In 21 years in the sales game, 15 in sales force management, and the past 16 years consulting to executing managers and salespeople in all types of sales organizations around the world, I’ve learned that a lot of people who are successful in sales are not necessarily “team players” by nature or by behavior. If you are leading a sales force, you very likely know what I mean. And, if your goal as a leader is to build a smooth-running, friction-free team, you may have experienced the frustration that I did in trying to get sales people to be more team-oriented.

Over time, I came to realize that my definition of a “team” was too narrow. I thought everyone on the team had to participate in team activities – social events and the like, as well as help and mentor other representatives, in order to build a strong team team. But in thinking about the type of sales person I was most likely to recruit, I realized that characteristics such as, “driven, self-disciplined, self-motivated, ability to work independently,” were my main focus and that “team player” was lower on the list, if there at all.

Since most of the qualities I was looking for were not, in fact, particularly congruent with my concept of a team player. I began to question—how critical is “team building” in a pharmaceutical company, and does it mean anything different from building a team in sports, or in the research department, or the assembly line of a manufacturing plant?

I think it is different, but I don’t think it’s less important. It depends on what is meant by team player. Consider this experience that I had a few years ago. I was working with a group of high level sales managers in a pharmaceutical company and I asked them, “What is your leadership philosophy?”

One chap said, “To build a strong team. We’re going to live and die as a team.”

Later in the day, I asked these same managers, “What is the biggest challenge you face right now?”

That same manager said, “My biggest frustration is that one of my nine sales people is not a team player. He doesn’t socialize; he doesn’t help the newer sales people or offer new ideas or best practices. He just works totally independently.”

I asked, “How is his production?”

“He is my top producer,” the manager replied.

So I asked, “What is the problem?”

This manager believed that to be a team player that sales representatives had to participate in social activities and share his ideas and experiences with others. He was so set on his image of what it meant to be a team that he forgot the fact that a team’s ultimate purpose is to produce results. Every sales person has different strengths and interests. Some will not be interested in social activities and some will not. Some will not be good mentors and some will. What is critical is that every employee on the team has a clear and common vision of where the team is going and what his or her role is in getting there. As long as that “lone wolf” is producing and serving his clients or customers in an ethical way, there is no need to force him or her to be a “team player.” Now, if that employee is going to new employees and saying, “All that training stuff is not necessary. Do this instead,” or speaks negatively or complains to newer staff about the organization, then we have a problem, and of course that shouldn’t be tolerated.

To expect every high-performing salesperson to be a “team player” in the usual sense of that expression is at best unrealistic. If your goal is to build a productive, successful sales force, you have to expect that some representatives will be “lone wolves” who don’t necessarily want to participate in group events, social activities, or even “best practices” sharing meetings. But if you think about it, the key to building a high-performing team is to hire self-managers. In fact, you can’t have a high-performing team if you have non “self-managers” on the team. Non “self-managers” reduce your companies return on investment (ROI), they reduce management’s return on energy (ROE) and they make a negative impact on the environment, even if they’re nice people with warm and friendly personalities.

Self-managers, on the other hand, are great team players because they more than carry their weight from a production perspective. They set their own goals, make their own business plans and day-to-day game plans, and make the necessary commitments to carrying out the plans—and they keep those commitments. A non self-manager says, “I should work harder; I should make more calls,” but doesn’t. He gives up when he’s not succeeding. A self-manager says “I will make the calls” and doesn’t give up. So a high-performance team is composed of people who keep their commitments—to the company, to the manager, their peers, and themselves. A team player holds him/herself accountable—and may or may not engage in the social aspects of it all. Remember, being self-committed is a primary strength of all top performers. Being self-committed does not mean “selfish,” and it does not preclude being “unselfish.”

My approach to teambuilding may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s realistic and ultimately, a pretty practical way of looking at it.