Why the entrepreneurial giant has one of the world's best mantras for managing teams.
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has arguably accomplished as much as or more than most entrepreneurs this century. He's also offered what is, to my mind, one of the more instructive quotes a sales leader can learn from.
"You should take the approach that you're wrong," Musk said in a 2014 interview, long before he became the world's richest man. "Your goal is to be less wrong."
I work with sales leaders every week. I've talked with thousands over the past 20 years. And there's no group I think could benefit more from this advice than them.
Here's why – roughly 99% of sales leaders are what I call "tellers." Their approach is the antithesis of what Musk instructs: They take the approach that they're right, not wrong, to the detriment of their staff, but especially themselves.
It's not necessarily their fault. Sales leaders are often elevated to their positions because they're extraordinary salespeople. The assumption, both on their behalf and that of those who give them the new job, is that what made them good at sales will make them good at managing other salespeople.
This is where the trouble starts.
I recently spoke to a new sales leader who was clearly burned out. When I asked him why he was working so much, he said it was simple: he managed 10 salespeople. They didn't know what they were doing, or at least he thought so. Because of that, he felt the need to be on every call, to control every interaction between them and potential clients.
Compelling advice for sales leaders from Elon Musk: "You should take the approach that you're wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong."
BERLIN, GERMANY DECEMBER 01: SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the ... [+]
In other words, nothing could happen without him because his approach to management was to think that he was right and they were almost as right as he was.
As I suggested before, this isn't an outlier point of view, it's standard practice for too many sales leaders. It's the most common path taken, especially those new to the job who think they'll tell their way to stardom. And it doesn't help performance, it harms it. Telling means assuming you're the smartest person in the room. Which makes the salespeople you manage feel as if nothing can happen without you.
The Musk approach that you're wrong does the opposite. It empowers those you're supposed to be mentoring into thinking that they might have something to offer. It makes them feel as if their ideas might be on par with yours, if not better. And it turns out that in many cases they're right and you're wrong.
One of the greatest feelings a leader can have is when a team accomplishes something without any assistance at all. Because the "assistance" provided was subtler but more meaningful than telling someone what to do. It was in creating the culture upon which that performance was built.
A teller's need for control is a direct inhibitor to this kind of performance. On a more personal level, it leaves everyone a little more (or a lot more) miserable. Both the salespeople who aren't empowered, but also even more so the sales leader who's overworked and certainly overstressed.
Assuming you're wrong is not a natural mindset for the sorts of extraordinary sales leaders who get promoted to management. But it does at least call upon one of the gifts that probably allowed them to be so good at their original jobs.
Asking questions, entering each interaction with curiosity and a lack of assumptions – the exact mindset that allowed them as salespeople to best serve their customers is also the key to serving the salespeople who now work for them. Creating a culture of collaboration and empowerment starts with a leader who approaches each situation as if they're wrong.
Contrary to the advice I've just given, I think I just might be right about this.
