While I won’t do this scenario justice, I thought this was one of the more challenging management issues I’ve seen lately.
A 20 year employee of a major company has risen to a senior sales role. Two thirds of their territory are performing above plan, and one third below. The one third below is pulling the entire sales organization below plan. The territories that are under performing don’t have any special market challenges - It’s a management issue. The senior sales exec has been ineffective at helping the under performing team. The senior sales exec has 20 years of positive reviews and HR won’t support firing them. The senior sales exec is also well like by their employees and is seen as a positive force in the organization. But, the overall market is growing over 10% and the executives are putting pressure on you to fix the problem.
Big companies can be highly political and even though an employee can be strong in many facets of management, it’s not uncommon for one or two major weaknesses to be present. My take is that since there are strong performing teams that the problem is isolated to a few regional managers. The senior execs weakness is poor performance management. It may be because they’ve worked with the people a long time and feel loyalty to them or because they can’t deliver a tough message. Either way, the senior exec needs help. I suggested two things. One, taking one of the good performing managers and expanding their territory to include one of the poor performing territories. Second, removing the poor management, and hiring a replacement. If the senior exec resisted the help, to place them in another job since you’re unable to fire them.
How would you handle it?
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