A (0:06)

In this episode, Jon Kaplan and John McMahon sit down with Jeremy Duggan, president of Multiverse and longtime software sales executive. They talk about attention every manager feels. How do you genuinely care about your people while still holding them accountable? The team digs into a real story of a high potential rep who wasn't thrilled about a big quota increase and what it took to turn that resistance into growth. Along the way, they break down how the right intent, honest conversations and data backed coaching can elevate performance. And they share practical frameworks and tools that separate good managers from true leaders. Here we go.

B (0:46)

What I find sometimes is people misinterpret what you're saying and they say I got to make it all about the people. And therefore what I do is I try to be friends with the people. I create kind of like an us versus them mentality with corporate or with, you know, it's our team and then we go native and I'm with my team and I have a responsibility to protect the company. But when I'm so intimate with my people, sometimes I get confused on that. Can you both kind of comment on that? Because I think it's really important.

C (1:15)

Well, I think what Jeremy said is the most important, is that you're there to lead your people, give them a vision, you're there to develop the people. So you're not really there to just be their friends. Because if you're just their friend but you're not developing them, making them more competent so they can do the job without you, then you're not really leading.

D (1:38)

Yeah, I think, I mean, absolutely. And. Well, actually, one of the points I would have. If you, if you think about what that looks like in action, which is, which is what your point is, John, how do you take that kind of overview and turn it into what it looks like in action as there's a number of things you can look at. I think, I think one of the things that's a big challenge for leaders, which is based on exactly what you just said, is how do you, how would you have difficult conversations with people? How did you. How do you do things where people aren't going to be happy, what you're with, what you're saying to them or what you're asking them to do, but you do it anyway. And, and I think, I think the reason that if you're, if your whole goal as a leader is to change somebody's life and you're in that job by definition, because you're really great at the job they're trying to do, sometimes they might not be coachable and they might have, at that point, they might not have the experience at that point, they might think they know a better way to do it. So you've got to go through that, that period where they're not going to like you very much because you're telling them something that they don't want to hear. Right. So being able, so being a leader isn't just about being mates with people at all, it's about, it's about leading them. I'll give you, I'll give you a great example. Recent one from, from Multiverse. We had a, a really, really great young kid joined us called, called Noah Stevenson. You know, this, this kid, he's tall, he's good looking, but you know, got a first from Cambridge, you know, great start to his career. And we hired him just at the time that I was joining Multiverse. And, and at the time he was coming in as a, as an inside sales rep. And when he was joining the quote, it was 600K. And then, you know, when me and Stevie Mack went in, we took a look at the quotas and how we were going to change the messaging and all that kind of stuff and we figured that, you know, the inside sales should be, should be a million. And we were going to develop the team and give them the skills and the tools and the messaging to, to make that achievable. So Noah comes in and, and he's, you know, he's, Noah's, you know, he's a confident kid. He's, you know, pretty, you know, full of himself as he probably should be. So he kind of hears this number from his manager and he says, well, I don't think that's right. You told me it was 600k coming in and now it's a million. It's not fair. Fair enough. So the manager comes to me and says, well, I don't really want to, I don't know what to do about this, you know, So I said, well, no problem, I'll have a call with Noah. So I have a call with Noah, explain the logic behind it, the facts, the reasoning, what it means for him. He's going to learn all these new ideas that he's never had. He's going to develop him for the future. And at the end of the call I've given him all this logic and he says, well, that all makes sense, Jeremy, but I'm still incredibly pissed off because of a nice, well spoken English guy, you know, so incredibly pissed off about this quota change. So what I look at there is. I'm kind of laughing inside, right, because this is the cocky young kid who's got a load of potential. But what I see is this is, this is a lack of coachability because he's heard all the facts and logic, but he's still pissed off. So I say to Noah, well, guess what, kid, this conversation just all changed around, right? So you come in this conversation, you're thinking, I'm selling to you on why you should stay with this new quote. And you were right. I was happy to do that. Now you're reapplying for your job, right? And so you've got 24 hours to get your job back, right? And I want you to go away, listen to what I said, listen to the logic, right? And let me know if you still, if, if someone's saying, if you do convince me why, why you should, because what you've done isn't that smart. So anyway, comes back 24 hours later, he says, I get your logic, I get your arguments. I shouldn't have reacted the way I reacted. I want to learn. This is why I came, right? The kid comes in. What, what changed in that moment was he recognized that he was being uncoachable and he became coachable right in that moment because he saw facts and logic and, and a different way of doing things he hadn't experienced in his first year. He was a top inside sales rep, right, by a mile. Got promoted, be an enterprise rep in his first year, top enterprise rep, right? Got promoted to RD, first year as an RD, top RD. And now he's an AVP. And the kid's 26, right? Incredibly talented, talented boy. And, and when I think about that story back to your. What you're saying, John, is what ultimately happened there was, you know, I cared enough about this kid to, to risk upsetting him and to risk maybe, maybe he walks, right? Because I wanted him to do great and I knew he had the potential to do great. But if he was going to do, be able to do great, he had to be coachable. He had to listen to people around him. He had to, you know, you know, understand what, what he needed to do to do differently. And if on his first day at work he's coming in and telling everybody what the quota should be, that's not a guy who's going to listen that he needs to pipeline, generate every week. You see what I mean? So I, I think, you know, we're hitting this point straight on, John. One of the, one of the big things about leadership is you've got to be able to have those difficult conversations. But if you're coming at it from the perspective that you genuinely want to help people and you genuinely want to change their life and you genuinely want to make a difference to their life, you've got nothing to fear in those difficult conversations because your intent is always good. It's only if your intent is bad that you should be worried about those things. And if you want to change someone's life and that's your goal, your intent is great. So it gives you confidence in those times.