Infusion Confusion

I was speaking with someone this week regarding the latest attempts to "infuse" a "sales culture" into their company - an interesting concept. However as they started to explain their methodology of doing this I noticed two very strong obstacles and I now believe it will never happen. Obstacle one is that the leadership of this organization are accountants and financial people - not salespeople. Therefore they believe - like all bean counters - that the secret to sales success lies in an excel spreadsheet ( their way of solving any issue involves excel ) that monitors the number of calls, contacts and ratios. The second obstacle is this - the people that are actually doing the work are not sales people either - so they struggle with call reluctance, need for approval, emotional involvement and many more weaknesses that sabotage their own success.
I struggle with understanding why an organization of this size would not just accept that this is an area where they could use help - I have someone else do my taxes, my hair, my teeth, fix my car etc....and I don't see it as a personal attack - some people are just better at some things than others.
Looking at history for an answer - the best Generals were always soldiers, men who understood what was involved in fighting, men who didn't second guess their troops, men who didn't believe that the secret to good fighting was in knowing military terminology or polishing some brass bauble. Conversely the worst generals were "theorists" or "part timers" or "bean counters" that had no real transferable skills or knowledge and they couldn't inspire or motivate their men.
During the civil war the forces of the confederacy were plagued by the meddling of Jefferson Davis - not a soldier. Had he been put on a battlefield he probably would have cried or ran away. So although I certainly hope things work out for a non sales leader trying to infuse a sales culture into a non sales minded work force I am 100% confident that they will not!