Ultimate Fighter Continued...

Continued...

Despite all the imagery that I provided, one more thing that you need to know about the (UF) “Ultimate Fighter” is that she wasnt just a good performer. She was our top Out-Bound representative.

More on the culture...

The value of this statement is that the former culture maintained that performance equals immunity. Former Management would extend "privileges" to those top performs in order to keep them "motivated" to perform. The problem that this creates is an "Ends" justifies the "Means" attitude. It supports the, “I don’t care what you do, or how you do it, just hit X criteria when I needed you to, and all will be well.” The result is a population that’s prone to cheating, corruption, and very tough to manage.

This belief was fueled by every step of the way by former management, and was still being fueled by the current account manager. Let me explain. The AM (Account Manager) would call me and I quote, "I you don't perform better, I'm going to take the business and move it." The first time I heard this from him was around day 3 on the job. He expected instant success and unrealistic results. I understood the urgency around performance, and had a plan that we were urgently executing against in order to take the right steps.

As described, the site was "in-flex" and I was fighting a culture that supported and drove the wrong behaviors. While Scare tactics or threats do not intimidate me, it could really encourage the wrong behavior from a manager with less experience. A young manager, who just received a big promotion, and a nice pay raise, has just elevated the standard of life for his family. This manager might be persuaded into making some less than ethical choices, adding more fuel to the fire, and continuing the cycle.

Back to the ultimate fighter...
I support the belief that you can't give what you don't have, so I questioned how she was able to make so many sales. I talked to my QA's, supervisors, and HR about her performance and any prior issues. The general consensus was that she was clean, but that she was able to leverage her toughness into a very powerful assumptive sales approach. HR was surprisingly defensive of the "UF", and was personally supporting the legitimacy of this rep.

Why would a group of professionals choose to support such an obvious management issue? Why couldn't my staff see it, or were they choosing to look the other way...

What was I missing?