[Scientific Study] Experienced teams benefit most from hands-on management

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I recently came across a captivating scientific paper titled “When Time is Sales: The Impact of Sales Manager Time” by Adam Rapp et al.

Here are a couple of intriguing insights that caught my attention:

Insight 1

Traditional wisdom suggests that individuals with more experience require less managerial interaction. However, this dataset contradicts this notion, revealing that those with high experience derive greater benefits when their managers invest more time in managing them. To be more specific, a 1% increase in a manager’s time spent on managing people correlates with the following sales team performance increases:

• 0.324% for teams with high experience

• 0.262% for teams with medium experience

• 0.199% for teams with low experience

Among variables under their control, the time dedicated by managers to managing activities had the most significant impact for teams with medium and high experience, followed by customer interaction.

Insight 2

The time spent by sales managers on planning and analysis generally has no discernible impact on their team’s sales performance.

Insight 3

Across the board, time spent by managers on administrative tasks negatively impacts a team’s ability to achieve their sales quotas, irrespective of the team members’ levels of experience.

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