace diversity, equality and inclusion.

B for Belonging.

Instantly I liked this.

For not just in my (our) domain, any endeavour with all hands aligned, allied, unalloyed will likely perform to the betterment of all concerned.

Yet the inevitable shudder was quick to strike.

Woe are we. Consigned to the inevitable co-opting subverting this devastatingly 180° away from its true meaning. In similar tawdry fashion to the horrors revisionist D, E, and I wrought.

I learn this week of a survey with startling finding; "90pc of workers in Britain are miserable".

The culprits may not come as a surprise.

Take-home pay value dropping, perks disappearing, hybrid flexibility removal, and mutated DEI ran amok squeezing focus, freedom and fun out the office.

The vicious cycle of disengagement through being asked to do ever more with ever less, people doing the bare minimum tang ping 'quiet quitting' style never going above and beyond, and 'do as I say not as I do' management sucking the vim from the job.

Yet reading around these findings, I can't shake the thought that all companies (anonymously) cited are missing the biggest trick.

There's no true belonging.

There's no genuine, tacit, meaningful purpose.

A flag everyone genuinely gets behind.

How we're going to change the world.

With each involved, keen to do so in their own little way.

Part of a proper team. Where everyone knows their role. Who has their back, who relies on them, who is the ultimate beneficiary. Where success is everyone's win.

Let 'B' not be tarnished by the misplaced civilisational failings of the trio of initials preceding it above.

Let it stand proud alone in your Sales effort.

Let it course through why you do what you do.