he had met his quota and was thus done. “No, you are not,” McDermott insisted. “We are never done!” As long as there is time left on the clock, McDermott knows there is still a chance to score. It’s a philosophy he inherited from his grandfather, Bobby McDermott, a Hall of Fame pro basketball player during the 1940s who was known for his last-second, game-winning shots.
In business, McDermott is always
ready to shoot. Back in 2009, on the heels of the Great Recession, SAP was poised to miss its revenue targets for yet another quarter. Unwilling to accept that outcome, McDermott and his co-CEO-to-be Jim Hagemann Snabe called an emergency meeting of SAP’s top salespeople and de- velopers. Their goal was to prepare SAP to close 1 billion euros in rev- enue in the final three months of the year. In Winners Dream, McDermott
describes what they did and how the powwow paid off: For the first time since 2001, SAP broke through 1 billion euros in a single quarter. Says McDermott, “It’s never too late to go for a dream.”
Methodology #5: Honor the ecosys- tem, because everyone matters. McDermott has always respected the power of ecosystems to grow a business. When he took over the deli as a teenager, he had no cash, but
McDermott suggests the following steps to communicate your own vision and motivate your team.
1. Communicate the reason you need to change. Over-communicate it. To get people to follow your lead, you have to get them to change their minds. They need to see that this change isn’t just some random request you dreamed up; it’s developed around a cause worth fighting for. 2. Stretch the team. Good leaders constantly stretch people. I ask a lot of people, but they deliver. 3. Empower each individual. “It’s important to speed up decision making. Many companies centralize all power in the corner office and, if management has to OK even the most minor decision, it slows down the sales process. Our people are told, “If it’s right for the customer, just do it.” 4. Reward high performers. I’m not afraid of paying out compensation. Perhaps we even disproportionately reward high performers…but you must create an intensity to win.
VIDEO: INSIDE THE MINDSET OF A GREAT LEADER - WATCH THIS INSIGHTFUL VIDEO NOW.
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