ability has held me back. I now realize that my desire to learn is just as
important as my desire to earn.”Their comments convinced us of the value of this discussion on critical
mass for sales success. This information resonated at an intuitive level for
ambitious sales professionals. Awareness of the necessary attributes for sales
success challenged these professionals to look into their critical mass mir-
rors and identify the areas where they needed to focus—and the facts they
needed to accept about their personal makeup. These professionals also
recognized that their most successful peers were strong in all four suits of
critical mass intangibles. This experience taught people where to focus their
attitudes, thoughts, and emotional energies.
ALMOST FAMOUS
When we looked at the productivity charts, we noticed a number of tal-
ented individuals who kept bumping their heads against the top-level ceil-
ing. They were good performers, talented people, who just couldn’t seem to
get over the hump to the top level of productivity. Larry Foster and I wres-
tled away many conversational hours with questions as to why this was the
case. Were any of the critical mass components more important or more
often linked to top-tier success? We decided that we would go through a
process of elimination to answer this question.
We focused on the almost famouscrowd—perennial members of the
Vice President’s Club. They were doing good, but not great. We reviewed
their critical mass report cards one by one to see if they were consistently
lacking in one field or another. In this review, our question about going
from good to great was answered.
Every person at the top or near-top had noticeable competitive drive.
All had, to varying degrees, the elements that make up achievementality.
The other two aspects, teachability and wit, were hit-and-miss. But we dis-
covered that teachability had a greater bearing on preventing an individual
from moving up. For example, we found people at the top who were not
necessarily strong in wit but made up for it with extreme strength in com-
petitive drive, achievementality, and teachability. We did not, however, find
people at the very top who were unteachable. The next layer down was
crammed with competitive and witty achievers who had hit a wall of
progress. Because of a lack of teachability, they had not—and would not—
address the issues and deficiencies that held them back.
The irony was that, because of their lack of awareness, they had no idea
if they were even teachable or not. They characterized their attitude and
Applied Critical Mass 47