Case 7-1 The Pacesetter: Jean graduated from a two-year college with an associate's degree and landed employment as a national sales representative with a rapidly growing technology firm in a mid-sized southern city. She considered pursuing a four-year degree and possibly a master's, but it was important to her to gain some work experience and save money before making a final decision on school.

She soon found she enjoyed her sales job, which consisted of cultivating and managing a diverse client list. She particularly liked face-to-face time with potential buyers, selling them on the "right" products and services. Jean found communication was the key to helping customers and closing the deal. She regularly came in early and stayed late to make sure she delivered what she promised and ensured her customers were satisfied.

Jean's sales manager, Jack, took notice of her excellent performance. When Jack hired Jean, he did so based on her potential. She had an unbelievable means of communicating with people, coupled with a high need to achieve and a strong internal desire to continuously learn and grow, but even he could not predict how well she would do her first year. As Jean's skills developed, Jeff offered her new opportunities to learn the business and develop contacts within and outside of the firm. She appreciated it and made the most of them.

At the end of Jean's first full year with the firm, Jack scheduled her performance appraisal session. Jack started off, "I am quite pleased with your performance, especially because it is your first year on the job. You exceeded expectations and I couldn't be happier." Jean liked what she was hearing and Jack continued, "I want to first go over your global evaluation to show you how I arrived at a score of 9 out of 10. As you can see, the individual performance categories below range from 'Ability to Effectively Generate Sales Leads' to 'Ability to Effectively Close Sales.' You earned outstanding ratings with all your scores falling between 8 and 10 in each performance category. Just so you have a reference point for how well you are doing, the department's average global score was a 6.5, so I consider you to be one of our pacesetters! Your efforts will certainly provide a model for others to follow." Jean was utterly surprised. She knew she worked hard giving 110 percent each day, but she did not anticipate being a pacesetter!

Even though Jack's focus was on Jean's sales productivity, he was actually quite impressed with her willingness to volunteer for projects and take on extra work. He shared, "Jean, I've noticed you are an effective team player, always offering help to other sales representatives even though this can be a competitive environment. I admire that in you. Not only have you been a reliable team player, but you also have demonstrated good leadership." Jack assigned Jean the lead role on several department-level projects to challenge her and see if she had what it took, and she performed admirably building an effective team to accomplish the objectives each time. While these side projects were not financially beneficial in the short term, they provided Jean opportunities to network with higher-ups and those in other departments. If she decided to make a career of it, these experiences would be invaluable to her. Jack knew employees like Jean did not come along often.

Jack shared, "Based on your excellent performance, you have earned a 7 percent base pay increase." Jack made it clear the department average was around 3.5 percent. But that wasn't all. "Based on your leadership potential, I scheduled you to attend two of human resources' leadership training and development programs, one this fall and one in the spring. I know furthering your education is really a top priority for you, and successfully completing these certification programs will provide you an opportunity to be selected for entrance into the firm's continuing education program, where you can complete your four-year degree and possibly your graduate degree as well. If selected, and I have no doubts you will be with strong letters of recommendation coupled with your outstanding performance, the firm will pay your education expenses as long as you maintain at least a 3.0 GPA."

Jean was ecstatic! Her dreams of continuing her education were closer than she imagined. She simply needed to stay motivated and work even harder this next year to qualify for the continuing education program. That would be easy because she loved her job, her boss believed in her, and she couldn't wait to get going.

She enthusiastically returned to her office, where Dan, her coworker, was waiting. Dan knew Jean just came from her performance review and was eager to see how things had gone. Dan and Jean had been hired around the same time, but Dan did not have a degree beyond high school. He opted to start working early, marry his high-school sweetheart, and start a family. While Dan was a committed employee, he was part of a dual-working family and not able to put in the hours Jean could. Jean knew she had to be careful not to share too much because Dan just had his performance evaluation and Jean felt his work efforts would not qualify him to be a pacesetter in the top group. Jean didn't want either one of them to be in an uncomfortable position, so without sharing specifics, she said her evaluation went better than she hoped after just one year with the firm. Dan concurred stating, "I couldn't believe Jack gave me a 7 percent bump on my base, and to top it off, he has scheduled me to attend two of HR's training and development sessions to position me for the firm's continuing education program. I didn't realize I performed so well! This is a great company to work for; they really know how to treat people! If we stay here, Jean, we might just end up running the company some day!"

Dan's words began to trail off as Jean abruptly turned and stormed off. She couldn't believe what she was hearing!

Case Questions

What were Jean's work attitudes before meeting Dan in the hall? What would you predict about Jean's motivation and performance over the next year if Jean had not learned of Dan's performance evaluation?

What were Jean's work attitudes after talking with Dan in the hall? what do you predict about Jean's motivation and performance going forward?

What motivation theory in this chapter do you think best applies to explain this situation and predict how Jean might respond?