Andrey Yanovsky, currently CEO of Nidan Soki
In the end of the 1990s I was appointed general manager of a large global company’s regional office. The sales department was headed by a man who had done a lot for successful development and significant growth of the organization. He was given credit for the considerable part of all these achievements. His team wholly shared this opinion.
No wonder, all the team members saw me not only as a newcomer, but also as an incompetent manager who could not teach them or their leader anything useful. Everybody in the company was expecting a real showdown.
I knew that I could try to act straightforward and attract stockholders to my side because it would let me solve the problem faster than in any other way. But it had meant that the whole office would be totally disappointed in me. As a manager I did not want such a result. My goal was to resolve the conflict without destroying the company. To achieve it I had to approach the person in question openly and discuss situation with him.
First of all I meticulously prepared myself for the conversation. I carefully searched independent analytical sources about FMCG market and found out that in fact our company had reduced turnover. And the reason was partially the lack of initiative from the head of sales side and his mistakes in formulating the company’s goals for that year. It was a reverse side of his success because being a brilliant salesperson he concentrated too many responsibilities he could not manage after becoming a “big boss”.
I started our conversation with recognition of his achievements and contributions to the company’s former successes. But then I outlined him conclusions I had reached analyzing the situation. I had to mobilize myself and explain him his mistakes frankly. Then I suggested considering his strengths and weaknesses together so that his best abilities could be used in the situation most effectively. I had to be firm, but I was sure it was necessary for both of us to better understand the problem’s core. I offered to change the structure of his responsibilities (to do that I had to change the whole organizational structure as well) to make him fit his place and place to fit him.
Certainly I supposed that such structural changes might look to the manager and his team as cutting his powers and my desire to get rid of him. But after a week he came to me and said, “Ok, I am ready to learn from you”. I did not know then and do not know now how sincere he was, but I was convinced that he realized that continued opposition made no sense for him. And that meant that I managed to avoid the conflict with the team.
After achieving this I also could solve the problem with the head of sales’ nearest colleague who was his associate long before my coming. During several meetings I tried to make this employee understand that he did not fit his position because having a great analytical skills he headed a big subdivision in the sales department where he could not apply them. I drew on the authority of his direct boss and finally we succeeded together in persuading him to change his job inside the organization.
I do not think that anyone of these two persons began to love me. But they stayed in the company, keeping the whole team intact. They got clear goals and plans and the idea of how I would measure their results in the future. As a matter of fact one of them stayed in the company for more than a year, and the other one – even for three years.
Russian original
