Case Study paper

Case Study

This reference must be used Pritchard, R. D., & Ashwood, E. L. (2008). Managing motivation: A manager's guide to diagnosing and improving motivation. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN: 9781841697895

1. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of Jessica’s existing sales force.

2. Describe changes to the company’s processes that would help better motivate the sales force.

3. Feedback was identified as a significant force in the sales team’s motivation level. Explain how Jessica could have enhanced her feedback process to improve the team’s productivity and sales numbers.

4. Describe how Jessica changed the sales force’s customer service emphasis.

5. In the end, two team members (Marius and Jose) were promoted off of Jessica’s team. Explain how she can maintain her positive momentum with their replacement team members.

This section starts a case study that we will use throughout the rest of the book. The purpose of the case is to illustrate some of the motivation issues described in the book in the context of a realistic business setting. A single case cannot cover all the issues raised in the book but a number of issues will be illustrated. Although there is no single correct approach to a complex business issue, insights from this case may apply to your own situation. In addition to the course of action presented here, consider how you would apply the motivation model yourself if you were in the manager’s role, or a consultant to the manager.

(Pritchard 39) Pritchard, Robert. Managing Motivation. Routledge, 20080512. VitalBook file.

Friday, March 1, 3 p.m. Conference Call

“Thank you, and have a great weekend!” Jessica Thorpe cheerily closed out her weekly regional sales conference call. Sighing, she looked at the month’s sales numbers again. Of the four territories she supervised, only Midwest was beating its target. Although Midwest’s numbers were impressive, they couldn’t carry the rest of the country. She knew the group would have to do better. They were heading into the second quarter and if they didn’t catch up soon, they wouldn’t have a chance at making the full year’s goal.

Jessica thought about all she had done to help drive performance. She had provided plenty of encouragement and regular contact. Resources were always tight, but she felt her team got what they really needed. Turnover wasn’t too high. The market was pretty good; she’d seen worse. Of the four regional managers, Jose, Dave, Susan, and Marius, only Marius was really new to the role and he seemed to be well liked. They had a pretty good level of chemistry and trust. She didn’t tend to micromanage them, but kept a close eye on the numbers at all times and was quick to pick up the phone if she sensed something was wrong. Now, she couldn’t put her finger on it, but she didn’t feel confident about their momentum. Except for Jose’s group, which seemed full of enthusiasm, she just didn’t sense a winning spirit among the team.

Not sure what to do next, Jessica called her friend and mentor, Pat, for some advice. Wednesday, March 6, 12:15 p.m. Lunch With Pat

After listening to Jessica’s concerns, Pat suggested it might be a motivation issue. Jessica had her doubts; she always thought that motivation was not much of an issue in a sales job. After all, a major part of her salespeople’s income was from commission. They wouldn’t have taken a sales job if they didn’t value the money they could make, and the measures of performance were clear and easy to track. She also believed that all wanted to do a good job, and they were certainly only going to make significant commissions if they did. What else was there to diagnose?

Pat encouraged Jessica to think more broadly about the situation. Jessica said she would give that some thought.

Thursday, March 7, 9:45 p.m. at Home on Her Laptop Pat had encouraged Jessica to think more broadly about her situation. The first question Jessica decided to pursue was whether she was facing a motivation issue or something else. She completed the 1-minute assessment questionnaire from chapter 1 for her sales force and came up with the evaluation shown in Table 5.1.

The results surprised her. She hadn’t thought that things were that bad, but when she looked at each symptom, she couldn’t deny some problems. It wasn’t just one individual or one group; she saw these things across the board. She would have to look at the entire regional sales force. She typed out the pros and cons.

Pros Cons Loyal Avoid difficult and extra work Timely, responsible Take convincing to try new things

When she looked at the picture of the motivation model Pat had shown her and wrote out the things her sales force did, she produced the list shown in Figure 5.1.

Writing it out made it sound simple, but she knew it was all easier said than done. Lots of hours on the road, rejections, endless issues to resolve, and each month the goals were higher than the last. She remembered it well from her own days as a salesperson. The desire to do the job well came from within, but part of the reason she became national sales manager was to keep the sales force positive and directed. She tried to keep them from being caught up in distractions of company life with its variety of marketing, compliance, service, and financial considerations all vying for focus.

Table 5.1.Completed Motivation Symptoms Questionnaire: Do You Have a Motivation Problem?

Work well together

Common to complain and wait for management to fix things when broken

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� Figure 5.1.Jessica’s initial assessment.

Despite her efforts, it did seem that there was a motivation problem. Jessica looked at the questions Pat had written down (see Value of the Diagnosis, chapter 5):

Extended Case: Part 3 Monday, March 11, 11 a.m. Phone Meeting On Monday, Jessica called a meeting of the regional managers and shared her thinking: “I don’t like to tell you how to run your region, but we’re going to have examine what’s working and what’s not in order to improve. This is something we’ll do together. You are

a talented team and you have my confidence. I hope we will get some new ideas over the next 30 days. It’s going to require collecting some data. We know what our sales are today. If sales are back on track when we’re done with this diagnosis and made some changes, we will have succeeded. If we are successful, it will mean dollars back in people’s checks and the pride and admiration of the rest of the company. Not to mention our top salespeople’s trip to Bermuda.”

Jose suggested, “What kind of sales are we talking about? I personally believe we should focus sales efforts on existing customers. It is much easier to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one.”

“That’s fine if you have a big customer base, but we’re trying to aggressively develop new large customers and lure them from competitors,” added Susan.

“Fewer larger deals is the key to success,” Dave countered. Marius just listened. The group was trying to identify the important results.

Well, Jessica thought, at least there’s not silence. “Those are all good points. What if we said that our most important results are

•  retaining existing clients and •  attracting new profitable clients •  to increase dollars sold.

Does our sales force believe that putting more effort into its work will produce more of these three results?” She was trying to get a sense of the action-to-results connection for these three results. There was general agreement. “Can you change the level of the result by doing things differently or more persistently? If someone put more effort into retaining existing clients, for example, would this retain more clients? If you put less effort into existing clients, will they leave?” These are good ways to get a general sense of the action-to-results connections.

There was general agreement that salespeople’s actions made a major difference for these results; that is, the action-to-results connections were high. Individual work strategies jumped out as the main difference in sales results.

Just to make sure, Jessica asked the managers to answer the following for each salesperson in their team (see Table 6.1: Diagnosis Roadmap: Action-to-Results).

•   Is the person capable? Is there a lack of skill or confidence? (On a scale of 1–5, with 5 being the highest.)

•   Does the person have necessary resources? Missing information? Bottlenecked resources?

•  Does the person feel authorized to run his or her business, or is he or she waiting for direction?

•  Is the work strategy effective considering how much effort is being put in, on what tasks, in what order to achieve the result?

They would also take a general sales survey that asked people about training, resources, and authority as well as anything else getting in the way of selling. The managers were fine with this, as long as it didn’t encourage complaining. Jessica offered to send a memo with the general survey that would send a balanced message. “I would also like you to send me two lists—exactly what your most effective sales people do and what your least effective salespeople do. Be prepared to talk about the differences.”

Thursday, March 14, 3 p.m. in the Office A few days later, Jessica looked through the results. Each region had at least one person with capabilities rated lower than 3, except for Jose’s region where there had been a particularly effective focus on recruiting and training. Marius’s had four people with capabilities rated below 3, which concerned her. Maybe he was being a hard grader? The other results of the survey were largely as expected, with one exception. Salespeople responded very minimally to questions about scheduling sales calls. Interesting. She would have to look into that one.

Next she looked at the lists of what managers observed about how the best and worst salespeople handled their jobs.

Jessica put the lists together (Table 6.2) and gave them to the group. She asked, “What do you see that is similar about the best salespeople across the regions?” The group identified personal character qualities and being organized as the two most important commonalities. There was some debate about personal qualities, and the group agreed to focus on just those areas that everyone could improve, regardless of personality. This was an example of focusing on work strategies.

It was apparent that not everyone was using the same strategy and that some strategies were more effective than others. In terms of the motivation model, changing people’s work strategy is an example of changing action-to-results connections. If someone is using a strategy that is not effective, putting in high levels of effort will not produce the sales results that are desired, leading to a decrease in motivation.

Jose’s specific description helped the group to clarify a key strategy on which they could all agree: schedule six weeks ahead at least 10 appointments per week with high producers. Doing this required planning a schedule as well as thinking about who the high producers were. Additionally, if the calendar was set in advance, assistants could help those who were less organized to be prepared with materials. Managers would also be able to provide coaching in advance and see any emerging trends.

Tuesday, March 19, 9 a.m. Regional Meeting at Headquarters Today was the first chance Jessica had to get the team in person around the table. The four regional managers were at headquarters for a week of performance reviews and training. They would also be able to speak with many of their salespeople. Nothing had changed yet in the field, and she knew that her managers were nervous. Indeed, they had found that sales calls were not being planned far in advance, and the new measures were not met with great enthusiasm. It was too soon to tell whether a change would make an impact.

Recalling the conversation the team had about different customer targets, Jessica suggested that her managers consider whether their salespeople knew which results were important. Knowing which are the important results improves both action-toresults and results-to-evaluation connections. So was it large customers, new customers, existing customers? What else? Jessica asked each manager to ask the salespeople about what results each of them believed were most important. She also assigned each manager to speak with a manager in the key functional areas of the company— Marketing, Compliance, Service, and Accounting—to find out what results were important to them from Sales. In terms of the motivation model, Jessica identified who the important evaluators of her groups’ results are. Asking her people to meet with them

is her way of making these evaluators, or internal customers, more salient to her managers.

Monday, March 25, 11 a.m. Conference Call When Jessica reconvened the team, there was a lot to report. Not only were there differences of opinion about what customers to target, there were differences of opinion about what products should be sold, how regions should work more closely together, and how salespeople needed to be part of internal redesign efforts. Compliance wanted salespeople to disclose all possible problems so that customers would not have high expectations. Service wanted salespeople to promise long lead times for delivery so there would be no rush orders. “Sales is doing a great job” meant something different to almost everyone.

Jessica wasn’t surprised, but she could see that her managers were overwhelmed. “Let’s try to make sense of who needs what, how well we’re doing, and the implications for the organization and for sales.” This is an example of identifying the important results for all the important evaluators.

The team looked at each group at a time, and came up with the details in Table 7.4. On the topic of higher sales goals, the team became particularly animated.

“Marketing and Accounting need to talk to each other. They come out with products and features they want us to sell, we have to explain it all to our customers, and in the end, selling that product or feature extensively may be unprofitable. We’re working hard and we could be working against ourselves if the result is higher sales goals. This is typical of the mixed messages from management. Not you, of course, Jess, but corporate,” said Dave. This is an example of a conflict between the results-to-evaluation connections for different evaluators.

Table 7.4 Different Evaluators

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Jessica first thought of telling them that this was a reality they just had to accept, and ask them what they wanted her to do about it, but she refrained. Solving the problem of how Marketing and Accounting worked together was more than she intended to take on. Instead, she thought for a minute and said, “You’ve done a good job of finding out what results people feel are important outside of sales, and I’ll share our findings with Luke.” Luke was the division president and the group relaxed a bit to see that their issues were being taken seriously.

Jessica continued, “When we started diagnosing the actions of our sales force, we focused the importance of making planned sales calls, but we didn’t agree on what customers or products were most important—large clients, new clients, all of the things we’ve talked about. I think we need to go back and understand what results we really want, knowing that what we sell has implications for the larger organization.” This is an example of getting even clearer on what the important results are.

After an extended discussion, the group agreed on the following:

•    Ask Accounting to provide a profitability analysis to determine the best opportunities by region

•    Jess would work with the head of Accounting to approach Marketing about developing appropriate campaigns to support these efforts

Tuesday, March 26, 12:30 Lunch The next day, Jessica had lunch with Pat again and described what the group had found so far. Pat was interested to hear about the different expectations of salespeople, managers, and others in the organization. “How do salespeople know if what they are doing is effective?” “You mean other than a commission check each month?” asked Jessica.

“Yes, I mean other than receiving a check, how do people know how well they are doing?” Pat urged her to look at this more carefully and gave Jessica a feedback checklist (see Table 7.2) that she sent on to her managers.

Friday, March 29, 3 p.m. Conference Call After the initial greetings, Jess explained, “The response to our request for Accounting and Marketing support has been great. I expect we’ll have some initial analysis in the next 3 to 6 weeks. This should help identify the best products to focus on and thereby clarify what results are important. In the meantime, from what you’ve sent to me, I’d like to congratulate you on some progress we’ve already made. At least 30% of the sales force now has client calls planned 6 weeks out. I also urge you to congratulate your salespeople who are doing this. Next month we’ll be able to see if increased sales will follow. I want to see the number of people planning that far out increase. Until we have more information on our client and product mix, this is the most important action driving sales that we can focus on.” Enthusiastic, she was about to call the meeting to a close when Jose jumped in.

“About that feedback checklist you sent?” he began, “I felt pretty good about the feedback I give in my region, but I think we should be giving more feedback in all territories. I also feel like we have put a big emphasis on service and I’d like to see some feedback from the Service group on a regular basis so I can show my people our progress.” Jose suggested that an important result that has not been fully considered was service to customers. A way of measuring how well this result is being achieved is needed.

“Suggestions for action?” asked Jessica. “I’d be willing to work with Jose on some feedback measures. I’d like to hear more

about how he runs his region anyway and he uses the most metrics already,” added Marius. Dave and Susan agreed to talk with Service and identify some feedback measures that could be provided monthly.

“Great!” said Jessica. “That’s the spirit!” It was great. Her managers were taking action, senior management was taking note

of her strategic focus, and the additional sales calls were bound to convert to more sales. It had been nearly 30 days and soon she would have to shift gears and focus on the National Sales Conference coming up in 8 weeks. It was the one time of year when she got to see nearly the entire sales force and she wanted to make it count.

(Pritchard 88-90) Pritchard, Robert. Managing Motivation. Routledge, 20080512. VitalBook file.

Friday, April 5 Conference Call

As Jessica listened to Jose and Marius and then to Susan and Dave talk about the feedback measures they had put in place, she smiled. It was a great start. They spent some time talking about what was considered poor, neutral, good, and excellent; which measures were more and less important; and finally how the feedback would be given. These are key features of any good feedback system. Satisfied, she turned the group to the week’s national sales figures.

“Our sales rate is up 4% since last month. That’s definitely the right direction. We are also about 30 days into our diagnosis. So far, we’ve looked at actions-to-results and results-to-evaluations. We still need to look at our evaluations-to-outcomes, but this is probably where we are strongest. Our evaluations are built into our commission system in advance. When sales are high (the evaluation) the commission (outcome) always follows. Our typical salesperson’s goal is $200,000 in sales per quarter. If people consistently achieve above that level, not only would they receive a higher commission rate (see specifics below) and possibly our incentive trip, but they would be considered to be high performing. Someone who was consistently not making goal by more than 25% would be evaluated for either low performance or territory re-evaluation.

Jessica concluded that there was a direct link between sales dollars and commission dollars. The group agreed, with one distinction. Managers suggested that sales above target should be rewarded at an even higher rate than sales below or at target. Jessica agreed to put together a new payout model for consideration.

(Pritchard 101) Pritchard, Robert. Managing Motivation. Routledge, 20080512. VitalBook file.

Monday, April 5 Jessica had wondered all along about how she would address the outcomes-to-need satisfaction connection. With her new appreciation of the complexities of motivation, Jessica thought there was something more than commission that motivated her sales force. Obviously commissions were very important, but maybe not enough to encourage people to push through the harder times. She had spent the week meeting with small groups of salespeople for breakfast. What was it they loved? Why did they do this job? What made them feel proud? She tried to identify outcomes other than money that would satisfy their needs.

Armed with this information, she suggested that her managers develop some special recognitions and take more care with telling the success stories of individuals who tried new things (both would be new outcomes). The group discussed whether trips to Bermuda were really the best motivator (outcome) for their high performers. Maybe this outcome would not satisfy everyone’s needs.

Sales Commission rate $0–$50,000 2% $51,000– $200,000 2.5%

$200, 001+ 3%

Table 9.1. Diagnosis Roadmap: Outcome-to-Need Satisfaction

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� Wednesday, April 10, 9 a.m. Coffee With Pat

“So thirty days in, what’s your diagnosis?” Pat asked Jessica. “Well,”said Jessica, “I thought you’d ask, so here’s a summary” (Table 10.5). “Way to go, Jessica. It sounds like you’re making some great changes.” “Yes,” she said, “Let’s hope so. It feels good to have some concrete improvements

to announce at the National Sales Conference.”

Table 10.5.Summary of the Diagnosis

� Throughout the Year

Shortly after Jessica and her team added the new trip incentives, a stronger high-end incentive plan and regular feedback to the 6-week scheduling strategy, sales began to increase. After 3 months, they were no longer falling behind on their annual goals. The profitability analysis was even more eye-opening. Marketing and Accounting’s 6-week analysis turned into a 6-month project. When they were done, it was clear that by changing the sales force’s customer emphasis, far more profitability was possible.

As new priorities came along, Jessica worked to maintain the feedback system and continue her distinctive recognition program even when company priorities changed. She took time to make sure that people understood the many benefits of working for their large organization so that valuable individual motivators weren’t overlooked. There was generally a perception among the sales force that their goals were tough, but the evaluations and rewards were fair. Retention of talent and customers was good.

It wasn’t surprising to her that Marius and Jose had just been asked to move into other functions in the organization with the hope that they could infuse those groups with the same kind of focus on improvement. With new regional managers, Jessica would begin the diagnosis process again, looking for new ways to improve.

May 10, 8 p.m. One Year Later One Hour After the Close of the National Sales Conference

“Wow,” said Luke Stiles, division president, “What great energy—20% growth in profitability and 40% growth in sales ... as I said in there earlier, they and you should be so proud.”

“Yes,” said Jessica. “It’s amazing what you can do with a little motivation.” (Pritchard 134-136) Pritchard, Robert. Managing Motivation. Routledge, 20080512. VitalBook file.