The way you describe a technical team is how high-performing sales teams operate. Millions of dollars are at stake, we will rape every angle till it's raw to make sure we close the deal. I know a customer's birthday, their children's sports, their hobbies, and what they give a fuck about in a non-invasive way because at the end of the day a customer buys because they trust that you will deliver and not because you have a bunch of PhDs in Comp Sci. I closed a multi-million dollar deal because my competitor didn't pick up his phone at 8pm when his car was towed after a day of talking to press. He left his wallet in his car and couldn't get it out of the impound lot. Luckily he had my number and I bailed out his car with my corp CC. Meanwhile, our competitor thought the deal was sealed, but I fucking snatched that from their mouth and ran the most successful campaigns in company history. Sondors e-bikes if anyone is curious.
This is good sales work, but far removed from knowledge work.
They need to be treated differently as your driver probably differs by miles from what drives my team of system developers. For someone in sales, maybe with compensation in the form of commission you have clear metrics every month. I can have guys sit around and think for a couple of months with the benefit of us staying agile and malleable two years from now. This is where the disciplines differ by a lot and must be treated and measured differently.
