Partners who excel at planning ('talking') but fail to execute are often driven by a deep fear of failure, not laziness. Their talk is a defense mechanism—an 'ego with makeup'—to mask their insecurity. Confronting this requires candor, but be prepared for a defensive reaction as it challenges their core coping strategy.

When leaders are not fully present in meetings, their fragmented attention results in poor guidance. When the team inevitably fails to deliver on these unclear instructions, the leader often blames the team's competence instead of their own lack of focus.

The most common failure mode for a founder-CEO isn't a lack of competence, but a crisis of confidence. This leads to hesitation on critical decisions, especially firing an underperforming executive. The excuses for delaying are merely symptoms of this confidence gap.

Don't conflate confidence with self-assurance, which is the *accurate* assessment of one's skills. Many top performers downplay their expertise out of a false sense of humility. This incongruence can be misinterpreted by others as manipulation, confusion, or a risky inability to self-assess.

When facing economic uncertainty, sales teams often blame external factors for poor results. In reality, market conditions often remain constant. A team's turnaround is driven by a leader successfully shifting the team's internal mindset and belief in their ability to win, not by an improving market.

Many leaders mistakenly manage their team as a single entity, delivering one-size-fits-all messages in team meetings. This fails because each person is unique. True connection and performance improvement begin by understanding and connecting with each salesperson on a one-on-one basis first.

Top salespeople aren't just skilled; they've mastered their internal psychology. Most performance issues stem from fear, lack of information, and self-limiting beliefs, which prevent them from taking necessary actions like making calls.

When coaching a struggling salesperson, the root cause is rarely tactical. It's usually "head trash"—deep-seated limiting beliefs and blind spots, often stemming from childhood, that sabotage their efforts. The coach's primary role is to help uncover and dismantle these psychological barriers.

Managers cannot just be soldiers executing orders. If you don't truly believe in a strategy, you cannot effectively inspire your team. You must engage leadership to find an angle you can genuinely support or decompose the idea into testable hypotheses you can commit to.