6/25/2018 SAGE Business Cases – Growing Managers: Moving from Team Member to Team Leader
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Growing Managers: Moving fromTeam Member to Team Leader
Brenda Ellington-Booth & Karen L. Cates
CASE TEACHING NOTES AUTHOR(S)
Abstract
This case describes a newly promoted middle manager in a global,multi-cultural organization who is challenged by a number of factors inthe workplace which are impacting her and her team's ability toperform to the expectations of her regional manager. While it wouldbe easy to blame the new manager, deeper analysis in fact reveals
business cases (/cases)
CASES
Online Pub. Date: March 06, 2016
Original Pub. Date: 2012
Subject: Organizational Behavior, Business &Management Skills, Strategic Decision-Making
Level: Intermediate
Type: Direct case (/Search/Results/?CaseType=Direct+case&searchNoBack=true)
Length: 5241 words
Copyright: © 2012 Kellogg School of Management atNorthwestern University
Contains supplementary material
More information >
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Find In This Case
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Keywords
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that many forces are at work here in addition to her inexperienceincluding communication of strategy and performance objectives,mismanaged team members, cultural inconsistencies, and a lack ofleadership direction and/or skill from the very top to her supervisingmanager.
Case
Melissa Richardson sat stunned in her office in Phoenix, Arizona,
after a disastrous early July meeting with her boss, Beth Campbell. In
March, Richardson had been the top Chicago salesperson and a
high-potential candidate for management at ColorTech Greenhouses,
Inc., a premium grower and distributor of annual and perennial
flowers.
Richardson remembered the call she had made to her mother, who
still lived in her childhood home on the north side of Chicago. “Mom, I
just got off the phone with the southwest regional sales manager in
Los Angeles,” she had said. “They want me for the sales manager
spot in Phoenix!” Richardson had been looking for an opportunity to
move up at ColorTech, and her boss had recommended her for the
promotion when the position opened. Thirty-two years old and single,
Richardson had been excited to show her new team how to break into
the top sales ranks the way she had done.
But after only a few short months, she had failed to improve her
team's performance and felt like a liability on her regional manager's
watch list. Richardson wondered how things had gone so wrong so
quickly and what she could do to fix them.
About ColorTech Greenhouses, Inc.
ColorTech was a privately held supplier of annual and perennial
flowers to big-box stores (large, no-frills, warehouse-like retail stores)
such as Home Depot and Walmart. Within the color industry (the term
used to describe growers of the colorful, flowering bedding plants
used to create outdoor, in-ground floral displays), ColorTech was well
known for its patented hybrid plants and high-tech automated
greenhouse operations located primarily in southern North America.
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Along with the rest of the industry, the company was facing increased
price competition and a downward trend in sales caused by a
saturated market and a shift away from water- and maintenance-
intensive home and garden improvements. ColorTech in particular
was exposed to aggressive demands for lower prices and costly
customization from the big-box stores.
Eager to grow revenue, ColorTech had recently purchased a
Colombian company specializing in cut flowers as part of its growth
strategy to become a strong niche supplier to grocery store chains
and independent florists that sold exotic stems in their arrangements.
ColorTech was also evaluating the acquisition of an Ecuadorian
concern as a way to enter the long-stemmed rose segment of the cut-
flower market.
ColorTech operated its main U.S. greenhouses in Phoenix, Arizona;
San Diego, California; and Columbia, South Carolina. As a
supplement to its own operations, ColorTech leased greenhouse
space in a few other American cities to handle special orders
(including plants that were too delicate to ship long distances) and
negotiated distributor agreements with other greenhouses in some
northern states that enabled it to offer region-specific and seasonal
plants. With a large operation in Nogales, Mexico, its Colombian
acquisition, and plans to expand into Ecuador, ColorTech was quickly
becoming the largest and most international grower in the Western
Hemisphere.
The Phoenix Office
Phoenix was not only the location of ColorTech's corporate
headquarters; it was the site of the founders' first greenhouse and,
quite literally, was the heart of the company. State-of-the-art in their
day, the Phoenix greenhouses still boasted the highest production
levels in the company. Thirteen employees managed the automated
assembly line-like process that produced geraniums, pansies, and
petunias by moving pots on tracks through the greenhouses, starting
with seeds and progressing through various stages of fertilizing,
watering, potting, and labeling for customers. The shipping area was
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an energizing riot of flowering color and shouted instructions in
Spanish as thousands of color products were packed and shipped to
ColorTech customers around the United States.
The six sales staff and the greenhouse administrative workers sat in
the company's original offices, which were attached to one of the
original greenhouses. Located onsite but detached from the
greenhouses, the newer corporate offices had a more formal
atmosphere and dress code. Spanish was the default language in the
greenhouses due to the high concentration of laborers with ancestry
in Mexico and Central America, but during meetings in the corporate
offices everyone spoke English, even executives from the Colombia
and Mexico operations. In the sales office, English was spoken
publicly, but most people spoke Spanish to communicate one-on-one.
Many of the greenhouse workers cooked their lunches on a portable
grill that, at the direction of management, was kept on the far side of
the building complex and out of sight of the parking lots. Sales staff
often shared these outdoor lunches with the greenhouse workers, but
corporate staff did not.
Getting There
As she prepared to leave Chicago, Richardson juggled her sales
manager training courses with packing and saying goodbye to long-
time clients in the Chicago area. The latter was no small task, as over
the past eight years Richardson had built a substantial client base that
had earned her frequent sales awards. In the middle of a wet April
snow shower, however, she hugged her mother goodbye and drove
toward the interstate that would take her west to Arizona.
During the long drive, Richardson had ample time to reflect on the
content discussed in her management training courses. As a
salesperson, Richardson had not been exposed to many of the
management issues, paperwork, and processes covered in the
classes. Legal issues related to human resources had been stressed
repeatedly, but Richardson had little confidence in her understanding
of the risks and requirements. Fortunately, every manager-in-training
had received a business card from the vice president of human
resources with the instruction, “When in doubt, give us a shout.”
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More frustrating, Richardson felt the courses about leading teams and
troubleshooting problems had been of little benefit. She could see that
senior managers were trying to help her by sharing stories about their
own experiences, but unless her problems were exactly the same,
Richardson was not sure how she could apply what they had told her.
She had been reading leadership books on her own, however, and
had started to develop her vision and ways to share it with her team.
She especially enjoyed books that listed hundreds of ideas for
motivating teams; she could already picture the Friday afternoon
pizza lunches and ice cream cart celebrations she would sponsor
when they exceeded their quarterly sales goals.
Based on some conversations she had had with other Phoenix staff in
her courses, Richardson decided to brush up on her high school
Spanish by listening to Spanish language tapes during her drive from
Chicago to Phoenix. It also helped pass the time on the long trip. After
three days on the road, Richardson pulled into Phoenix on a sunny
80-degree Friday afternoon. She could not wait for Monday.
A First Look
Literally, Richardson could not wait for Monday. After she checked in
with her landlady, Richardson headed directly to the office. She knew
Friday was casual day at ColorTech, so her jeans would fit right in.
She found the office manager, who showed Richardson her office,
directed her to the supply closet, gave her a set of keys, and wished
her good luck. Richardson eased into her chair and with a kick of her
feet spun herself around, smiling as she rotated a full 360 degrees.
Then she left a voicemail message with Beth Campbell, her regional
sales manager. Campbell apparently had already left her Los Angeles
office for the weekend. Richardson frowned. She had met Campbell
only once during her interview in Chicago, and she had hoped to
schedule some one-on-one time to get a better feel for Campbell's
management style and expectations.
Richardson took stock of her office and the supplies she would need,
made a few notes, and then began to head out the door to start
unpacking boxes in her apartment. She would return early on
Saturday so that everything would be in order when she officially
started on Monday morning.
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As she was leaving the office, Richardson took a quick tour of the
area where her salespeople worked. It was only four o'clock on a
Friday afternoon, but no one was there. Except for the receptionist,
the office manager, and a few other administrative staff, the floor was
empty. Where was everyone? In Chicago, Richardson worked six
days a week and was on call Sundays. Customers could depend on
her to answer her mobile phone anytime and anywhere. She
wondered what kind of relationship her absent sales team could
possibly have with customers and immediately understood why
hardheaded bosses held sales team meetings on Friday afternoons.
Clearly, this team needed to get into shape.
Sales Team
Richardson spent Saturday arranging the furniture in her office and
the items on her desk. She set up folders for each of her team
members, which included three account representatives and two store
merchandisers. ColorTech store merchandisers supported the
account reps for the big-box stores by working closely with customers
to ensure that merchandise arrived undamaged, replacement product
was ordered when there was damage, and unsold product was
shipped back to the greenhouses for possible redistribution or
recycling. Store merchandisers often were promoted to become
account representatives.
From her predecessor's notes, Richardson assembled some basic
information on her team (see Table 1).
Table 1: Phoenix Sales Team
Alex Hoffman
Account
Representative
Age: 32
Length of service: 8 years
Sales this year: $2.11 MM
Sales last year: $1.95 MM
Sales previous year: $1.85 MM
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Gregorio Torres
Account
Representative
Age: 36
Length of service: 12 years
Sales this year: $850K
Sales last year: $950K
Sales previous year: $1.05 MM
Sarah Vega
Account
Representative
Age: 26
Length of service: 3 years
Sales this year: $950K
Sales last year: $1.10 MM
Sales previous year: $900K
Chelsea Peterson
Store Merchandiser
Age: 23
Length of service: 2 years
Nick Ruiz
Store Merchandiser
Age: 22
Length of service: 1 year
Seeking promotion to account
representative
Hoffman was the top salesperson in the company, and he had earned
every award and received every perk ColorTech offered. Richardson
was not sure how he achieved his sales numbers; his customers had
limits on how much product they could purchase in a given season.
She figured he must be making phone sales outside his area,
something Richardson did to boost her own numbers in Chicago. If
that were the case, she had to give him credit for taking that kind of
initiative.
Richardson had no information about Torres except that his sales
numbers were low for his tenure with the company and lower this year
than last. She made a note to discuss this with him.
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Vega was new to sales and had only been with ColorTech for three
years. Her numbers were sporadic from month to month and year to
year. Richardson was unsure if she just needed more time to build her
client base or if something else was going on. Richardson made
another note. Maybe she could give Torres and Vega some Friday
afternoon lessons. She smiled at that, remembering the empty office
yesterday afternoon.
The sales team was supported by two store merchandisers, Nick Ruiz
and Chelsea Peterson. Both appeared to have arrived fresh out of
college. Ruiz had apparently expressed an interest in joining the sales
team. Richardson liked that kind of initiative and decided she would
talk to him to find out more; if he had the right stuff, she would keep
him in mind.
First Meeting
Late Sunday night Richardson got a call from her regional manager,
Campbell, who said she would be unable make it to Phoenix in the
morning and asked if Richardson could introduce herself to her new
team. Campbell also said she would e-mail the first quarter sales
report to Richardson for her to complete. The report had to be
submitted by April 15—in eight days. Although this was not exactly
welcome news, Richardson figured she may as well learn how to do
the report now and entered the due date into her calendar.
Richardson arrived at the office on Monday morning before anyone
else. She wanted to greet her team members individually as they
came in rather than show up after some had already settled in at their
desks. The first arrival, a neatly dressed man with shoulder-length
black hair and a dazzling smile, had a tray of cookies in one arm, a
bakery box in the other, and a messenger bag slung over his
shoulder. Richardson offered to help him with the door, but before she
could introduce herself, he gave her a big smile and said, “You must
be Melissa! I'm Gregorio. Hola! Welcome to the Phoenix office. Here,
take this box. It's for you.” Flustered by the unexpected gesture,
Richardson took the box and thanked him.
As Torres hurried into the kitchen with the cookies, a man and woman
walked in the door. Box in hand, Richardson greeted them. “Hi, I'm
Melissa. And you must be…?” “Alex. Alex Hoffman,” said the young
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man abruptly, with barely a smile. “And this is Chelsea.” “Hi!” said the
young woman as they hurried past her to the kitchen. Ruiz arrived a
few minutes later and punched in just before 9:00 a.m. The only one
missing was Vega.
Wanting to establish some order the office seemed to lack,
Richardson popped her head into the kitchen where the team
members had congregated and announced a meeting in the
conference room at 9:15 a.m. so she could get acquainted with them.
At 9:15, Vega still had not arrived at the office. Torres, Ruiz, and
Peterson were sitting in the big leather chairs around the conference
table and Hoffman was nowhere to be seen. After a fruitless scan of
the floor, Richardson returned to the conference room to start the
meeting. “I said 9:15,” she thought, “so we're starting at 9:15.”
Richardson delivered the short speech she had prepared. She began
by explaining her background with ColorTech and then said she had
some ideas for improving sales in Phoenix and looked forward to
learning what motivated each of them. She ended by sharing her goal
to make Phoenix the number one sales office. Just as Richardson
finished her speech, Hoffman barged into the room, mobile phone in
hand, and noisily took the conference chair closest to the door.
Richardson stood with her mouth slightly open as he continued texting
on his phone. At that moment, a woman who must have been Vega
rushed into the room, obviously having run from the parking lot. “Are
we having a meeting? Sorry I'm late, but the traffic was killer. What did
I miss?” She sat down next to Hoffman, looked up, smiled, and said,
“Oh! You must be Melissa!”
Before Richardson could respond, a young man in coveralls knocked
on the open conference room door. “Melissa Richardson? I'm T.J., the
greenhouse manager. Ms. Campbell called me this morning and told
me to give you a tour of the operations.”
Richardson sighed. The interruption only added to her feeling that this
meeting had been a weak introduction to her team, but a part of her
welcomed the excuse to disappear. Before she left she told the team
she would work her way across the floor later in the day to find out
more about their work and their expectations from her as the new
sales manager. Richardson thanked them for their time, and as she
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walked out the door with T.J., she heard Torres saying something
terse to Vega in Spanish. Vega replied in an equally curt tone.
Richardson felt the tension in the air as she walked out of the room.
Getting to Know the Team
It took longer than an afternoon for Richardson to meet with each
member of her team. Due to her own phone meetings with personnel
and a mountain of paperwork (“Why didn't anyone tell me I would
spend so much time on paperwork?” she thought), Richardson had to
settle for meeting with everyone over the first week.
Alex Hoffman
During her meeting with Hoffman, Richardson felt a continuation of
the dismissive attitude she had noticed on Monday. Regarding his
sales, if she read him right, Hoffman loved the annual and perennial
color business but had no interest in selling cut flowers. In frustration,
he told Richardson, “So you're asking me to call on every little mom-
and-pop florist shop to sell them, what, a couple thousand a month in
stems? You've got to be kidding! Why don't you just let me deal with
the real customers?”
Gregorio Torres
Richardson's meeting with Torres was no more successful, but for
different reasons. Torres seemed uninterested in discussing his sales
performance, but he was enthusiastic about sharing his ideas for a
new website to manage customer service, especially for the small
florist shops ColorTech was targeting with the new cut-flower
business. Richardson had to admit that Torres had some creative
ideas for servicing scattered, low-volume florists that might be
customers someday, but she needed him to be making sales now.
When asked why he felt his sales numbers were so low, he shrugged.
“I'm just not a hard-sell kind of guy,” he answered. “I keep getting in
trouble with the greenhouses for the orders I'm taking. They are so
rigid in there. I keep getting caught between customers who are trying
to meet demand and that archaic greenhouse operation that can
change course only with three months' advance notice!”
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Nick Ruiz
From the moment Ruiz met Richardson, he wanted her to know he
would do whatever it took to get into a sales position. His attitude
proved refreshing to Richardson after her discussions with Hoffman
and Torres. Ruiz knew a lot about the product from his conversations
with customers. In addition, being on site with the Phoenix
greenhouses gave him first-hand knowledge about the operation that
account reps in other locations could never match. During breaks he
often could be found in the greenhouses, following workers around
and asking them about their jobs. Before the end of their short
meeting, Ruiz presented Richardson with his resume and a letter
explaining why he would be a great fit for sales. Richardson left the
meeting with a desire to tap into this young man's energy and drive.
Chelsea Peterson
Peterson, by contrast, was openly hostile to her new boss.
Richardson tried to keep her composure but finally had to be quite
direct. “Look, I'm not sure what's going on,” she said. “We only just
met, so why are you so upset with me?” Through clenched teeth,
Peterson answered, “I know you've been talking to Nick about
promoting him to account rep. I've been here six months longer than
him.” “I didn't know you were interested in a sales position,”
Richardson replied, trying to sound calm. “I didn't know there was an
opening!” Peterson exclaimed. “A position isn't open right now, but if
you're interested, why don't you put together your resume, and you
can be considered should something come up,” Richardson
responded, trying to defuse the situation. “I would think you of all
people would want to give this opportunity to another woman,”
retorted Peterson. And with that, the meeting was over.
Sarah Vega
It took Richardson a few days to pin down Vega for a meeting.
Richardson could not help thinking of a butterfly whenever Vega came
into a room. She arrived late and flitted about before sitting down, only
to begin fidgeting again after a few minutes. Vega's approach to her
job seemed equally scattered. Her messages piled up at the reception
desk. Her product knowledge was deep in some places and almost
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nonexistent in others, and she seemed more interested in the text
messages that were constantly coming in to her phone than in the
career advice Richardson was trying to deliver.
By Friday, Richardson was weary and her enthusiasm had waned a
bit. So far, she had seen more challenges than positives in her sales
team. She made a few notes on each person and added them to her
files (see Table 2).
Table 2: Phoenix Sales Team—Additional Information
Alex Hoffman
Account
Representative
Likes color industry, unclear about ColorTech (or
me)
Go-getter, top seller, driven by commissions
Resistant to selling new stem products
Gregorio
Torres
Account
Representative
Seems to like the company, but not closing sales
Ideas about customer service website
Understands products and customer service, but
does he understand greenhousing?
Sarah Vega
Account
Representative
Unfocused, distracted by events outside of work?
Uneven sales performance, often late or absent
May need training
Chelsea
Peterson
Store
Merchandiser
Negative interactions are the norm
Interested in sales position when open, but no
experience, skills
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Nick Ruiz
Store
Merchandiser
Enthusiastic, knowledgeable
Ready for sales position when open (see resume in
file)
Knows greenhousing from the ground up
The deadline for the quarterly sales report, April 15, was Monday, and
she still did not know where to get many of the numbers, even though
she had the last report as a reference. It looked as if her plans to bike
and hike over the weekend would have to take a back seat.
Problems Emerge
Sales Report
The quarterly sales report was an exercise in frustration. Richardson
spent hours working on it over the weekend but finally had to give up
because some of the numbers on the previous report made no sense.
She faxed what she had to Campbell first thing Monday morning. The
phone rang almost immediately. Without even saying “Good morning,”
Campbell started in. “You're using last quarter's report as a reference?
Do you know why your predecessor left? He was fired for falsifying his
reports!” Richardson wondered why that bit of news had not been
shared with her before she had been assigned to do the report or
even had accepted the job. Rather than challenge Campbell,
however, she apologized. “I'm sorry, I had no idea,” she said. “I can
still work on this. The deadline's not until five o'clock.” Campbell
replied, “Never mind. I'll do it myself.” And then with a little impatience
in her voice, she added, “You should start thinking about your monthly
report, which is due in three weeks.” Richardson started to ask if they
could review it together before the May 6 deadline but Campbell cut
her off, saying, “I'll e-mail the form and you can start getting
acquainted with it now.”
Greenhouse Woes
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In late April, a fungus infected one of the greenhouses in the
Colombia cut-flower facility, resulting in the need to destroy the stock
inside it, disinfect it, and start over. The result would be weeks of
delay in orders to new customers, most of them small florists.
Richardson's sales team could not afford to lose these hard-won new
accounts, so she looked for help in filling the affected orders; her
team might have to absorb the added cost of placing rush orders, but
heroic efforts could save the accounts. Richardson's hopes rose when
she heard the Nogales manager had connections with local cut-flower
providers in Mexico, but those hopes were soon dashed when she
was told the export paperwork alone would take weeks, and even that
was possible only with personal attention the manager did not have
time to give. For Richardson, the most frustrating part of the problem
was that the delivery date was still a few weeks in the future; it was as
if she were watching an automobile accident in slow motion and could
do nothing to stop it. Unable to think of a viable alternative,
Richardson made the difficult phone calls to her team's new
customers and attempted to make good by offering discounts on
future orders.
HR Challenges
When she had a moment to spare, Richardson tried to work with her
team members. But Hoffman almost never came into the office and
never answered his phone, so Richardson had to contact him by
sending e-mails and leaving voicemail messages. When he learned
about the fungus problem in Colombia, he seemed almost smug and
his tone of voice seemed to say, “I told you so!” The Colombia fiasco
seemed to have deflated Torres more than ever, and Richardson
could not find a way to motivate him.
A call from personnel informed Richardson that Vega was missing a
day of work almost every week for some reason—a dentist
appointment, a sick day, and so on. Richardson had learned that
Vega lived with her extended family just outside of Phoenix, and she
suspected Vega might be staying home to help care for her cousin's
baby. Richardson did not think that qualified as family leave, but she
made a note to confirm it with personnel.
Surprise Customer Visit
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Just when Richardson thought she could not manage one more
challenge, a regional buyer for Home Depot made a surprise site visit
to the greenhouse. Everything was fine until he noticed that the
product was being put in the wrong pots—each big-box customer
received plants in plastic pots that showed its unique bar codes for
price scanning and inventory management. This mistake would mean
the team would be charged for emergency repotting costs as well as
discounts offered as compensation for delayed delivery if they did not
act quickly.
Richardson called on her team to show up at the greenhouse the next
Saturday morning to help repot plants. She thought it would be a team
builder, but it turned into another failure. Torres and Ruiz arrived early,
ready to work. Vega, as usual, was late and came dressed in a
business suit. Hoffman and Peterson never showed up. Richardson's
mood darkened as Vega, Torres, and Ruiz fell into an easy Spanish
banter with the greenhouse employees. Despite her efforts with the
language tapes, she could not understand a word. Her team members
seemed to be bonding with each other, anyway. Richardson smiled
ruefully; she never imagined that being promoted to sales manager
would result in her being up to her elbows in dirt on a Saturday.
Richardson heard the phone ringing from the hallway as she made
her way back to her office at three o'clock that afternoon. When she
answered, she heard Campbell say, “Oh, you're there. I was going to
leave you a message to remind you that you need to get your monthly
report in on Monday. And don't forget, you need to submit your team's
monthly expense reports on Monday, too.” More paperwork. Staring at
the dirt under her fingernails, Richardson took a deep breath.
“Monday. Right,” was all she had the energy to say. “Is everything all
right?” Campbell asked. “Fine. Everything's fine,” said Richardson in
the most professional tone she could muster.
Events Lead to a Crisis
Sales Take a Hit
Sales results were down for the rest of May and June, in part because
Colombia had struggled to get the greenhouse fungus under control
and also because the big-box stores seemed to be heaping more and
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more demands on all growers, ColorTech included. Richardson was
working twelve-hour days, six and sometimes seven days a week.
She felt most of her time was spent babysitting her team: Hoffman's
sales continued to be strong, but he would not share information if
Richardson did not specifically ask for it; Torres continued to whine
about his web-based customer service project while his sales
numbers slid; Vega had a great May, but her June sales were down
50 percent; Ruiz was starting to test Richardson's patience with his
perky inquiries about a sales position; and Peterson mostly pouted.
Richardson's team hated paperwork as much as she did, so she
asked Torres to do some of his colleagues' reports for them in order to
meet their deadlines.
Campbell Visit Part 1: A Cryptic Message
Campbell made a visit to the Phoenix office in early June, which
Richardson suspected was to make sure the monthly sales report was
going to be done on time. They sat down together to review the
report, and Campbell corrected some of Richardson's mistakes. It was
an uneventful meeting, and when it was over Campbell left
Richardson with the advice: “Keep your eyes on the prize.”
New Customer
At the end of June, Richardson closed a big client. She had met the
regional buyer for Lowe's during a trip to Chicago, where she learned
Lowe's was interested in a new southwestern supplier for annuals and
perennials. She arranged a meeting in Phoenix and closed the deal
after Lowe's had a tour of the greenhouses. She was also now
working with a large grocery chain to switch its cut-flower business to
ColorTech. Richardson asked Torres to meet with her and the buyer.
After that meeting, Torres was more energized than she had ever
seen him; he was full of ideas for servicing this demanding, detail-
oriented type of customer.
Campbell Visit Part 2: Crisis
When she visited again in early July, Campbell did not even mention
the new Lowe's and grocery chain customers. After reviewing the
monthly sales revenues and expenses, Campbell asked Richardson
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what she was doing to address performance issues with her team, as
sales figures were below last year's. After listening to Richardson's
explanations about the Colombia greenhouse problems and the big
boxes' increasingly idiosyncratic demands, Campbell pushed her
chair back and asked, “Is there something you need to tell me about
Chelsea Peterson?” Before Richardson could figure out why she was
being asked about the store merchandiser, Campbell shared that she
had received a call from ColorTech legal the previous day informing
her that someone claiming to be Chelsea Peterson's attorney had
called to ask about ColorTech's gender diversity record.
Richardson was shocked. A couple of weeks ago, Peterson had
finally submitted a resume, but she had failed to include a cover letter.
More important, she lacked the experience and enthusiasm for a
sales position, and she had continued to be just barely civil to
Richardson. And with sales down, there was no chance of adding an
account rep. Richardson had explained to Peterson why she was not
ready for a sales position and suggested some ColorTech training
courses Peterson could take to prepare herself. Peterson had left the
meeting angry and had not raised the topic since. Now it seemed she
had hired an attorney—because she was denied a position that did
not even exist.
Conclusion
After Campbell left that afternoon, Richardson sat in stunned silence.
She thought back to her naïve dreams of Friday pizza lunches and ice
cream cart celebrations. Not only was there no money in her budget
for parties, her team had not earned those kinds of rewards—nor had
even acted like a team. She had had such high hopes for making a
difference in Phoenix. “What's wrong with them? What's wrong with
me?” Richardson thought. “I wonder if I could go back to Chicago.
Maybe my old boss would take me back.” She heaved a big sigh and
asked herself, “What do I do now?”
This case was prepared for inclusion in SAGE Business Casesprimarily as a basis for classroom discussion or self-study, and is notmeant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles.Nothing herein shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind.
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