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The person wasn’t the problem. The role was.
Someone had sat in the same business for nineteen years — and knew it better than almost anyone. In their first month in a role built around that knowledge, they sold over R1 million. The target was R650,000. They have been the business’s top performer ever since.
Experience that informs the Linchpin approach. This story comes from commercial and leadership experience that informs how Linchpin approaches capability, role design and sales performance. It was not delivered as a Linchpin Consulting client engagement. The individual and organisation are kept anonymous.
The situationNineteen years of knowledge, held back by the role around it.
A long-serving member of the team had been with the same organisation for nineteen years. Their institutional knowledge was extraordinary — pricing dynamics, how clients actually bought, the operational systems, the supplier relationships. It was the kind of understanding no new hire could replicate.
They had never been promoted. Partly because they held no formal qualifications, and partly because the business had simply never been set up to see what they could do. The instinct in most companies facing a commercial gap is to hire someone new. Here, the capability was already in the building — sitting in a role that used a fraction of it.
This was never a performance problem. It was a design problem.
In the Linchpin Method™, this sits squarely in Capability and Leadership. The ability existed. What was missing was a role designed to deploy it, and the leadership decision to back the person into it. Fix the structure around a capable person and the performance follows — without the cost and risk of recruiting from outside.
Find the capability. Build the role around it. Back the decision.
The work identified where the person’s strengths could contribute most directly to the commercial side of the business. Their capability was deliberately deployed into marketing, client communications, supplier relationships and e-commerce development, while specific gaps were coached rather than ignored.
The case for moving them into a sales role was built on financial grounds, not on principle. Restructuring the position as an outbound function reduced the business’s field costs while placing them in the exact channel where their knowledge was most commercially valuable. It still took advocacy against real organisational resistance to get them appointed.
- Capability identified and mapped to commercial value
- Strengths deployed across marketing, client comms and supplier relationships
- Role rebuilt as an outbound function — lower field cost, higher commercial fit
- The specific gaps coached, not left to chance
The structure around them changed. They did not.
Performance is far more often a question of role design than a question of the person.
They did it again in month two — confirming it was structural, not a one-off. They remain the highest-performing sales professional in the organisation to this day.
A note on these figures: These figures are based on records and experience from the period described and are shared to illustrate the commercial lesson. They have not been independently audited for publication. The individual and organisation are kept anonymous.
Sometimes you don’t need a new hire. You need to develop the capability already in your team.
The R1 million month did not come from a new recruit, an external specialist or an expensive hiring campaign. It came from seeing someone who was already there, and building the structure, confidence and context to let them perform at their actual level. It is the thinking Linchpin is built on: strengthen the business around a capable person, and their real level has room to show.
About developing the people you already have.
Should I hire a new salesperson or develop someone I already have?
It depends on where the capability already sits. Many businesses reach for a new hire when the knowledge they need — of customers, products and how the business really works — is already in the building, just underused. A new recruit takes months to build that context; an existing person already has it. The practical move is to look hard at the capability you have before adding headcount. Often the faster, lower-risk route is to develop and reposition someone who already understands the business.
How do I know if an underused employee could do more?
Look for people whose knowledge is wider than their job description — they understand how customers buy, how the operation works and where the problems are, but their role uses only a fraction of that. Long-serving people without formal qualifications are often overlooked for exactly this reason. A short, structured conversation about what they see and what gets in their way usually surfaces capability no org chart captures.
What is role redesign, and when does it work?
Role redesign means rebuilding a position around a person’s strengths and where they can create the most commercial value, rather than forcing the person to fit a fixed job. It works best when the capability is real but mis-deployed — the right ability in the wrong seat. Done well it lifts performance without the cost and risk of recruiting, and it is usually more motivating, because the role finally fits what the person can actually do.
How do you develop capability in someone without formal qualifications?
Qualifications and capability are not the same thing — years of real experience often build judgement no certificate captures. Development here is practical: identify the specific gaps holding the person back, coach those directly, give them responsibility with support, and build confidence through early wins. The goal is to deploy existing strength and close a few specific gaps, not to send someone on a generic course and hope.
Isn’t this just training?
Training teaches skills; this is about structure and deployment. The bigger lever is usually putting capable people where their strengths count, designing the role around that, and backing them with the right support and accountability. Training can fill specific gaps along the way, but on its own it rarely changes performance if the role and structure around the person stay wrong.
Could this work in my business, and where do I start?
If you have long-serving, knowledgeable people whose roles don’t use their full ability, very possibly. The place to start is understanding what your people actually see and where they are held back — which is what Potential → Performance does: listen first, then develop what matters. A short fit call is the simplest way to work out whether there is capability worth repositioning.
Two practical ways to start.
Potential → Performance
Find the capability you already have. Practical people development that starts by listening to your team.
See Potential → PerformanceBusiness Performance Dashboard™
A clear monthly view of up to five agreed KPIs, built from the data you already have.
See the dashboardWhat could the people you already have do with the right support?
Start with a short conversation about what is happening and whether Linchpin is a suitable fit.
No obligation. Completely confidential — pick a time that suits you.