As a manager, you meet with each of your team members quarterly to review their progress toward their written and agreed-upon goals. One of your employees, Claire, had a goal of increasing sales in her territory by 10% in the first quarter of the year. However, when you review Claire’s sales numbers, you see that her sales have actually gone down. You know that Claire is a hard worker and has an excellent relationship with her customers. When you sit down to discuss Claire’s performance, she explains what is happening in her territory. A major automobile manufacturer, which once provided 25,000 jobs, has moved its operations to Mexico and laid off all 25,000 of its workers. As a result, the economy in Claire’s region has become quite depressed, and the residents are living off their

Question

savings. Taking the steps of the planning/control cycle into account, what is your best course of action with Claire?

A. Terminate Claire's employment with the company.
B. Arrange for Claire to take a refresher course on sales methods.
C. Transfer Claire to another territory and replace her with another sales rep who is new to the company and therefore "hungry."
D. Recognize the economic reality of Claire's territory and change her goals to make them ambitious but realistic.
E. Put Claire on "probation," explaining that she will be terminated if her performance does not improve in the next quarter.

Answer 1

A. Terminate Claire's employment with the company.

In the planning/control cycle, managers control the direction by taking corrective action in two ways—namely by correcting deviations in the plan being carried out or by improving future plans. In this case, improving future plans is the best decision.