I was driving on a country road when I suddenly came upon a turtle crossing the road. I swerved to miss it and looked in the rear view mirror to make sure it was OK. It had pulled its head and legs into its shell and was sitting in the road. It was a sitting duck to get squashed by the next car. Or should I say a sitting turtle.

I wondered if I ever act like that turtle. Are there times when I do something that once worked but now is in the wrong time and place? For the turtle, pulling in worked to keep safe for most dangers. But not on the road.

What about you? Can you think of any examples of behaving in a way that does not fit the situation? I can think of one example. When I was a boy, I frequently begged to play with my older brothers. Sometimes they would say, “Scram, kid.” But if I persisted, sometimes they relented and let me play with them. I learned that it pays to persist.

Now when I am selling my consulting services, I often persist, even when the prospect is saying “No” in some way such as not answering my phone calls. That persisting may sound like good sales technique. But I don’t have large amounts of time for this as I did when I was a kid. Now as a busy consultant, I need to qualify my prospects. Only the best prospects are worth the time to persist. Let the others go if necessary. But I sometimes forget this and do my turtle thing, the wrong behavior for that situation.

Look at your own sales force. The star performers probably have developed a keen sense of which prospects are worth the extra time to persist and which are not. They know how to qualify prospects. Lesser performers may just go after everybody with the same amount of persistence. Persistence can be a virtue, but not in the wrong places or with the wrong people.

Now what are your turtle examples? Something that worked once, but may not work now. If you spot them now, you may be able to stop them later and behave in a way that fits the new situation.