For Chief Sales Officers who want to build performance, not just hit the plan.
I've played basketball since I was six. For the past seven years, I've coached it too. It's a game with clear rules, a punishing tempo, and instant feedback — exactly like the business world I've been part of for almost thirty years.
In both worlds, I keep learning the same thing: how to carry successful principles from one environment into the other. How to build performance that doesn't rest on chance, but on clearly set principles, culture, and a team that's led with purpose. I started writing these parallels down, and I'm happy to share them with you.
If you only watch the scoreboard, you won't win the game
Every sports coach knows one essential thing: the score on the board matters, but it doesn't run the game by itself. The score tells you where you stand. It doesn't tell you why it's happening, or how long it will last.
And that's exactly where I see a parallel with the world of sales today. At many companies, sales looks great on the dashboard, but is crumbling on the inside. Performance is being carried by individuals, not by the system. And that's a risk that won't show up in a monthly report.
Numbers are necessary. They're the language of business. But the higher the level you're playing at, the more other factors decide the outcome too: trust, team energy, everyone pulling in one direction, and belief in the team game.
Why a good coach doesn't shout through the whole game
When I ran sales at Modrá pyramida as a regional director (a quarter of the country, different areas, different performance levels, different personalities), I quickly understood one thing:
Pressure works in the short term. Context works in the long term. And that's exactly the difference between a region that hits its plan, and a region that keeps growing even when conditions change.
- Yes, we had targets.
- Yes, the numbers were clear.
- Yes, performance was tracked.
But the difference between regions that grew consistently and those that just “tried hard” wasn't in the plans. It was in how the team was led.
Just like in sports:
- a weak coach controls every single move,
- a good coach sets up the system,
- a great coach builds a team that can make its own decisions.
A sales team isn't a collection of individuals. It's a team.
In sales, I often see one mistake: teams are managed as a collection of individual performances, not as a whole.
But:
- the customer feels the disconnect immediately,
- regions start to drift apart,
- performance ends up dependent on a few stars — and sooner or later, they leave or burn out.
In sports, that wouldn't fly. Even the best scorer can't win a game without a team. And that's exactly where we get to culture.
Culture = playing style (and it has to fit the league you're playing in)
One important note for pragmatic CSOs: there's no single correct model of corporate culture. In some places, more hierarchy works; elsewhere, it's a performance culture, or strong collaboration, or innovation (the Competing Values Framework, which we use to measure culture with clients, describes this very precisely).
What matters isn't what type of corporate culture you have, but whether it:
- is consciously led,
- supports the playing style you actually need,
- and gives people clear direction, a role, and trust.
Just like in sports: you play a local league differently than you play the top division. But without teamwork, you won't win anywhere.
What the best Chief Sales Officers do differently today
From my current role as a senior consultant at KOGI, I see a recurring pattern at companies that manage to handle both performance and change:
- ✔️ They track numbers precisely, but don't use them as a whip
- ✔️ Managers aren't just there to check up on people — they're coaches in the field
- ✔️ Regions don't compete against each other, but tune into a shared rhythm
- ✔️ Performance isn't just individual credit, but a team result
In other words: they watch the score, but invest their energy in the game that produces it.
A coach doesn't call every single pass. They manage the meaning of the game.
When we work with clients on transforming sales culture, we don't start with KPIs.
We start with questions:
- What style of play do you want your team to play?
- What should a salesperson feel when they go meet a customer?
- What should a manager do when the team is hitting its numbers, but losing energy?
Only after that do processes, structures, and metrics come in — but in an environment where they make sense. Just like on a well-run sports team.
Conclusion: performance is the score. Team culture is the game.
The numbers are non-negotiable. Without them, you don't know where you stand. But culture decides whether you'll keep winning next season too. And the Chief Sales Officer's role today isn't just to watch the scoreboard. It's the role of head coach, who:
- holds the direction,
- develops people,
- and creates an environment where performance is produced again and again — not by accident.
Because: short-term performance is won with pressure. Long-term performance is won with culture.
And today, in sales, it's exactly the Chief Sales Officer who manages that culture.