{"id":12779,"date":"2021-04-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandler.dsstaging2.com\/case-study\/the-power-of-the-playbook\/"},"modified":"2022-10-18T15:57:10","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T15:57:10","slug":"the-power-of-the-playbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/the-power-of-the-playbook\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of the Playbook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you ever watched a sports team play \u2013 a football team, say \u2013 and been so struck by the team\u2019s precision, its effectiveness, and its certainty about who\u2019s doing what, when, that you thought to yourself, \u201cWow! That is one incredibly talented team\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know I have. And yes, they are talented. But what we don\u2019t see as we\u2019re watching the team execute on the field is what happens behind the scenes <\/em>that make those great team performances and those great individual performances possible. Specifically, we don\u2019t see the creation of the team\u2019s playbook. That\u2019s a really critical piece of the puzzle, and it\u2019s something every professional team spends a lot of time on, even though the fans aren\u2019t watching! When a new player arrives on the team, what\u2019s the first thing he has to do? Learn the team\u2019s playbook! Without a viable playbook, the quarterback might just step up, take his position, call out a play, and see the entire team look up at him in total confusion, each with an expression that translates roughly as \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The football team\u2019s playbook is the compilation of the rigorously vetted best practices that will be implemented during the game. It\u2019s the product of a lot of discussion, a lot of research, and a lot of important internal decisions about what works and what doesn\u2019t. It draws on player experiences, coaching experiences, and the shared experiences of both players and <\/em>coaches \u2013 in practice and during games. I\u2019m talking about US football because I\u2019m an American, but the same principle applies to rugby or soccer or basketball or any other team sport you want. The point is, continuous improvement requires a playbook, and y<\/em>our<\/em> team\u2019s playbook should be just as carefully thought out, just as carefully documented, just as carefully studied and practiced, and just as frequently updated as a professional sports team\u2019s is. Of course, this operating principle is not limited to the world of sports. Pilots may have decades of experience, but they still go through a checklist each time they fly. Surgeons have an established sequence of doing things \u2013 an order of tasks that need to be done in the right order for the procedure to succeed, even if the doctor has performed the procedure a thousand times. We need ask our salespeople to do the same kind of checklist work. We call the tool for making that happen the Pre-Call Planner<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The takeaway here is both simple and far-reaching: Create and circulate a documented playbook of best practices for anything and everything that occurs on an ongoing basis. Create a playbook for yourself. Create playbooks for your team. Create clearly documented, tested, step-by-step processes for more consistent outcomes, and make sure your employees know you expect them to follow those processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your playbook is your operating system. It should be a shared collection of action items, talk-tracks, and best practices that enable your whole team to stay on the same page, deliver predictable outcomes, and operate at the highest possible level of efficiency. This should be embedded into your CRM. It should be a written <\/em>document, not an \u201cI\u2019ll know it when I see it\u201d mental list of priorities. That last point is vitally important. \u201cWinging it\u201d doesn\u2019t win games \u2013 or championships. For both a sports team and the sales team that supports your organization\u2019s revenue goals, a good playbook is the opposite of \u201cwinging it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great processes are not static. They are subject to scheduled reviews and updates. Processes that become outdated become unused, and that’s exactly what you do not want. So set up an annual audit of the processes your organization follows. Each review should be a Team Storm session led by someone who uses the process in question regularly, and each should result in a revised, dated document with the very latest best practices, a document that all the other members of the team feel good about using. That way, it\u2019s a \u201cwe\u201d playbook, something everybody helped to create and everyone can use to execute the things that are most important for them to do. And thanks to the annual schedule, your organization is not bogged down by constant process review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download your copy of the Sandler Advisor to learn more<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Create and circulate a documented playbook of best practices for anything and everything that occurs on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":12780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120],"tags":[1033,1035,1255,1097],"class_list":["post-12779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-leadership","tag-management","tag-management-strategy","tag-playbook"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Power of the Playbook - Sandler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Create and circulate a documented playbook of best practices for anything and everything that occurs on an ongoing basis.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/the-power-of-the-playbook\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Power of the Playbook - 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