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Overview Conflict on the northeast sales division team has reached…
Overview
Conflict on the northeast sales division team has reached a boiling point. One team member is accused of aggressive and mean-spirited behavior, while another is accused of deliberately putting barriers in the way of other team members. The team leader struggles to keep the team working effectively in a high stress environment. Students are presented with the perspective of each member of the team, as well as the team leader, and they are invited to examine the personal and organizational dynamics as they design a path to resolve this conflict.
Meeting with Neil
“Well hello, Freda! Come in, come in. I’ve been anxiously awaiting this meeting,” said Neil Bass, vice president of sales for the northeast division of Widget Tech Industries (WTI), as he welcomed his human resources partner into his office.
Freda Robinson first met Neil more than five years ago when she joined the company. Neil, however, has had a long career at WTI, evidenced by the visible display of his crystal “20 year” plaque on the wall. Freda sat down. As Neil’s human-resources partner, Freda was responsible for not only the day-to-day employee problems, but also for organizational effectiveness.
“I know how busy you are, Neil, and I was pleasantly surprised to get your call. But it sounded urgent, too,” Freda hinted. “What seems to be going on?”
“We’ve had conversations about my team before, so none of this will come as a surprise. Last year we completed the 360 assessment where each team member gave the others individual feedback on their strengths and weaknesses as part of the assessment. My hope in doing this was that they would grow to appreciate the challenges that other members have to face because we’re all under incredible pressure. For a time, things were better. But lately, it’s the worst it’s ever been,” Neil sat back in his chair and sighed.
“Remind me who the team members are and what they do?” Freda inquired.
“Sure. As you know, I have an organization of more than 400 sales executives in the entire northeast, from New York and Pennsylvania to Maine. My management team each handles a set of states in our region, and I also have a sales operations division to support the whole team. Here, it might just be easier to walk through the organizational chart.” Neil swiveled his chair around to pull a binder off of his shelf. He tore out the first page and handed it to Freda (Figure 1).
“I’ll cut to the chase. My biggest problem is with Renee. She’s incredibly difficult. At times, I would say she is toxic to this organization. In our staff meetings, she will start yelling at people, saying that they are purposefully getting in her way.” Neil paused.
“Can you give me an example?” Freda asked.
“Sure. In fact, this happened just the other day. She came to me complaining that Melissa’s operations team was incompetent. Her specific complaint was that the sales reports from each of the last several months contained serious errors. It seems like Renee and Melissa are a case of oil and water. The two just don’t get along. Melissa happened to walk by my office when Renee was having one of her tirades, and Renee yelled out ‘you might as well come in here because I’m talking about you.’ Then Melissa walked in, and Renee proceeded to rip into her right in my office.” Neil said.
Anderson, 2017. “I Just Can’t Work With Her” Team Conflict in the Northeast Sales Division. Sage Business Cases
I Just Can’t Work with Her
“Based on what you’ve said, using descriptors such as difficult, toxic, yelling, and tirades, this is a serious issue. What have you said to her so far?” Freda asked.
“Well, this was one of the reasons why I wanted everyone to get feedback from their peers a year ago. I wanted Renee to know what effect she was having on the rest of the team. She calmed down for a few months, and we didn’t see much in the way of outbursts. But then it all started up again heading into the last months of our fiscal year. I told her that if she couldn’t manage to improve her behavior, we were going to do something,” Neil said confidently.
“My first reaction is that she might need more specific direction, Neil. Words such as ‘improve’ and ‘going to do something’ are vague threats. But this is similar to what you mentioned a year ago, so why has this been tolerated for so long?” Freda asked pointedly.
“I know what you’re saying, Freda. Renee has been with me for years and is my top salesperson. She runs the largest territory in my division. Her team overachieves their sales every year without question. It’s fair to
say that our entire region’s sales bonuses last year came directly from the success that her team had with new customer accounts in New York and Pennsylvania. If we asked her to leave, the company would quite literally suffer. I mentioned Renee’s latest incident to Avery, our global head of sales, to see what he thought, and I got the clear message that I had better not fire her. I just keep hoping that she will improve the sharp sides of her personality,” Neil admitted.
“Apart from the interpersonal conflict between Renee and Melissa, how does the rest of the team work together?” Freda asked.
“Well, Al, Tracey, and Leo all have their complaints about Melissa, too. Mostly, they get worked out among the group. It’s Renee who seems to be unable to get along with Melissa,” Neil said.
“What can you tell me about Melissa?” Freda asked.
“Melissa has been in this job for about 18 months. Her predecessor, Savanna, could not take the stress of the role, and I promoted Melissa to the operations and compensation job. She is determined, process-oriented, and a stick-to-the-books kind of person, which is why I promoted her. We needed more discipline in my organization,” Neil said.
“Tell me more about the responsibilities of her team,” Freda asked.
“Her team plays two major roles. Part of her team is responsible for sales operations, meaning that they ensure that all of our sales orders go into the order entry system with the correct approvals and processes followed accurately. Every order that a salesperson places must have a hard copy customer signature in place, an accurate purchase order number from the customer, a credit check, no inappropriate discounts without my permission, and approval from the sales director on my staff. Melissa’s team also handles the distribution of sales compensation and they conduct audit checks on the entire process. Our salespeople are paid their sales commissions when they meet their quotas and when they meet the approval conditions. If they miss any of the items that I have just mentioned, they will not be paid, or they will have a payment penalty. For example, they get paid 20% less if they fail to conduct a credit check or if they do not have the purchase order from the customer. They get no commission at all if they discount the product without my approval. I am proud to say that when I put those rules into place in my region two years ago, we made a huge improvement in our discipline. We are now the top performing region in our annual compliance audits,” Neil said proudly.
“I’d like to learn more about this situation from other members of the team,” Freda said. “Would you mind if I set up some time to speak with each one of them?”
Anderson, 2017. “I Just Can’t Work With Her” Team Conflict in the Northeast Sales Division. Sage Business Cases
“Please do,” Neil said, relieved. “I’m eager to hear more about what you learn.”
Meeting with Al Perez
“My perspective is that there are a lot of areas where this team could improve. The operations team is, frankly, a disaster. On average I think they return back to us roughly 75% of the sales orders that we put in the system. For example, this just happened an hour ago. My sales rep put a purchase order number in the system as required, but because it did not have a dash between the first two numbers, the system called it an error. The operations rep on Melissa’s team could have hit one button and sent it through. Instead, he rejected the entire order and told us to go back and resubmit it, which wasted about an hour of my salesperson’s time. Sometimes it feels like they are treating us like children.”
“Another time our salesperson put the customer credit check through for $100,000, but our order was for two shipments of $50,000. So, Melissa’s team wants us to do the credit check twice. Some of their rules make no sense.”
“When we bring this up to Neil, he says that he will deal with it, but he never does. He refuses to control Melissa’s team. I’ve worked with Neil for 10 years, so I expect nothing because I know his preference is to avoid conflict. He has delegated complete oversight to that team so he has no idea what we are all dealing with on a daily basis. When this all first started about a year ago, I tried to talk to Melissa rationally to ask her to tell her team to help us rather than just add process steps. We just ended up arguing about it, and she refused to take any ownership or even take the feedback and consider making changes. Now I just try not to engage her at all. She sends me demands by e-mail, and I respond by e-mail. I don’t think we’ve spoken since last summer.”
Meeting with Tracey
“Part of my compensation every week is based on profitability of team sales, which means my team’s sales revenue minus the cost of my team’s compensation and other costs. You know what else gets counted in the costs of all of the sales teams? The cost of Melissa’s team because they do nothing to make sales. Why do I get punished because of how many people Melissa has? All of us are wondering what that team does because we are paying for them out of our own pockets.”
“Because I am paying them, I am their customer. As the operations team, they should be asking me how they can help and what else they can do to make it easier on us. It would be nice if we at least received proactive and customer-focused support because that is what we are apparently paying for. They should be asking me ‘how can I serve you better?'”
“Look, I’m here because of Neil. His vision and the way he makes our mission so compelling is inspiring. But he also needs to start to deal with Melissa, who is running out of control. It feels like we work for her and not Neil. She knows how much money I make and she controls whether I get paid or not. She is the final decision maker on almost every order and payment that goes out.”
“Clearly, Renee is not going about it in the right way, but she’s just saying what the rest of us are all thinking.”
Meeting with Renee
“Freda, I’ll be honest because that’s the only way I know how to approach this. I have a huge territory to deal with and I am under a massive workload. Our entire northeast division hangs on the success of my team, which is clear to anyone who is looking at our numbers. I have loyal and demanding customers, and we put in more orders than any team in this company. I’m incredibly busy.”
Anderson, 2017. “I Just Can’t Work With Her” Team Conflict in the Northeast Sales Division. Sage Business Cases
“That’s why I need the partnership of our operations team. We don’t need police or judges or audits, we need them on our side. I need their advice on how to move orders through the system in a way that meets whatever their requirements are. The rules change every day and it’s hard for all of us to follow. I’m constantly on the road, usually online in a hotel room at midnight trying to sort through Melissa’s confusing e-mails. She’ll send an audit report to Neil showing how my team is out of compliance with some random rule that she made up last month. He’ll send me an angry note demanding to know what is going on, and then I’m stuck trying to examine 500 lines on a spreadsheet to figure out which of my sales reps isn’t going to get paid and defend my team. It just feels like they are intentionally putting barriers in my way, with an overarching suspicion that I am trying to cheat.”
“What’s more frustrating is that our internal information technology systems are not accurate at all. On Melissa’s report of current open orders, more than 25% of them have already been filled, but for some reason the system doesn’t show that correctly. She asks me for details about sales reps that quit a year ago. Why is everything on my shoulders to resolve?”
“I know that I’ve been inconsiderate and I have said some inappropriate things. I also know that Neil is complaining about me to Avery, so I am watching my back and trying to lay low. I bet Neil can’t stand it that Avery will back me up. Avery knows that if I walk away, our customers will, too. Avery has told me that I’m in line for Neil’s job, and Neil knows it, so I’m sure that’s why he wants to make me look bad.”
“Also, Melissa hates that I make more money than she does. Someone on my team told me that he overheard Melissa say to Neil that she wanted to find a way to reduce our sales commission expenses, especially for directors, and I know that I’m the highest paid director because my territory is so big and I exceed my annual quotas.”
“I now spend every weekend working on her requests and I’ve started setting up my own internal team to keep track of our own data because hers is so questionable. I’m not sure I can continue working at this pace of 7 days a week. The bottom line is that something needs to change. I just can’t work with her.”
Meeting with Leo
“I have the most states to cover, but the smallest team and lowest number of customers, so I really don’t have that much of an issue with Melissa or her team. We did have one issue about three months ago where my team was complaining that they did not understand the new rule about needing to prove customer order acceptance with a copy of an e-mail uploaded into the system. We invited a person on Melissa’s team to our next staff meeting, and she walked us through the reason for the new rule. We asked questions to clarify, and my team was satisfied.
“I have learned how to play the political part of the game to make sure that Melissa likes us. I think there is a conflict of interest on Melissa’s team. The same people that are supposed to help us move orders through the system are also the people who audit against those requirements and deny our paychecks. They make the rules and then judge against the rules. There are no checks and balances on whether the rules make sense or whether they are interpreted correctly, so anything that her team decrees is the law. If you complain about unnecessary rules, you get slapped with another audit on you.”
Meeting with Melissa
“It was about a year ago when the first rumblings started of ‘I hate Melissa.’ Now it’s a daily occurrence. I’m sure they are all complaining about how unhelpful I am, but in some respects, I don’t really care. When I first took this job, we had lawsuits going on because of our failure to have accurate compensation practices. That’s also when the internal audit department started investigating us. People were getting paid inappropriately when they never made any sales at all. Salespeople were putting
Anderson, 2017. “I Just Can’t Work With Her” Team Conflict in the Northeast Sales Division. Sage Business Cases
through discounts that were costing the company millions of dollars. We were shipping products to customers that never ordered them, paying the salesperson’s commission, and then paying for return shipments and apologizing to customers. That’s why we now require purchase order numbers so no one can game the system. I’m not going to go so far as to say that there was illegal activity happening, but that’s only because I can’t prove it. By law, we must have a customer signature on every sales order. That’s not a personal attack I’m making on them.”
“What they really hate is the fact that they can’t get away with anything anymore. We now have controls and processes in place to make sure that I can confidently stand behind every order that goes through and every sales commission that gets paid. They may hate it, but that’s what’s best for the company. It’s like dealing with a child that doesn’t want to do his homework or take her medicine. Someone has to be the adult around here, and that’s me. I’m the bad guy, and that’s fine, I can take it. What they really want is to boss me around like they did Savanna, and for me to be their administrative help, cleaning up their errors behind them, wiping up their messes. Sorry, I’m not going to do that. Maybe if they experience the pain of going back and doing it again correctly, they will pay more attention and do it right next time.”
“They think that somehow I have Neil’s ear and his attention more than they do. That’s not true. I have had knock-down, drag-out arguments with Neil, but he’s the boss and he makes the final call. Every single rule and process in place today is with Neil’s support and approval. He delegates implementation of those rules to my team and expects everyone to comply. When the compliance reports show any discrepancy, I’m the one answering to Neil as to why I let someone get away with an order that has a compliance problem. There is pressure on me, too.”
“What we can all agree on is that our systems are very poor. The day I started, I put together a quality team to clean up the incorrect data in our database and get it right. Unfortunately, that requires the time and help of the other directors. I don’t know everyone in this entire organization or the history of every sale that they made. In the past year, we have cleaned up 11 of the top 20 most common reports that we publish. Things are getting better.”
“I can work with the others, but Renee is a different story. She has had members of my team in tears. My best systems analyst, Olivia, quit last month because of her. I know that I’ve made her life more difficult because of some of the things she’s done to me and my team. The rest of my peers are reasonable, but Renee, I just can’t work with her.”
Summarize concerns for each of these individuals/teams
1) Neil
2) Renee
3) Melissa
4) The other sales people
