The Good and Bad of Attitude

As I walked towards my desk in the marketing department, the manager of our company’s downtown branch, Fred Wilson, emerged from his office with a huge bundle of files under his arm and a deep frown on his face.

Seeing me, he stopped in mid-stride and beckoned me into one of the small meeting rooms on the main floor of our building. I followed him in, and found my marketing manager already seated at the conference table. Beside him sat Carol, our assistant manager, a no-nonsense woman who supervised the efficient running of our office. Fred dumped the files on the table. I could tell by his expression that my normally calm and unflappable boss was troubled. He glanced over at me. “Take a seat, Dave.”

As the company’s senior marketing representative, I had a long and solid relationship with my branch manager. But this was annual employee performance evaluation time, and it looked like Fred was wrestling with some people problems. “I want to discuss a couple of staff problems.” He lifted the top file from the pile in front of him. “First, Derek in marketing.” He flipped open the file. “Vern here is concerned about some of his work habits: doesn’t get reports in on time, has been late for several meetings, and seems to thumb his nose at authority from time to time.” Fred looked over the top of his glasses at his assistant manager. “And, Carol has told me that Derek is pretty hard on our female support staff at times, demands a quick turnaround of his reports, chews them out for minor mistakes, that sort of thing. All these things are detailed in his performance evaluation.”

Fred scanned the file quickly with his eyes. “These sort of habits could lead to an ‘unsatisfactory progress’ report. I just wonder what your thoughts are.” Derek was one of our newer marketing representatives and had been given one of our Northern Territories to service. He was bright, a university graduate, but I knew he did have some “attitude” problems in dealing with some of our more outspoken brokers and with the more senior staff in our branch. In the heavy silence that followed, my mind clicked back over the contact I have had with Derek over the past year and a half. After graduating from university with good marks, he joined our company and had impressed some of our training staff with his aggressive, gung-ho attitude. He seemed like a natural for marketing, and I had been detailed to take him under my wing for his first few calls and to chart his performance. Derek was a quick study and easily absorbed the broker profile sheets he was required to familiarize himself with.

All had gone well until we paid our first visit to broker “Y”, a pugnacious and highly opinionated man who had a fairly low opinion of insurance company policies and people. En route to the call, I had warned Derek several times about “Y”, and not to get ruffled by his abrasive personality. But to no avail. After the usual civilities, “Y” had lost no time in blasting our company for “our total failure” to keep pace with some of our competitors’ personal lines’ pricing. I had heard this refrain many times before, and mentally prepared my usual rebuttal: “now then, if we tried to match prices with every company in every territory, in every line, every month of the year, we’d be out of business and you would lose your single biggest market!”

I opened my mouth to speak – but Derek beat me to it. He began to lecture “Y” about responsible market pricing. Seconds later they were hard at it, trading arguments at the top of their voices and doing their best to shout each other down. It was all I could do to stop the exchange in mid-stream and hustle Derek out of the broker’s office as quickly as I could. Two blocks away I had stopped my car and given Derek a short, but very pointed lecture on common sense and following instructions. At the time he had been on his company-mandated six-month probationary period, and I had not wanted to make a huge issue out of the scene in the broker’s office. However, since Derek had ignored direct instructions from me, I had made a note of the incident on his first “marketing skills” performance report, which was sent to Vern, the marketing manager.

Fred frowned at the file in his hand. “Any suggestions on the next step for Derek?” As I spoke I glanced at our marketing manager. “I’m assuming we did all the right things when we hired Derek?” Vern gave me a brief nod. “We have no worries there, Dave. He got our standard letter of employment when he joined the company. It spelled out the length of his probationary period, and it explained that his performance would be closely monitored for the first two years.”

It was Carol who spoke next. “Did we address any problems that showed up during his probation period?” She looked straight at Vern and he nodded his head forcefully. “Yep, we did, Carol. I did a one-on-one with Derek at the end of his six months’ probation. I pointed out exactly where he needed to improve. Made it clear to him that these weaknesses could hold him back if he didn’t improve. Gave him a memo covering these points, just to be on record. Then we sent him on a couple of specialized courses to help him with those problem areas.”

There was silence for a moment. Then I asked the question that was hovering at the back of my mind. “Isn’t it possible,” I said, “that Derek has hit a career speed bump?” I was referring to what happened to a few talented young people in our business, who suddenly found themselves on a career path that they were not emotionally or intellectually equipped to handle. We all knew that the marketing representative position was one of the quiet gambles of insurance company operations. After a couple of years or so of experience and seasoning in one of the company’s underwriting departments, the brightest ones were equipped with a rate manual, the company’s underwriting guide, a shiny new credit card, were handed the keys to a company car and pointed in the direction of their broker force. “It’s possible Derek feels that face-to-face marketing isn’t for him, but doesn’t want to admit it since he’ll assume this will be a career-limiting move,” Vern said thoughtfully. “It’s never a mistake to ask someone if he, or she, likes being on the road. After all, it’s not for everybody.”

Fred looked at him. “That’s possible,” he said quietly. “Any other thoughts?” “Well, there’s always re-assignment,” Carol said crisply in her direct fashion. “Perhaps he’d perform better at an inside job, back in underwriting, for example. Let’s not forget: some people need career decisions made for them.” Vern tossed his pen across the pad he’d been writing on. “Look – Derek may have got off to a rocky start. But Dave and I worked with him during his learning curve, and he seemed to have good marketing sense. I can give you a good example. When he’d been on the road a very short time, he decided on his own to ask his brokers how they would like their marketing rep visits: frequency, structure, content, that sort of thing, rather than just schedule a visit regardless of need, which…” Vern looked meaningfully at us over the top of his glasses “…is the way we have always programmed our reps. Anyway, a couple of our brokers called me to say how refreshing this was, because let’s face it, most of them prefer that when reps visit, they arrange a specific agenda in advance. Most brokers don’t really want another ‘how’s it going?’ type-call. In other words, Derek didn’t go by the rule book, but made a commonsense move.” He paused and scratched his ear. “We’ve pinpointed some of the areas he has to work on: his dislike of authority figures, his inability to follow rules, his argumentative nature. Maybe we just have to monitor him more closely, and on a more frequent basis. He’ll either rise to the occasion, or…”

Carol interjected, “let’s not forget, Vern, there’s a pretty fine line these days between close monitoring and harassment. Some of those human rights’ lawyers at the Labor Relations Board can make helpful monitoring sound like the Spanish Inquisition!”

Fred nodded in her direction. “Good point, Carol.” The n he dropped Derek’s file back on the pile and opened his hands. “I want to make the right decision here. After all, we’re talking about a bright young university grad in whom we’ve invested a lot of time and money. Maybe in Derek’s case we haven’t done our job well enough, we do bear some responsibility for the career path our staff follow. I’m going to think about this for a while. Thanks for your input.”

I turned to leave the meeting room. “Oh, remember, Fred. Today’s our ‘broker liaison group’ meeting in the main boardroom.” I coughed apologetically. “They’ll expect you both to make an appearance at lunch.” Fred rolled his eyes at me and nodded.

Later, when it was time to join our broker group meeting (cheerfully known within the company as the B.L.G: the bitching, lying and gloom session) I circled past Fred Wilson’s office and we walked up to the main boardroom together where a lunch was laid out. One of the first brokers to catch my eye was “Y” who, typically had cornered our commercial lines’ manager and was telling him in no uncertain terms that our rates were ‘way out of line’. Fred deftly slipped between our manager and “Y”, then steered the broker over to some chairs. He beckoned me and the broker I was speaking to join them. “What’s this?” asked “Y” pointedly. “You’re gonna announce another cut in commissions to us in private?”

Fred treated the two brokers to a good-natured chuckle. “Not at all. I just want to get your views. You know we’re always interested in broker feedback.” He creased his brow as if in deep thought, then gave them a quick smile. “For instance: are you happy with the marketing service you’re getting in your area? How is your rep doing?” My heart sank. My boss was practically handing “Y” the gun to shoot young Derek with. “The one I had the big argument with on his first visit?” said “Y” with a roaring laugh. “Geez, I like the way that kid handles himself!” I looked over in amazement at “Y” who had tipped himself back in his chair with a huge grin on his face. “You know, I see young reps from other companies come tiptoeing into my office like it’s booby-trapped,” he snorted. “I give ’em hell about the dumb things their companies are doing, and they just sit there mumbling and agreeing with me ’cause they’ve got no balls.” He let out another bellowing laugh. “But that young Derek, he didn’t roll over. No sir! He came right back at me. I like that! That kid’ll go far some day.”

By now, Fred Wilson’s smile had broadened, and seeing my raised eyebrows, my boss turned to the other broker beside me. “How about you?” he queried. “Did you find young Derek is looking after you all right?” The other broker didn’t answer at once. He looked like he was thinking. Finally, he leaned forward in his chair. “Well, he is a little different. His time management could stand some improvement, because he’s never on time for the meetings we set up. Missed a lunch with me last month.”

He shook his head. “But, you know, I could care less about that. Let me tell you what happened when I took him to meet my biggest commercial client, our local hardware manufacturing plant. He and I walk through the place, and then I introduce him to the owner. This guy’s a millionaire a few times over and he’s also the mayor of our town. Well, young Derek tells him right to his face that the housekeeping in his plant is lousy, could easily cause an accident, and should be cleaned up immediately! Reminded him that his company was the insurer on the risk and would be liable. I tell you, I almost died on the spot, but the owner just laughed and agreed with him. Said he’d noticed it himself, but just hadn’t got around to mentioning it to his plant super. And, by golly, the place was cleaned up that week!” The broker paused to smile at us. “Like I said, Derek’s time management could be improved, but power and authority figures don’t intimidate him and he’s not afraid to speak out. I like that.”

When I glanced over at Fred Wilson, my boss was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Later that afternoon, when the broker session had finished, Fred Wilson stopped by my desk. “I’ve finished all the marketing representative evaluations,” he said. “Including young Derek’s. You’ll be interested to know that he’s getting a positive report.”

“Glad to hear it,” I replied. “From what we learned today, Derek seems to be doing a pretty fair job for the people we depend on – and who depend on us.” Fred nodded his head in agreement. “Yes indeed, Dave.” Then he cocked his head at me and grinned. “Never under-estimate the value of local knowledge, eh?”