A Novice Manager's Tale of Woe \"Now what do I do?\" Tricia Monet, the store director at Personal Reflections, was sitting in her kitchen wondering what happened. \"Once I was made store director things began so well. We all got along well together; in fact, we even met the store sales quota on more than one occasion. I don't know what happened. All of us got along, but once they knew I might leave, everyone was fighting. I hadn't decided to leave; I was just exploring the option of returning to college. Now Lori won't speak to me except when absolutely necessary. What am I going to do now? How can I get things to run smoothly again?\" Background Personal Reflections, a national chain of personal care and household products, had a store in a mall in Sioux City, Iowa. Tricia, who was 23, had recently moved to Sioux City with her fianc who was transferred by his firm. Before looking for a job, Tricia did some soul searching and decided that she wanted to try something other than accounting for a career. Tricia had completed a bachelor's degree in accounting a year before. After graduation, she worked in an accounting firm for just under a year. Tricia determined she liked interacting with people, but her accounting job kept her working primarily with numbers. She had originally been attracted to accounting because she liked the structure, organization, and \"neatness\" of accounting. Other than the accounting job, her work experience was limited to jobs to work her way through school. She had no supervisory or managerial experience. Tricia was from a large, very close-knit family in an Illinois city near St. Louis, Missouri. The family enjoyed being together and spent as much time as they could with each other even though several members no longer lived in the immediate area. Tricia has both older and younger sisters and brothers. Tricia saw an ad in the Sioux City newspaper in mid-June and applied for an assistant director position at the Personal Reflections store in the mall. Three weeks later, she interviewed with the district manager, was offered the job within two hours, and accepted the job two days later. A week later, Tricia attended a two-week training class in another city. The company seemed great, the benefits were good, the people were helpful, and Tricia believed the training taught her a lot. However, once the initial training was completed, Personal Reflections provided little additional information or support for their store directors. Setup of the Store Most Personal Reflections stores in the district had one store director and two assistant store directors. However, this district manager had hired a third assistant director in one of her other stores, and that store had seen marked improvements. Productivity and efficiency had increased by 20 percent and the turnover for assistant store directors decreased by 33 percent. Because it was so successful in the other store, the district manager decided to try three assistant directors in the Sioux City store as well. Throughout the year, the assistant store directors were scheduled in 9-hour shifts and on many days the shifts overlapped by several hours. On weekends and other busy days, the shifts for assistant store directors were 8am-5pm, 10am-7pm, and 1pm-10pm. Even with lunch and dinner breaks as well as scheduled meetings, there were periods when all three assistant directors were working at the same time. The assistant store directors' shifts varied; they did not always get the same shift time. The store director developed the work schedule for two weeks at a time. The store director's work schedule varied so that she was there during each shift several times each week. Initially, the Sioux City store had a store director, Heather Munson, and two assistant directors, including Tricia. The district manager was still recruiting one more assistant director. All the other employees were part-timers. During the fall and winter holiday season, there were 30 or more part-time employees. During times other than the holiday season, there were generally 10 to 12 part-timers. While Personal Reflections considered current employees for promotion, in the Sioux City store no parttime employee was interested in becoming a full-time employee or being promoted. In the Sioux City store, only four of the part-time employees had worked at the store for two years or more. One employee had worked in the store seven years, while another employee had worked in the store for four years. Two employees had been with the Sioux City store for two years. Personal Reflections ranked its stores based on sales. There were four levels. Level 1 stores had the largest sales volume; the Sioux City store was a level 3. The corporation ran contests periodically. There were monetary bonuses for the stores with the largest sales volume. The sales quotas during those contests were set so high that it was virtually impossible for the smaller stores to meet the quota and receive the bonus. The company believed that active competition between stores, directors, and district managers was good. Practically, what this meant was that only the largest stores, their directors, and district managers achieved the rewards. Separate contests were not held for the smaller stores. Following is an example of a companywide contest. During December, if a store in the district made its weekly sales quota, then the district manager won a trip to Florida and the store manager won a computer. The assistant managers would receive a monetary gift of $1,000. However, the sales quotas were rarely ever achieved, and many districts included a combination of store levels, so smaller stores had a hard time keeping up with the larger volume stores. Tricia's First Three Months Tricia's first day at the Sioux City store was August 1. It was company policy that once new assistant store directors were trained, they were assigned to a store without the store director being involved in the decision. Heather Munson resented being excluded from hiring decisions. Tricia felt like she was being interrogated whenever she interacted with Munson. The store that Tricia was assigned to had consistently failed to meet its sales goals. In addition, the store seemed cluttered and messy. The back room, which was small, served as both break room and storeroom. Most of the merchandise was jammed into the store area. It was difficult for store employees to find merchandise on the store floor, and the customers had an even more difficult time finding what they wanted. When Tricia tried to organize the merchandise on the floor, Munson yelled at her for doing something Munson had not told her to do. Within a week, the other assistant director gave her two-weeks' notice. Once she was gone, the relationship between Tricia and Munson became even more confrontational. After only a month, Tricia was ready to quit. she went home every day for a week thinking that there was no way on earth that she could work with that woman, Heather Munson. By September, Tricia was ready to give her notice. Before she could quit, Munson came to work and said she had back problems and would be going on disability leave. As a result, Tricia was required to act as the store director with barely a month of experience. She was left alone to open and close the store and make all the bank deposits 7 days a week. Excited by the possibilities, she took up the challenge. Within a week or two things began to turn around and the store appeared neater and uncluttered. At the end of September, the district manager told Tricia that Munson would not be returning to her position of store director at Personal Reflections. Throughout September, the district manager was recruiting and hiring assistant managers for the store. By October 1, she had hired three assistant managers. During the first two weeks of October, they were sent to the training session. By the middle of October, the Sioux City store had a complete complement of assistant store directors - Amy, Lori, and Tammy. Tricia was officially offered the store director position at the end of October. During the month of October, the three assistant store directors and Tricia seemed to get along well together. When the announcement was made that Tricia was store director, the assistant store directors were excited for Tricia. In return, Tricia was excited about having assistant store directors to help run the store. Tricia thought to herself, "We have a team now and we can really turn the store around." Tricia said that she could not have imagined a better work environment. All four seemed to share many of the same ideas and goals and even went to dinner one night after work together. Tricia knew the holiday season rush was coming, and it was the busiest time of year. Since all the management staff was relatively new, she wondered how they would do. She knew the next months would be difficult. The three assistant store directors had varying experiences. Lori had only a high school degree. However, she had prior experience in retail and had even been an assistant manager in a retail store. Amy had an associate's degree and had been an assistant manager before. Amy was from Sioux City, had never left her hometown, and did not plan to in the future. Tammy had a degree in social work and had a great deal of life experience. When she was in social work, she had even been in a n supervisory position. She liked things to be very structured and did not like tasks that required creativity. All three were very interested in careers in retail. All three were highly motivated as it related to store goals and doing the best work they could, while Lori and Tammy were also competitive with each other. Getting Ready for the Holiday Rush As November began, Tricia made judgments about the capabilities of the three new assistant store directors, Lori, Amy, and Tammy. Lori clearly had the highest motivation and drive for success. She wanted to achieve everything she could for herself. Tricia quickly made Lori her "right-hand person" and consulted her whenever there were problems. Lori found it easy to do all the paperwork and never made errors. Amy was the most amicable and perhaps the easiest of all to get along with. She did not have much self-confidence and was not at all assertive. She wanted everything to run smoothly and wanted everyone to like her. Amy rarely had any problems with the paperwork and the job responsibilities. Tammy was older than Lori and Amy and more resistant to learning and trying new things. Tammy was struggling with learning to do the forms and getting along in a new environment. Just before working at Personal Reflections, she had worked for six years in a different national retail chain where she had had little authority. As Tricia watched Tammy, she realized that Tammy made frequent mathematical errors on the paperwork she had to complete as part of her position, and sometimes the paperwork was not completed on time. Tammy did not seem to understand the importance of completing the forms efficiently or accurately. She did not understand that errors could mean the store could run out of popular merchandise and thus lose sales. Tricia tried to explain this to Tammy, who said she understood but still made errors on the paperwork. The district manager made it clear that the individual pay structure at Personal Reflections was strictly confidential. Even Tricia as the store director did not know the salaries of the assistant store directors. However, they all felt that they had a good idea about what the others were making, based on comments each of them had made. In a conversation the second week of November, Tammy told Tricia what she was making and that it was more than either Lori or Amy. Tammy, Lori, and Amy had all told each other what they were earning. Tammy was earning $2,000 more than Lori and $4,000 more than Amy. Tricia realized that she herself only made $2,000 more per year than Tammy. She didn't feel that it was fair - after all, she was in charge of the store and was responsible for the bank deposits and stock orders. In addition, Tricia felt that Tammy was the weakest of the three assistant store directors. Tricia's strategy as store director was to create an atmosphere where they were all equals. Tricia always valued their input and comments and used them whenever possible. She set challenging goals for Lori, laughed with Amy, and held Tammy's hand. Tricia believed she had established a congenial work environment while actively working to change the image of the store. She met daily with each assistant store director and weekly with all three. She solicited ideas about how to improve the performance of the store. There were no evident interpersonal conflicts between any of the store employees. Tricia valued the assistant store directors' input. Tricia offered an example. "At the beginning, there was a problem with the props for the window display. We were having difficulty fitting it into smaller window space and were at a loss. Lori and I had put the unit together, and we were very proud of ourselves. Tammy brought it to our attention that it wasn't going to fit, and Amy noticed that the cord would not reach the outlet." In complete shock, Lori and Tricia did not want to see their hard work go to waste. Tricia stepped back and wondered how they were going to work together to solve this issue. Lori was getting very defensive about Tammy's view of the project and time was running out. So Tricia said, "Tammy, Lori - let's improvise. You two work together to cut-and-paste the display so that it fits in the area. Amy, let's find an extension cord and an alternate route to the plug end." By the end of the night, they had worked together to accomplish the task. Tricia's Leadership and Goals Before Tricia became store director, the Sioux City store was messy and disorganized. The store floor was cluttered and the back room was a maze. There was no room to receive shipments. With a back room the size of a large walk-in closet and a loft above the bathroom, no one could ever locate what they needed. Tricia had again involved the assistant store directors in the process. "The store had a problem with running neatly. The back room was not organized at all and no one cared. I had condensed and straightened the back room so that everyone could see what we had. However, the problem was not organizing it, but keeping it that way. Therefore, I assigned each assistant manager to a section of the back room. Each was to label the products, put like items together, and maintain her area. I even had bins brought in to better organize the areas for the back room." Tricia would inspect the back room weekly and determine what needed to be addressed and who was accomplishing this task. By the end, everyone knew each other's section and maintenance was no longer an issue. Tricia also knew the organizing plan had been successful because of the feedback from the part-time employees. The appearance of the sales floor and the back room amazed the four employees who had been at the store the longest. Tricia gained confidence in her abilities. She was proud of the success the store was attaining. Tricia began running daily contests for things such as highest sales for the day, most creative product display, and most helpful associate. Only the part-time employees were eligible for the contests. She involved the assistant store directors in developing and administering the contests. Tricia and her team developed a Fishbowl contest, which was whenever any of the part-time sales associates did a certain type of demonstration on a customer, they were allowed to draw a fish on th poster shaped like a fishbowl. Whoever had the most fish in the bowl at the end of the day received some sort of small prize such as a free pretzel from the local pretzel store or a trial size of the store's product to take hoe. Another type of contest was called the Zone. The store was zoned into five sections, where part-timers were variously assigned. Whenever a part-timer approached a customer and demonstrated a product on her, and the customer bought a product within that zone, the employee's name was written down and put into a hat. At the end of the day, a member of management would draw a name and a small prize would be awarded. Tricia also was allowed to have special employee parties. She could open the store early and "the employees could shop at ease. At these events, we would always award door prized, give special discounts, and sometimes have snacks and beverages for the associates to enjoy. One time right before the holidays, we opened at 7am for our employees and had a morning buffet. We bought donuts, bagels, fruit, and beverages for this event and all employees were given an additional 15 percent off their regular discount." While enjoying the challenge, Tricia wanted to go back to college. She commented to her district manager that she was interested in going back to get her MBA. Immediately before Thanksgiving, Tricia had a management meeting to talk about the upcoming holiday season in the store. At the end of the meeting, Tricia told the assistant store directors that she was thinking of going back to school in January but had not amde her decision yet. She was surprised that they seemed sad and disgruntled by her statement. Amy and Tammy both said that they did not want Tricia to leave. Lori said that if she were Tricia, she would not make the decision to leave, but that Tricia should do what was best for her. Once the three knew what Tricia was considering, the collegial team atmosphere disappeared. Lori started ordering Tammy around and Tammy was ready to quit. Tricia met with each of them about the problem and told them to work it out between the two of them. Soon after, they appeared to be getting along better than before. When Tammy became upset about the benefits program, Tricia directed her to call the company's benefits coordinator. These events occurred as they entered the holiday season, which was the busiest time of the year. The average non-holiday volume of shipments received was from 50-100 boxes over six days. During the holiday season, the store received 100-150 boxes over six days. The store's sales increased from approximately $20,000 a week to $60,000 a week. The week before the holiday, the store's sales were $130,000! After the Announcement During the first weekly meeting in December, the tone of the meeting changed. Before the meeting, Lori and Amy had met to decide what to say. They chose to tell Tricia about all the things they did not like about her work. One example was that she would not always take lunch and would then leave "early." Tricia reasoned that, as a salaried employee, she was not required to take a lunch so when she put in her hours, she could leave. In addition, if she had to work late one day to cover for employees, then the next day she would leave early. Tricia knew she was one level above them in the hierarchy and therefore had more privileges. The assistant store directors did not think that was fair. Tricia's frequent statements about all of them being equals encouraged the women to feel justified in watching Tricia's activities and recording whenever she did things differently than they did. Tricia's feelings were hurt and she reacted defensively. She said, "I would never have watched my boss and confronted her about her quitting times, and, since I am your boss, you don't supervise me - I supervise you." Tricia reminded the three women of the hierarchical system at Personal Reflections. She reminded them that directions flowed downward, not upward. By the time the meeting ended, everyone left with feelings of animosity and resentment. Two days after the meeting, Tricia found out that Tammy had gone over Tricia's head and contacted the district manager about the store director position. This particularly upset Tricia because she had been very sensitive to Tammy's needs and protective of her in the work environment. Tricia admitted to herself that she was furious. Amy had told Tricia of Tammy's actions, and also that Lori and Tammy were already plotting to get Tricia's position since she was considering leaving. Amy also told her that Tammy asked for Amy's help in getting the store director position whether or not Tricia left in January. Amy said she refused because she would not betray Tricia. Throughout November and December, the district manager was silent. She did not interact with Tricia at all. However, she did not encourage Lori and Tammy to talk directly to her. She spoke with Tammy, who had called her complaining about Tricia. Tammy also lobbied for the district manager to give her the store director position when Tricia left. The district manager never personally notified Tricia of the conversation. Nor did the district manager come to the store or try to help the individuals resolve their differences. Each of the assistant store directors reacted differently to Tricia after she told them of her thoughts about returning to school. Lori and Tricia went from allies to enemies. In one instance, Tricia had spent two days developing the work schedule. It took two days because of the 25 temporary, parttime employees hired for the holiday season as well as the company forms that needed to be completed to ensure optimum coverage. The company forms frequently necessitated revisions to the work schedule. The day after completing the schedule, Tricia had a day off. Lori rewrote part of the schedule because a part-timer wanted a change in her schedule. Lori made the change and never told Tricia. The next day Tricia did not recheck the schedule because it was competed. On the day in question, they were one employee short. The employee was scheduled to be a front greeter, which was a very important position. Tricia questioned all the assistant managers and finally Lori admitted to changing it. Tricia reprimanded Lori and explained to her that other forms were consulted before changes to the schedule could be done and she needed to be kept informed. Animosity between the two heightened. By this time, Tricia was no longer trying to interact with Lori and Tammy except for necessary work issues. She became authoritative in all her dealings with the two. However, she gave Amy additional responsibilities and, in effect, trained Amy to be store director. Tricia even went to the extreme of ensuring that her shift in the store overlapped with Lori's as little as possible. Lori spoke to Tricia only when absolutely necessary. Generally, Lori completely ignored Tricia and acted as if she were not even present. At home, Tricia started asking herself questions. "What had happened to the team? Where do I go from here? How do I get things back on track at the store? What do I do about all this conflict? I don't want to leave the store with things in such a mess. I want to resolve the conflict."