Motivation and the New Sales Manager:

Develop a program to assist this new sales manager to motivate her employees. Using the theories from Maslow, Mcgregor, and McClelland how would I develop this plan from their motivational theories?

Here is the case:

Once upon a time a new hotel sales manager, whose staff was responsible for selling banquets and hotel packages, was highly motivated to take advantage of a year-end bonus program for managers. In order to win the bonus, she needed to bring in new business, so she decided to initiate a contest for her sales agents. She announced that she would pay $100 to the agent who brought in the most new clients by the end of the month. Then she sat back in her chair to await the results and decide how she would spend her bonus money.

While visions of Porsches danced through her head, her sales agents were busily belly-aching for the following reasons:

1. They were used to working as a team and resented being encouraged to compete against close friends.
2. In the manager's last contest, a new sales agent had reportedly cheated and "stole" new clients from the old-timers.
3. The winner of the last contest was paid the prize money several months late, only after she had "shaken" it out of the sales manager.
4. One sales agent position had not been filled so the others felt they were alreadyoperating beyond full capacity and working extra hours. The new sales manager made them attend evening functions for clients, something they had never done in the past.
5. The sales manager had neglected to endear herself to the agents, and they felt she was just using them to get her bonus.
6. The sales agents felt as if they were being manipulated and perceived the $100 as an insult.

As a result, the sales agents decided to ignore the contest. The sales manager was angry when she saw the low level of new business at the end of the month and concluded that the agents were lazy. She told them they were unprofessional and complained about them at staff meetings so that soon everyone in the organization had heard about their "laziness." Old-timers-in-the-know scratched their heads because they remembered how hard the sales agents used to work before the new sales manager was hired. And everyone lived unhappily ever after (except for a few agents who quit and went to work for a competitor) until the sales manager went back to school and learned about theories of motivation.