ONE
The Unguided Missile

Percy Pershing was out of control again. His supervisor, Pauline Smith, was frustrated—and the company was hurting.

Pauline prided herself in running a tight ship. She supervised twenty salespeople, encouraging them to sell and service energetically the firm’s high-quality products. Customer feedback on the product line continued to be extremely positive. However, sales had been relatively flat for the past two years and the company just couldn’t seem to capitalize on its product excellence in the marketplace.

Percy’s recent trends were a case in point. As she looked at the latest sales report, Pauline saw two lines on a graph. One line, which represented the sales goals she and Percy had agreed upon six months previously, headed toward the northeast corner of the chart. The other line—actual sales for the reporting period—dipped and dived erratically on its downward path toward the southeast corner of the graph. Percy is as unpredictable as an unguided missile, Pauline thought.

This report was only the latest of several that had delivered equally bad news regarding Percy’s performance over the past several months. Pauline liked Percy and did not look forward to the prospect of confronting him. Until six months ago, Percy had been one of her best salespeople, and she did not want to discourage him. She had hoped that by giving him some time and encouragement, he might self-correct and the problem would go away. She knew that Percy meant well, and she had originally decided to wait until the formal performance appraisal at the end of the year to raise her concerns with him.

COMPANY SALES REPORT

But this latest report was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Percy’s sales hadn’t improved. In fact, they had declined further. She decided that as much as she hated the prospect, she would need to have a serious talk with him. She called him and scheduled a meeting for the next day.

In this brief meeting, she tried to remain friendly and supportive as she delivered the bad news. “If sales do not improve, you won’t receive your year-end bonus.”

She had given him ample time to change his course. She had cut him as much slack as any reasonable manager could. He was now facing his last chance.

Of course, Percy had a different view of the situation. In the intervening months since his last performance appraisal, Percy had assumed that no news was good news. He knew that he wasn’t even close to achieving his goals—for the second quarter in a row—but he was also aware that other people were experiencing similar problems. It’s not that he wasn’t trying. He had put in more than his fair share of hours and had done his best to provide good service to his customers. Surely Pauline could see that. He had expected at least some positive comments from her.

Instead, Percy left Pauline’s office feeling shocked and betrayed. She had been cordial enough, but instead of acknowledging his hard work, she had focused on the poor sales. Didn’t she realize he was doing his best? Didn’t she realize how much extra time he had been putting in? Even when he hadn’t met his sales quotas, he had spent a lot of extra time with customers after the sale to help them install the product and learn how to use it.

Pauline is as unpredictable as an unguided missile, Percy thought. As he looked toward the future, he concluded that it would be increasingly difficult to work in an environment where the capricious and unpredictable behavior of his manager placed his compensation—and perhaps even his job security—at risk.

In contrast to Percy’s feelings of betrayal, Pauline was simply confused. Percy had actually seemed surprised when she told him in a very calm, friendly way that his work was not satisfactory. After all, they had mutually agreed on clear goals that had not been met. In reality, he had not even come close. How could he have been surprised?

As unpleasant as the meeting had become, she still hoped Percy could turn himself around. It would take considerable time and money to find another employee to replace him. By the time the new person was up to speed, another year of vital new account sales development would be lost.

Pauline was confident that she was a good manager. She had high expectations for her team. She set challenging goals for herself and for her people. She encouraged them to come to her with problems and offered them her support in numerous ways.

She believed in empowerment, too. She let her salespeople take initiative and encouraged them to work directly with anyone within the organization to solve problems and respond more effectively to customers. She was the kind of manager she wished she’d had when she was a sales rep years ago.

As she reflected on her encounter with Percy, she determined that she would have to reinforce the company’s goals as clearly as possible during his performance appraisal at the end of the year.

Pauline just doesn’t know how to manage, Percy thought. I do my best, but my best is not good enough for a manager who doesn’t know what she wants from her people.

Had this been an isolated incident, Percy might have simply dismissed it as the result of Pauline’s grumpiness on a bad day. Most managers have those every once in a while—as do most people. But he had heard from too many of his colleagues about similar incidents. As a result, the company had lost many valuable and talented people.

Just two months earlier, Mandy had complained bitterly to Percy about a run-in she had had with Pauline. Her sales figures had shown improvement over the preceding months, yet Pauline had called her and had spoken sharply about an isolated complaint she had received from one of Mandy’s customers. While Pauline had made a valid point about the problem with that customer, she hadn’t made any mention of the hundreds of satisfied customers Mandy had worked with over the past several years. In fact, Mandy had become so de-motivated by Pauline’s phone call that she abandoned a new system she had developed called “personal selling excellence,” or PSE. Her sales—and her enthusiasm—continued to decline until one day she was gone. Percy had no idea where she went.

Meanwhile, Sena, another of Percy’s counterparts, always seemed to be spinning his wheels. He was capable and motivated but had never been in a sales position before. He worked hard and was enthusiastic but didn’t know the first thing about selling the company’s products. Percy could see that Sena’s job would be in jeopardy if someone didn’t offer him some friendly advice on basic selling techniques. Percy had considered talking to Sena himself. Here was a real tragedy in the making—a potentially great salesperson was failing because he didn’t know he was going about his job in an entirely ineffective manner. Percy decided it really wasn’t his business and he didn’t want to intrude. A few days later, Sena was gone.

Finally there was Greg, the top salesperson in the organization. Percy didn’t know where Greg ended up when he left the company, but he did know that Greg’s departure, too, had been entirely unnecessary. When the company had downsized its sales force about two years earlier, the sales force was shocked to see two of the hardest-working salespeople get pink slips. While it was widely known that two other salespeople, Carrie and Yvette, had missed their sales quotas and were generally lazy when it came to helping their colleagues and customers, they had remained in the company unscathed while two spirited performers had been asked to leave. Greg had watched this process carefully and wondered if he could be next. This led to so much insecurity on his part that he decided to move on.

Pauline was taken entirely by surprise on that one and expressed her regret that the top salesperson in her organization was leaving. She even offered him a bonus to encourage him to reconsider, but he left nonetheless.

Percy recalled that when the layoffs hit, Greg had confided in him. He had said that he had no confidence in the integrity of the company’s feedback and reward system. He knew he was excellent at what he did and would have no trouble finding another great job. As much as he liked the company, he felt that in the event of another downsizing, his job would be as much at risk as anyone’s. He wasn’t sure how much he was valued, and he didn’t see any connection between who performed and who was ultimately laid off.

As Percy reflected on some of these recent incidents, he again wondered whether he should look for another job himself.

As puzzling as Percy’s response had been to their conversation earlier in the day, Pauline had to admit that it wasn’t the first time she had been caught by surprise by one of her people’s reaction to the feedback she had provided. She believed she was skilled at guiding them. She worked with them each year to set challenging yet attainable goals. She tried to avoid giving negative feedback, but if matters got too bad, she would meet with individuals privately so they wouldn’t be embarrassed. She also held regular meetings with her staff to benchmark and discuss organization progress. And as much as she hated the process, she spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for and conducting the company’s formal performance appraisals at the end of each year. What else could she reasonably do to communicate her position to people when matters were not going well?

Admittedly, Pauline loathed the whole idea of performance appraisals—nasty pieces of paper that had to be filled out in great detail. Even so, she had considered changing from annual reviews to semiannual reviews. She thought perhaps this would help keep her team on track. After all, the annual approach didn’t seem to accomplish anything meaningful.

On her commute home, Pauline decided that there had to be a better way to give her employees feedback. And she was determined to find it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Inadequate and inconsistent feedback leads to frustrated people and managers alike.

• Without a proper context, even well-intentioned feedback can result in shock and defensiveness.

• The formal performance appraisal system is usually not an effective vehicle for providing regular feedback to people.