“A Novice Manager’s Tale of Woe”

Tricia Monet is a store director at a retail store called “Personal Reflections”. Personal Reflections is a national chain of personal care and household products. Tricia moved from Illinois with her fiancé to Sioux City, Iowa. Tricia has a bachelors in Accounting, but decided she wanted to do something different. She saw the position for assistant director and Personal Reflections and applied. She was hired with under the director Heather Munson. Assistant directors were scheduled in 9-hour shifts there were three assistant directors who could potentially all be working at the same time along with part-time as well as seasonal employees. Tricia worked under Heather Munson clashed from the beginning. Tricia felt interrogated; the store that Tricia was assigned to consistently fail to meet sales goals, the store was un-organized. Tricia was yelled at for organizing the store and after 1 month she was ready to quit. Munson then stated that she was going on disability leave which put Tricia in a temporary store director, which then took on fully when she found out Munson was not returning. In the process Tricia had fully organized the store, brought up sales and had trained three new assistant store directors; Amy, Lori, and Tammy. Lori soon became Tricia’s right-hand man because she wanted to achieve everything. Amy was one of the easiest to get along with, and Tammy struggles with paper work and adapting to a new environment. Tricia tried creating an atmosphere where they were all equal, although finding out that Tammy, who struggled with the tasks was making more money then Lori and Amy. Tricia valued all of their opinions and input. Tricia helped organize the store and created contests and promotions to help motivate employees. Tricia meet with her assistant directors on a daily basis individually then as a whole once a week. Tricia was enjoying her challenging position, however was interested in going back to school to get her MBA. She told the assistant store directors that she was thinking about going back to school after their holiday meeting, which is the busiest time of year for them. The team spirit that they all had was gone. The assistant sore directors were turning on each other and plotting on how to get Tricia’s position once she left.
Finding of Fact #1: Conflict between Tricia, Tammy, Lori, and Amy, once Tricia stated that she was thinking about going back to school.
Recommendation #1: Tricia needs to fins some type of negotiating. She should sit down individually with advice them that she is aware of their behavior and does not understand. She may even want to try an intergroup dialogue technique. Tricia should also advise them, that she didn’t say she was going to quit if she went back to school, and that it was just an idea. Tricia also needs to put her foot down, she has let her assistant store directors feel so comfortable that now they are not following leadership tiers. Although Tricia initiated the current situation, she is going to have to put her foot down and maintain her status, she is going to have to separate work from play.
Finding of Fact #2: Tricia’s leadership and interpersonal skills are both good and bad.
Recommendation #2: I believe Tricia was so worried about being the type of director that Munson was that she decided to completely be-friend her assistant store directors, which she became to personal. She needs to develop more leading teams, with tactics such as letting the assistant store directors know what she is looking for in the team, such as clear purpose, informality, participation, listening, civilized disagreement, consensus disagreement, consensus decisions, open communication, clear roles and work assignments, and shared leadership. She also needs to change her interpersonal skills; she needs to be more assertive, yet not aggressive. Yet Tricia’s skills of organizing the store and creating contests for the co-workers are great leadership.
Finding of Fact #3: Tricia was just thrown into the position of store director without any real training, and basically went out on a limb with what she knew, while finding that the work she did was about the same income as a an assistant store director, that has fewer responsibilities, while she nurtures and caters to her needs.
Recommendation #3: I believe that Tricia should speak with her Associate director and see what their pay scale is. Is there some type of band system, or is it based on seniority. What are all the factors that play into the role? She should also ask her Associate Director what she should do if she believes that one assistant is getting paid more than another, but the one that is getting paid less is far more competent and deserves to have a pay increase.