Management Motivations is a new series of articles by Quectel’s senior executives that explores their management styles, approaches to the challenges of further developing the company and what drives them to lead and succeed.

Pini Sagi, Regional GM, Sales

 2. Treat people as you would expect to be treated

Ever since my first days as a young officer in the Israeli Air Force, I have followed the basic rules of leadership – lead by example, always show what you expect from your people and strive to excel. This starts with basic behavior such as the way you do your work, treat your colleagues, communicate, and of course, the professional skills and experience you demonstrate.

Do not do to others what you do not want to be done to you. Always listen and remember you are not smarter than your employees – there is always room to learn from others in the same way that they can learn from you.

To enable this, focus on setting clear targets, supporting people, measuring their performance and making sure they are provided with the tools they need to achieve their goals. I am a true believer in the philosophy that if my team succeed, it is not at my expense, but actually their success reflects on me and so I will succeed as a result of their success.

It can be a challenge to succeed when managing markets that are geographically dispersed, especially with the current travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic. However, this isn’t new for me, it has been part of my experience over the last 25 years of working with different people from various countries and cultures.

During the course of my career, having been VP Sales at various global companies, I have managed salespeople from across the globe and I always tried to look for the unifying issues as well as being open to the different approaches. I am happy to learn, not to judge, and accept there are changes required.

I understand that things can be done differently in various places, so I do not force one unified way of action when dealing with a specific country. Instead, I try to act in a human, logical, reasonable way, addressing – not avoiding – conflicts while always keeping clear and open lines of communication.

I encourage my team by setting goals together, establishing strategy and working on the tactics of how to handle customers. I respect the hierarchy and the relationship my team have with their customers. I always involve my team when I approach those key customers.

We set timely meetings and calls with specific customers. I consider it a success when the escalation calls are set to a minimum and yet the key customer knows that I am available for them where specific issues need to be addressed. Those might include pricing, new project announcements, RMA’s or other deal-specific considerations.

Personal relationships are still very important, and you can feel that in particular during these days of COVID-19. If we did not have a good personal relationship, a lot of the contacts would be lost.

People care for people and where there is a crisis, we all feel it. That brings us all closer and allows us to work in more unorthodox ways to overcome common problems. If no personal relationship existed problem solving would be a lot tougher to do.

Look out for my next blog in this series: “Demonstrate technical knowledge plus sensitivity to market needs.”