How to effectively develop salespeople.

• Author: St. Meyer, Joseph
• Position: SALES DEVELOPMENT

U.S. COMPANIES ANNUALLY SPEND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on training and coaching their employees. Despite this commitment, a recent study showed that 52 percent of surveyed employers considered themselves ineffective at employee development. Only 13 percent thought they have a proper understanding of the necessary skills and capabilities.

The major problem with training is transferring it to real-world situations. It was estimated that only 10 percent of training investment pays off in the end.

How we view training is crucial. It's a matter of prepositions becoming positions: training as something done to the employee rather than with him.

Development is too often considered a fixed outcome rather than an ongoing process. Once trained, the employee is expected to be an automaton acting as programmed. Career development isn't isolated in the so-called real world, where fuzzy concepts such as psychological well-being aren't related to the bottom line.

What do your employees need?

For more than a century, psychologists have been studying the psychology of work. From their research, it is obvious that we don't leave our psychological needs at home before making the morning commute.

To lead people, it's crucial to understand what they need. Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have identified three psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. These needs are interconnected and mutually dependent.

Satisfying these needs starts with establishing autonomy. Employees are autonomous when they feel that they can influence their career's progress. Autonomous employees act with self-determination, accepting responsibility for their attitudes and actions. Employees self-monitor and use this insight to collaborate with their manager in the developmental process. Autonomy isn't anarchy; it's a consequence of management providing choices--such as employee participation in deciding which goals to set or tactics to use.

Fostering autonomy involves providing a rationale for managerial decisions, demystifying what is expected and what needs to be done. It is sustained by positive feedback, necessary resources and detailed plans.

Autonomy leads to a feeling of competence. When we feel that we don't have control over our careers and that management...