Hawaiian shirt day

Bill Lumbergh: "Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans." [Office Space]

Training is almost done with. It’s been a really, really long slog. Really long. In fact, I was discussing this with one of the other MBAs going through this experience with me, and we realized that we’d been studying medicine non-stop for the last 60 days. I’m practically ready to open my own practice.

This last week of training has been different, since it has involved attending a real live Regional Sales Meeting. These are events held every few months where the sales force of a large geographic region – Chicago in this case – comes together to hear about the latest updates from management, discuss performance-to-date, and study the latest articles/research that has been published regarding their drugs. But it all starts with Hawaiian Shirt Day.

That the people in Sales are different is by now old news to me. But the way this difference manifests itself in all aspects of a salesperson’s life continues to surprise me. I’ve attended regional meetings before when I was a consultant, and they are usually serious events with some revelry on the side. Sales meetings are revelry with some serious events on the side.

We started with Hawaiian shirts, which we were all asked to wear for the first day of the three-day meeting. This was to get us in the right spirit of accomplishment, since the most successful salespeople (the “All Stars,” as they are called) get to win an all-expense paid weeklong vacation to Hawaii at the end of the year. These All Stars represent the top 10% of the sales force, and attaining this ranking ensures that great stardom will accompany you everywhere you go. The difference in making an All Star versus winning a consolation cash prize for second place is measured in the tenths of a percentage point, which means that things get pretty competitive. It’s an interesting concept, and not one you see repeated too frequently in industry. Sure, there are performance appraisals that lead to higher bonuses, and some sort of chairman’s awards that lead to a desk display piece, but the prizes are generally not the kind that great memories can be made of.

This particular regional meeting opened with goody bags, Beach Boys music, and hula hoop concerts. I didn’t know anyone there other than my fellow trainees and the sales team that I had done some field travel with, but it seemed every other person was best friends with everyone else. There was a lot of hugging, high-fiving, and merriment for the first hour. Although the day eventually progressed to more serious discussions of the state of the business, things quickly got back on track towards the end with music and limbo contests. Yours truly decided to get into the spirit of things, but rapidly realized that a) I’m too tall to limbo, and b) I have zero hip flexibility. How cool would it be if other industries lightened up like this? Can you imagine a regional meeting of strategy consultants partying it up, with the managing partner teaching a group of junior consultants the finer points of hula-hooping? The world would be such a better place.

Although part of my brain is completely fried from all the training that I’ve been attending, the wiser part of me realizes that life is going to be different once out in the field for real (next week), and that I’ll be praying for the next sales event just so that I can wear a Hawaiian shirt again.