Barbara Wilson

Barbara Wilson is a regional sales manager at FMC, a company that used to be the market leader for infant food in the USA but it has experienced a drop in sales growth and earnings due to various internal and external factors. Management is looking for demand stimuli and wants to find complementary product offerings. In her role as a regional sales manager Barbara is expected to meet certain sales target and to find a way how to diversify product offering and creating new channels for sales but in reality she is experiencing difficulties meeting those due to her lack of integration in the team. She would need help from her team but only gets limited input and vague ideas. This gap puts pressure on her and causes insecurity. While she is worried about meeting sales target, another team in Florida constantly manages to overachieve the sales plan by 10% constantly, which seems like a mystery to Barbara.

One root cause for described problem is that Barbara is a „Newbie“ to the organization, as she did not take the usual career path of being promoted throughout the years. She became regional sales manager immediately, which may affect the trust within the team with regard to her capabilities. Moreover from a client’s perspective, this is in line with the missing integration in her team. She seems to be merely a manager holding the ties but it does not seem as she is part of the team and thus the physical and emotional distance prevents her from building trust and getting new ideas, which are urgently needed. Further, she is not getting support from any one and is rather a one-woman-show. There is a high power distance and a lack of collectivism observable from the client’s side, which seems to be an obstacle. With regard to other people her sales team signals her, that they are working at full capacity and current methods are exhausted. The underlying problem is there do not seem to be any communication or feedback channels/ culture, which allows them to communicate properly and find ways to reinvent their system of sales. It may also be that employee engagement is rather low and therefore there is no drive perform better or to contribute more. The organization itself also contributes significantly to Barbara’s problem. Employees do not have an incentive to come up with new ideas, as the reward system within in the company is broken. Further the reward system does not incentivise new ideas but also increasing the sales target by 10% every year is a negative incentive. Also extrinsic motivation (MARS-Model) is more fostered through this system. Receiving 500 dollars for an idea compared to profits made exemplifies a lack of utilitarianism and lack of justice. Additionally, the organization is characterized by a high degree of bureaucracy. People lack autonomy in their work in order to come up with innovation. Also exchange between the branches is not fostered and due to physical distance trust building is hampered. Lastly