In an earlier post (Is Promotion A Reward for Performance) I had spoken about how organizations can stall the outcomes of an important process by positioning it inappropriately as something which is attributed as a reward for performance. However performance is a necessary but no sufficient condition for a promotion.
Take the simple case of A being the best territory sales representative for Pharma Co. As a Territory sales person he is responsible for ensuring good services to clients within a geographical boundary, increasing sales all at optimal travel and overhead costs. He is the star performer among sales folks. A is a a go-getter, loves traveling, loves meeting people and extremely achievement oriented. He always prefers to be in the limelight, gets excited and highly motivated when receives a praise and recognition from the Regional Sales Head or the Territory Sales Manager. The Regional Sales Head had just received a resignation letter from the Territory Sales Manager and was contemplating making A the new Territory Sales Manager in next 3 months.
When he discussed the proposal with the HR Manager he got the following feedback. A loves to follow schedules, meet Doctors as per assigned protocols and engage with them in a very pleasing and detailed oriented manner. However he really hates managing outcome of others. He just can't lead a team, motivate performance, coach or mentor others. He prefers being a star and can't stand losing out on sales targets. He gets completely dejected and takes the failures to meet targets as his own doing.
The regional sales head knows this very well and is not sure how to retain A if he is not able to promote him in at least next 2 years. But the question is will he be setting up for failure.
It is in the interest of the organization to do something else to retain him. So promoting your best sales guy might end up in your having a bad fit for a Territory Manager role because he has to fix targets for others, drive up motivation, arrange team meetings, take stock of weekly performance all of which is not something that A is very keen on. He needs a fair bit of coaching before he can take up the role of Territory Manager and the HR team feels that this can happen only after 2 years of inputs
So what options does a manager have to retain A. Here are three ways it can be done. While the first is essential you have a choice among the other two.
Take the simple case of A being the best territory sales representative for Pharma Co. As a Territory sales person he is responsible for ensuring good services to clients within a geographical boundary, increasing sales all at optimal travel and overhead costs. He is the star performer among sales folks. A is a a go-getter, loves traveling, loves meeting people and extremely achievement oriented. He always prefers to be in the limelight, gets excited and highly motivated when receives a praise and recognition from the Regional Sales Head or the Territory Sales Manager. The Regional Sales Head had just received a resignation letter from the Territory Sales Manager and was contemplating making A the new Territory Sales Manager in next 3 months.
When he discussed the proposal with the HR Manager he got the following feedback. A loves to follow schedules, meet Doctors as per assigned protocols and engage with them in a very pleasing and detailed oriented manner. However he really hates managing outcome of others. He just can't lead a team, motivate performance, coach or mentor others. He prefers being a star and can't stand losing out on sales targets. He gets completely dejected and takes the failures to meet targets as his own doing.
The regional sales head knows this very well and is not sure how to retain A if he is not able to promote him in at least next 2 years. But the question is will he be setting up for failure.
It is in the interest of the organization to do something else to retain him. So promoting your best sales guy might end up in your having a bad fit for a Territory Manager role because he has to fix targets for others, drive up motivation, arrange team meetings, take stock of weekly performance all of which is not something that A is very keen on. He needs a fair bit of coaching before he can take up the role of Territory Manager and the HR team feels that this can happen only after 2 years of inputs
So what options does a manager have to retain A. Here are three ways it can be done. While the first is essential you have a choice among the other two.
- Assign a performance coach and work through action and improvement areas. Needs to be a two way process starting with establishing objectives, working through with understanding barriers to improvement and then action planning followed by action to change
- Have an alternative engagement model for motivating and incentivizing the Sales Person (A in this case). This is very important and should be done in parallel to the coaching assignment. That way A is focused on the achievement and it is important this laddering (showing few more steps on the path towards something different or a new role is to be done)is important. Most organizations fail on this count and thus are unable to retain your good performer and lose them for lack of action taken.
- Look for a rotation to a new location or new product line in same role and change the context for the individual. It is more likely he / she will be engaged for the period since the change and parallely you need to work on the coaching bit
At times you may be promoting someone into his or her area of expertise or capability then in such case it may be a good thing but if not then it is a sure shot for failure.
Look forward to some ideas and comments and if you liked it feel free to share.
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