Leader as Coach: Restoring Employee Motivation and

Performance (B)
Case

Author: Karen L. Cates & Brenda Ellington Booth

Online Pub Date: January 15, 2020 | Original Pub. Date: 2019
Subject: Employee Performance Management, Leadership in Business, Sales Management
Level: Basic | Type: Experience case | Length: 1344 words
Copyright: © 2019 Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Organization: fictional/disguised | Organization size:
Region: Northern America | State:
Industry: Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles
Originally Published in:
Cates, K. L. , & Booth, B. E. (2019). Leader as Coach: Restoring Employee Motivation and Performance
(B). 5-418-750(B). Evanston, IL: Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Publisher: Kellogg School of Management
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529724493 | Online ISBN: 9781529724493
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© 2019 Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

© 2019 Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

This case was prepared for inclusion in SAGE Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion
or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein
shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use
only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial
purposes. 2020 SAGE Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

This content may only be distributed for use within Universitas Indonesia.
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Abstract
Kiera, a young, enthusiastic sales rep, was recently promoted to manager of a sales team of
five. In her first year on the job, she tackled a major revamp of the company’s outdated training
materials and organized a regional conference for her area, but neither her boss nor corporate
seemed to appreciate the work she had been doing. Without support or guidance from her boss,
Kiera was confused. What was she supposed to do? Parts A and B of the case present two
different perspectives on coaching. Part B describes how Kiera started to learn the “coach ap-
proach” to managing her team with the continued guidance of her executive coach. She learned
to apply the same skills that her coach used with her in Part A to diagnose her team, share
feedback, and communicate expectations. She was learning how to listen and ask thoughtful
questions, but she also needed to expand her awareness to “other-management” and build her
own coaching skills to enhance her team’s performance.

Case
For part A of this case, click here.

Kiera spent most of February and part of March working with her coach and Rudy. He had not given her goals
or an action plan, so with the encouragement of her coach, she created her own and shared them with him.
She and Rudy edited her document, and by the middle of March, Kiera felt she had a clear understanding
of what she needed to do to be a successful sales manager at Safety Supply Company. With a clear plan in
place, Kiera thanked Belinda for her help and started moving forward on her own.

Her top priority was addressing the issues with her sales team. Despite the addition of the Chili’s account,
total sales had remained flat. The numbers were good relative to other offices, but the new account should
have increased the top line by 15%. After almost a year spent mostly away from the office, Kiera knew she
needed to address some personnel matters that were simmering.

Kiera’s View
As Kiera opened the personnel files for the five members of her sales team to review their past performance
evaluations and sales history, she thought to herself, “Why has it taken me so long to do this?” The team
members ranged from 25 to 35 years old and varied in their approach to sales and in their results, but each
was well-trained in selling the company’s products.

After she reviewed each salesperson’s results, performance reviews, and the accompanying development
plans done by her predecessor, Kiera realized it was time for some one-on-one conversations to get everyone
back on track. An outsider who saw only the numbers might not perceive many problems, but her review of
the files gave Kiera a different perspective.

The Team’s View

Having been without a sales manager for several months before Kiera’s arrival, the team was proud that they
had maintained their sales numbers. When they heard about Kiera’s promotion, they were skeptical that a for-
mer peer would have much to offer them. When she jumped into the sales training video project and became
the regional meeting planner, they felt their skepticism had been justified.
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Kiera’s team was frustrated by her frequent absence from the office and her inability to return emails or texts
promptly. They felt she did not share important client information she got from other regions. When new on-
line sales tools were launched, Kiera gave them to one or two team members for testing and left the others
to wonder what was going on. Some wondered whether this was part of an attempt to increase her power in
connection with the sales training video project.

When Kiera was in the office, she held half-day team meetings that reviewed information they already knew
from company or office communications, or she talked about her video project and script rewrites. The meet-
ings often were interrupted as she responded to “important” emails or calls, leaving everyone else waiting
around the conference room table. Sometimes Kiera even called her salespeople by the wrong name. Half in
jest, they started asking each other if she would notice if they switched desks.

Taking Action
Kiera started the one-on-one meetings with each salesperson’s past performance review in hand, asking
them how they viewed the progress they had made on their development plans. Each person said that so
much had changed since those plans had been written, they now seemed obsolete. Taken aback, Kiera fol-
lowed up by asking for their feedback on her performance as a manager.

After she completed her meetings with everyone on the sales team, Kiera reviewed her notes. Most of the
comments were complaints and finger-pointing (mostly at her!), but she felt that the salespeople had become
stagnant. Their performance was flat. She decided the solution was to give them proper incentives to increase
their numbers.

Given that her team felt their past development plans were irrelevant, she decided to assign stretch goals
based on their previous sales. You have to start somewhere and get them motivated to improve, thought
Kiera. She didn’t expect all of them to reach those goals, but she wanted them to think bigger—much big-
ger—when working with clients. Next, she created a bonus schedule with percentages that increased as sales
approached the stretch goal.

She set up mandatory sales meetings on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons, thinking this would add
some structure (and maybe some hours) to her team’s work week. Finally, she had a scoreboard created that
displayed each sales team member’s sales for the day, week, and month. She hoped some friendly competi-
tion would help raise their sales.

In early April, Kiera rolled out the new plan. She thought her team would be happy about the new discretionary
bonus schedule. Instead, her top salesperson stayed glued to her phone for the entire meeting. Two of her
medium performers took copious notes and looked worried. Her two bottom people sat back in their chairs,
arms crossed. One threw his pen onto the table after he saw the new sales goals.

Well, she thought, no one said sales was easy. They needed to work harder and smarter. Kiera ended the
meeting with her new catchphrase, “Let’s get out there and make people safe!”

The Outcome
In early July, Kiera sighed as she reviewed her team’s sales for the second quarter. They should have done
better than this, she thought. Her team had in fact increased sales, but only by 7%, not the 15% she had
anticipated after rolling out her new sales plan.

Her top performer had hit the stretch goal and earned the highest bonus. The middle two performers had
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increased their sales by 5% and 10%, respectively, but they earned bonuses that were only 20% and 25%,
respectively, of the top salesperson. As for the other two salespeople, one was struggling and had managed
only a 2% increase, which Kiera knew could be due more to the sales call cycle than to any real change in
effectiveness. The other salesperson had quit in May saying, “There is no way I am going to get any of the
bonus money, so why bother?” Kiera was able to promote an ambitious sales support team member into the
vacant position, but it was not enough to meet her 15% target.

Frustrated, Kiera called Belinda, saying, “I need help!” She shared her progress and updated Belinda on
everything that had happened since their last call, including her team’s failure to engage fully with the new
sales plan.

After Kiera and Belinda set a new agreement and set new goals around motivating her team, Belinda dove
into the coaching process. As always, she got to the point: “I’m curious. How much input did they have into
the plan?”

Kiera was confused. “Well, not much,” she replied. “That’s my job; I set the goals and incentives, and they do
the selling.”

Belinda pressed. “If you were a sales rep and your manager didn’t solicit your input about what would be re-
alistic stretch goals, how would you react to such a top-down plan?” she asked.

Kiera opened her mouth as if to reply, but then closed it as she thought about her answer.

As a salesperson, she had been motivated by goals and incentives, but that wasn’t working for her team in
Dallas. She wanted to fire everyone except her top performer, but she knew it was unlikely she could find four
more stars like her.

Slowly, she realized she might need to rethink her approach to managing her team. She had assumed the
issue was motivation, a lack of hunger for sales in her team members, but maybe it was something else.

Kiera told Belinda: “I think I need to restart again. I could use some help creating a plan to get this office on
track. Can you help me map it out?”

Belinda asked, “Where would you like to start?”

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