Break into pairs, with one student playing each character. It doesn’t matter what the actual gender mix of your pair is. Before you stage the continuation of the above-mentioned meeting between Roscoe and Pat, work separately using the material in your chapter to come up with a logical set of selection criteria you each believe will be important to discuss in the meeting. Then get together and role-play the meeting between Roscoe and Pat. Think about the various types of clients Bass Brokers is likely to sell fishing products to—essentially, any type of retail outlet that carries such products. Also consider what you learned above about the culture and values of the company. Roscoe and Pat's goal is to compare their ideas and come up with a list of selection criteria that are most important to apply in hiring Bass Brokers salespeople. For the criteria that make your final list, be sure to note why you two agree each is important. Sales vice president Roscoe Lee slammed his fist down on the desk in his office, startling human resources manager Pat Tollford. “Sales District 5 has got to get control of their turnover,” Roscoe exclaimed. “Why is the turnover rate among salespeople in that district running 20 percent annually when the company average is less than 3 percent per year?”

Roscoe and Pat work at the home office of Bass Brokers, Inc., a sales brokerage firm that represents lines of fishing equipment sold in a variety of retail outlets across the United States and Canada. Bass Brokers was started in 1987 by avid fisherman Pug Pike, who literally sold fishing lures out of the trunk of his car to mom-and-pop tackle shops in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bass Brokers now represents some of the top lines of lures and other fishing equipment supplies and has grown to a sales force of 60 spread across six sales districts in the United States and Canada. Each district is led by a district sales manager who reports directly to Roscoe.