Have you ever felt as the owner or manager that the salespeople feel like they have the right to run the business? Now, I'll be the first to admit that a great manager or owner is sometimes the one who doesn't have anything to do all day long because the employees know exactly what needs to be done, and get it done. But that's not what I mean by the employees running the business. I'm talking about when salespeople are overstepping their bounds. Let me give you some real examples. See if you can relate to any of these example situations.

Boycotting Policies and Procedures

Example A: A particular owner decided that he really wanted all of the employees to wear name tags while on the selling floor. He ordered pins with their names that looked very official and were quite nice. He held a store meeting to explain to the sales staff why he wanted name tags worn, but the staff didn't buy his reasoning. He persisted and finally got them to agree. They wore the name tags for about a week before they decided as a group that the pins were ruining some of their clothes. They boycotted the new policy of wearing the name tags.

Many salespeople wear name tags just like the ones his staff boycotted, but he chose to try to enforce his policy and still keep everyone else happy at the same time. This time he ordered new name tags that clipped to your clothing instead of being pinned on. The sales staff gave these a try and complied for another week. They again boycotted the name tags, this time on the basis that there just wasn't a convenient place to clip the tags on most of their clothing. Once again, the owner bought the excuse. There didn't seem to be any alternatives left, so he ended up dropping the whole idea.

This is an extreme example, yet a perfect illustration of the staff deciding what policies and procedures they want or don't want to abide by. If this happens regularly, every time you try to create a new policy or enforce an old one, you run the risk of the employees boycotting the idea. Why? They know you'll fold under the pressure if they all stick together.

It's true that whenever possible, employees should be given the opportunity to put their thumb prints on the formulation of policies and procedures that directly affect them. But there has to be a certain dose of autocracy in conjunction with democracy in running a retail store. As the owner or manager, you must decide which policies are negotiable and which are not, and then stand firm on your decision.

Rewarding Poor Performance

Example B: A previous client that engaged my company for consulting services had a tremendous problem with mistakes by salespeople on all types of paperwork. It seemed that no piece of paper that any salesperson ever touched was error free. The owners yelled at the managers continually. The managers yelled at the salespeople. The owners held meetings at the stores and yelled at the salespeople. They hired a someone outside of their organization to train them better and work on correcting the problem. Now they had another person yelling.

In the meantime, sales kept climbing, so they continued to hire more and more people to work in the office to correct problems with customers resulting from the errors (much of their business was in special orders). Soon the office staff payroll was astronomical, and they needed to cut back. So they cut a number of salespeople in each store. After all, they couldn't get rid of any office people. Who would correct the errors?

The interesting thing about this mess (which is the only word that really seems to describe the situation) is that there were a few salespeople that didn't seem to have a problem writing up orders and transfers properly. This told me that it could be accomplished (although their forms were fairly complex) and that if some people were capable of doing it correctly, then others could as well. The trouble is that this game had been going on for so long that it was impossible to get through to the salespeople who were the worst offenders: the managers. They had long since given up, and could have cared less about catching the errors before they made it to the office.

This scenario is the perfect example of the supreme management blunder: rewarding poor performance. It's one of the most common mistakes managers can make. You can do it without even realizing you're doing it. It is also one of the most difficult habits to break.

What do I mean by rewarding poor performance? Every time you are disappointed, frustrated, angry or annoyed with the performance of your employees and you don't give them feedback with consequences, you are rewarding poor performance. Every time you ask an employee to complete a task, you explain exactly how it is to be done, it doesn't get done and then you finish the task for them, you are rewarding poor performance.

In Example B, the owners rewarded the poor performance of the managers and the salespeople by hiring extra people (the consultant and extra office help) to correct the errors made by the managers and salespeople. The owners might as well have said, "Go ahead and continue making errors. We don't care. We'll take care of them for you."

These situations happen to some managers on a daily basis. It really is the tail wagging the dog. If you continually finish tasks for employees or let poor performance go unmentioned, you set a dangerous precedent that is hard to turn around. The employees become accustomed to you making up for their poor behaviors that before you know it, they come to expect it.

The same thing can happen when consequences in the form of verbal reprimands are the standard punishment for poor performance. If an employee continually comes to work late and you reprimand them every time, it won't take long before your reprimands have no effect whatsoever. The employee soon realizes that it may be embarrassing when you come down on them, but it doesn't really affect much. The employee knows that no matter how often they are late, it won't really matter. You are no longer managing at this point, you are just nagging.

Verbal reprimands do not always work for every situation and every individual. In cases of chronic poor performance, starting progressive discipline is necessary. It starts with a verbal reprimand but quickly escalates to verbal warnings and eventually, termination. In Example B, the consequence had to be extreme. It finally came to the point of termination for some of the managers as well as the salespeople. They were replaced with employees who understood that errors on paperwork were unacceptable and solved the problem eventually.

If you have been in the habit of rewarding poor performance, you have your work cut out for you. If you have been in the habit of nagging constantly but never deciding you've had enough, you have your work cut out for you, as well. If you are in the habit of always letting the employees decide whether or not they want to go with your program, here again, you have some work to do.

The change will not be easy, but it will be well worth it. Beside gaining control of your staff, you will also be showing a tremendous amount of integrity, gaining you respect from both the top performers and the worst offenders.