After reading the scenario, please work through the questions that follow: (The
ID: 370912 • Letter: A
Question
After reading the scenario, please work through the questions that follow:
(The cases in this exercise were inspired by interviews and observations of actual experiences but names and other situational details have been changed for confidentiality and teaching purposes.)
Jeff is proud to manage the highest performing sales team in his computer hardware company. His group focuses on institutional end-users and has led the firm for almost two years now. Jeff took over the group 9 months ago and is pleased and relieved that they have been able to continue the winning streak under his leadership.
Nevertheless, lately he has been finding himself losing sleep over an ever growing list of questionable practices he had begun to notice. He recognizes the intense pressure his folks are under to meet and even exceed their numbers – pressures that come from the company, on the one hand, and from the intense personal competitiveness that his salespeople bring to their jobs on the other. And then there are the bonuses, and the desire to please, and thereby retain customers.
Nevertheless, over the past few months, as he becomes more familiar with his staff and their routines and as they come to trust him more, Jeff sees evidence of activities that worry him: sales representatives who override the sales reporting systems in order to get the customer the price he or she wants (Jeff heard about this one from a colleague in operations who was complaining about unrealistic demands.); reps who interact inappropriately with customers (for example, Jeff has heard rumors of reps sharing pornography via the company e-mail), in order to win their loyalty; reps who over-promise or who use special promotions inappropriately in order to seal the deal (again, rumors); reps who submit unrequested credit financing applications for their customers in order to get the associated bonus (in this instance, one of the administrators processing the request approached Jeff because the paperwork looked fishy to him); etc.
Jeff is concerned about these practices for many reasons, but he is also worried about messing around with a winning formula. He wants to clean up his shop but doesn’t want to undermine the motivation and competitive spirit of his staff.
1) What are the main arguments you are trying to counter? That is, what are the reasons and rationalizations you need to address?
2) What is at stake for the key parties, including those who disagree with you?
3) What levers can you use to influence those who disagree with you?
4) What is your most powerful and persuasive response to the reasons and rationalizations you need to address? To whom should the argument be made? When and in what context?
Explanation / Answer
1.
Main arguments that I am countering is that the Sales people are not using the guidelines provided to them and dealing in unethical manner with the customers. Some of the things highlighted are misguiding, sharing pornography from company email etc. These are the items that should be addressed.
2.
Here at the stake is the Sales of the Company and Motivation of Team who is delivering the targets or exceeding them..
3.
I can alway use the lever of performance of Team and low customer complaints against the people who disagrees with me.
4.
The Most power ful response would be that continuously Team is achieving or exceeding their targets for two years and so far the company business has grown due to the performance of the Team. Thus it should be given little flexibility from the System as Sales is not as simple as operating a machine. This arguments should be made to all the people who would like to stop the practices during any meeting and in the context of the growth of the company.
As ultimately every company is there to make the money, it will be more convincing that people generating revenue for the company are getting a hand when needed rather than obstacles.