A sales VP from a Fortune 500 company asked what it takes for a company to embrace assessments when the company’s culture was not to use “such things.” Surely, there are some assessments that do fall into the category of “such things” but let us first separate the assessment into two categories: Pre-employment, where most of them fit, and diagnostic, where most don’t fit well unless someone learns how to connect dots that can’t be connected.

The candidates are out there. But when you offer to pay little more than entry level money yet expect your candidate to have a $250K pedigree, you will consistently fail to attract, select and retain top talent.

Sales Managers often don’t recognize the excuses but they are aware of the reasons why performance or results fail to meet expectations. In some cases, those very managers are the ones providing the ‘reasons’ for this month’s numbers. Reasons are essentially rationalizations and therefore, one in the same with excuses, and until we recognize that, excuses will continue to mount.