A Diversified and Global Team: James Wilde at TT Technologies James Wilde arrived home after a 16-hour meeting. He was grappling with whether to accept the global sales and marketing team manager position. Wilde spent the entire day with the senior leadership of the team trying to understand the group's challenges. However, the meeting had raised more questions than answers. Already a rising star within his company, Wilde was only 33 when he was offered this high-profile position to lead a diverse 68-person team whose members hailed from Central America, the Caribbean and the USA. The team's recent performance had seen a quick decline, resulting in the previously well-regarded manager departing the company in a state of disrepute. Employee satisfaction also plunged by more than half its peak nearly two years prior. Should Wilde accept the position, he would be expected to reverse the performance lag in less than two years, achieving substantial sales growth and increasing market share. However, should he fail to resurrect the team in the allotted timeframe, his status as a high-potential would be jeopardized. 2 Wilde hoped that meetings with both the senior executives and the outgoing manager would help him decide whether or not to take the position. The meetings thus far had been exhausting, but revealing. Wilde had a greater understanding of the team, but still had one more week to make up his mind. The following day, he would begin his tour of the Eastern Caribbean, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago to meet the rest of the team. He wondered if a week was enough time to assess the situation, but he pushed this question to the back of his mind and started packing. James Wilde Wilde began his career as an electrical engineer with KPS in Cayman, where he worked on industrial projects in sales, business development, and project management. Eventually, he became the project manager for a $20-million contract. Four years later, he moved to TT Technologies and joined an exclusive list of "high potentials" whose progress was re-evaluated every two years. He had the potential to be promoted every 18 to 24 months and learn a variety of roles within the company. This visibility within the firm would provide him with a fast-track route to an executive role. Even though he was constantly being evaluated by senior executives, being on the list meant plenty of opportunities. The first four years of Wilde's TT Technologies career in Cayman included assignments in procurement, planning, and frontline sales, plus time as a sales team leader. He was also promoted to country manager for Cayman and served on a Global Competence Development Committee in addition to his regular responsibilities. This role allowed him to visit sales teams around the world and observe their methods, motivations and challenges. When he moved to Dubai for a new assignment in business development, Wilde kept his existing position on the Global Competence Development Committee. Again, he cycled through various roles, rotating between staff and line functions. In his business development role, he led TT Technologies's penetrations into USA and Europe, where he worked with a culturally diverse team for the first time. A Tip and Advice After almost four years in various business development roles in Dubai, Wilde knew that his window of opportunity for a promotion was about to open again. A friend, who was senior within TT Technologies, notified Wilde that a position of Caribbean, Central American and USA General Manager for Sales and Marketing would soon be available. The team, Wilde was told, had been failing. The previous manager, known for his wealth of experience and also a "high potential" at TT Technologies, was leaving the company. Wilde was encouraged by his friend to apply for this new and challenging role. After he was selected, he began to consider his options. He had a proven track record of success, but he wondered if taking this role was too much of a risk; could he chance losing his position on the list of high potentials? Perhaps even more nerve-wracking, the executives who selected him for the role wanted quick results. Wilde wondered how he could turn things around in less than two years, growing sales substantially and increasing TT Technologies market share. Wilde questioned how the group's problems had baffled even an experienced manager. "Everyone thought the previous manager was a great leader," Wilde told his friend. "He tried team-building activities and cultural awareness exercises, as well as a lot of new ideas, and he still 3 failed. I'm a lot younger than he is. How can I expect to do any better?" His friend played up the opportunities that this job might afford Wilde: "True, you are younger, and you will need to delicately manage older workers from the Eastern Caribbean and Asia. But this group needs fresh ideas, and you have the potential to be successful." As Wilde started to mull his options, his friend added, "This can be a very important global role for someone on track to become an executive here." With this encouragement, Wilde thought about his previous roles. He had worked well with a culturally diverse team on the penetrations into USA and Europe. He recalled how he became closer with the Euboean and Indian nationals on his team than with his fellow Caymanians by making a concerted effort to reach out to them. It required him to reject long-standing stereotypes that many Caymanians held toward one another as a result of longstanding border disputes and religious tension. Yet Wilde was able to find common ground by sharing that his father was born in India. As part of the Global Competence Development cohort, Wilde visited sales teams often, getting out and mixing around. In country after country, he had gained insight into the region-specific challenges faced by his colleagues in different markets. As he thought about his experiences, Wilde became more confident in his abilities. Still, the job remained a huge risk. If he took the job, it would be do or die: succeed, and his star would continue to rise even faster, but fail, and years of hard work and careful planning would be negated. A Caveat from the Departing Manager The day that Wilde received the job offer, he decided to solicit the advice of his potential predecessor, John Dean, who agreed to meet with him. After quick introductions, Wilde shared his concerns with him: "While I am thrilled to have this opportunity, I am worried about where things stand," Wilde said. With an air of exasperation, Dean responded: "Listen, I am going to be completely honest with you-the situation is simply out of control. I was spread too thin, putting out fires left and right. On top of running this business, all sorts of issues consumed my time. A manager was accused of sexual harassment, which embroiled us in a difficult legal situation. Ultimately, it was a cross cultural misunderstanding. Then there were customer issues— missed and unfulfilled deliveries. The list just goes on and on." Dean paused momentarily and looked away in reflection, before continuing: "It was always a struggle to get buy-in for new initiatives, and I frequently met fierce resistance if I tried to make changes. An annual retreat was one step in the right direction. We brought the entire team together in one location for the first time, and this seemed to help. A session during the retreat was geared toward cultural sensitivity. Clearly, this wasn't enough-the same issues and old ways of working resurfaced shortly after. Listen, James, if think this job has ruined my reputation here, and I have no choice but to leave. If I were you, I would think twice before taking this on." Dean's advice left Wilde feeling anxious and even more uncertain. The new insights weighed heavily on Wilde's mind, but for now, he decided it was best to sleep on what he had just heard. 4 Working across Boundaries Language The entire team was about to meet in Dubai. It was the perfect chance for Wilde to sit in on the session, and then meet with human resources and the team's senior leadership the following day. When he arrived, he was shocked by how many languages were being spoken before the meeting started. As he walked around the room, he heard English in one corner, French in another, and Spanish in yet another. It quickly became apparent to Wilde that the team, given free rein to sit wherever they wanted, had divided itself based on their native language, even though everyone in the group spoke English. As the day's sessions progressed, Wilde noticed that the language-based cliques also had religions and cultural traditions in common. As they bonded, these clusters drifted further apart from the larger group. Wilde began to see why people segregated into language groups. He noticed that team members did not all have the same level of fluency or comfort in English, which further exacerbated the language barriers among them. Native and highly-fluent English speakers spoke too quickly which caused less fluent colleagues to hesitate with their questions. During one break, Wilde overheard one of the quieter team members ask his colleagues, "What did he contribute today? What does he bring to the table?" Wilde began to ask himself whether the shyer members of the team were legitimately concerned with their more fluent teammates. Perhaps, they were simply disguising their weaker skills by questioning the usefulness of speakers they didn't understand. Wilde learned that team members working in Central America had it especially tough. They were already operating in two languages, since English was widely used by business contacts. Wilde thought back to his work in business development, where he first led a linguistically and culturally diverse team. In order to increase levels of communication across his business teams, Wilde felt that they should operate in a common language. He implemented the use of English as a "lingua franca" to bring team members onto an even footing. Though it showed early successes, not everyone embraced the idea. He wondered if he would fare any better with an even larger and more diverse team. Time Zones The group was also diverse in terms of time zones, work week, and holidays. Workers in the United States, had their weekends on Saturday and Sunday, while workers from some parts of Central America did not work on Thursday or Friday. This meant that the group's common workweek consisted only of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On top of this, the group's core operations spanned four different time zones. Plus, different countries had different holidays, and didn't always communicate these holidays to the others. When one team member in Jamaica tried to contact another employee in the Central America, he became frustrated when no one answered his calls, not realizing the office was closed for a national observance. National Culture and Age In addition to the confusion surrounding holidays and schedules, team members also did not fully understand how diverse they were. When asked how many nationalities were represented in their group, team members regularly guessed between 10 and 15. Some people did not even know 5 from which country their teammates came, incorporating them into broad categories like "European." Later that day, the human resources officer responsible for the region gave Wilde profiles of the team. His team members which represented different countries and ranged in age from 22 to 61 years. Among them, they spoke 18 different languages including dialects. Shocked by the makeup of his unit, Wilde again wondered if he was in over his head. He thought it would be intriguing to be a part of such a diverse team with so many talents and interesting stories. But he wondered if the group was just too diverse to function. Its recent failures were still foremost in his mind. Conflicting Accounts Over the past two years, operating margin and net profit margin for the global sales and marketing team had declined precipitously along with market share. During the same period, group morale also dropped, with employee satisfaction declining by nearly half. In order to better understand the group's weaknesses and the challenges they faced, Wilde's next step was to meet with the three senior executives. He was by far the youngest person at the meeting. Market, Compensation, or Brand Changes He tried to determine whether the group's problems were internal or external. He asked the three leaders, "Can the team do better? What's stopping them from doing better?" Brown, a Jamaican national working in Kingston, began by blaming the group's recent failures on the market. "The recent increase in the price of base oil has been pressuring our margins. When we raised our prices to compensate, our volumes decreased," he argued. Lars, an expat from Barbados, vehemently disagreed, "It has nothing to do with our prices or the price of oil. It's our brand! The recent changes to our brand have done nothing but confuse customers. That's why we have seen a decline in revenue." Lars continued with an accusatory tone, "And once this past year, planned volumes from St. Vincent and Grenada failed to come in, causing performance to suffer again, not to mention the relationships with our other partners." Brown shook his head and ignored Lars. Changing the subject, he said, "We also have the issue of compensation-the structure recently changed. Eighty percent of our salaries are fixed and the remaining twenty percent is variable." Brown explained that the variable portion was based on volume and revenue and was not linked to earnings or margins. Thus, when prices went up, salespeople were able to make their revenue targets selling less volume. Yet the cost of goods sold was increasing, which further squeezed the margins. Everyone shifted in their seats. Clearly, changing compensation yet again was not a conversation they wanted to broach. Target Setting Greene, a member of the leadership, interjected, "Let's not bring up compensation again. We all know that target-setting is at the root of all this. Setting regional targets from the top-down hasn't worked for years." He explained that global directors broke worldwide sales targets down into regions, then regional managers further divided the regional target among constituent countries. Greene recalled a target setting meeting in which the business manager for the USA 6 refused the responsibility that came with managing the largest country in the region. He told the group the general market was doing poorly and that his country team had recently lost two major accounts, so he could not take the largest portion of the regional sales target, as was expected. Other country managers also frequently made conservative estimates when setting their own goals, downplaying their true ability. As a result, unclaimed parts of the regional goal got passed on to new markets that were not yet online or to countries that were not represented at the meeting. "It seems like no one is willing to take responsibility for their targets. Everyone is playing it safe, because they don't want to miss their targets. How can we accurately set goals if we don't truly know what each country is capable of?" Greene asked the others. Wilde worried about their staunch disagreements and lack of optimism. In Cayman, however, Wilde had been on teams that thrived despite the changing market, the new variable pay scale, and the challenges of the target-setting process. He had transformed his team from a collection of individuals into a cohesive and successful group, and he was tempted to prove to the TT Technologies executives that he could do it again with a bigger and more diverse team. Wilde believed in the TT Technologies brand and had confidence in its ability to sell. But Dean's advice still made Wilde question his ability to succeed in the role. How could he make sure that he would not end up in Dean's shoes? Digging for Answers As the meeting dragged into its sixth hour, Wilde kept pondering the explanations for the group's poor performance. He continued to push his advisers to go beyond the external factors influencing the group and give him an honest assessment of the team's inner dynamics. He looked at the clock-it was 5:00 p.m., and they had been in this meeting since 9:00 that morning. It seemed everyone was repeating the same points they had made earlier. But for two more hours, he continued to steer the conversation toward a deeper understanding of why the team had been missing its targets. "I have seen all of these things work well in Cayman and know we can be successful. What's holding you back here? How come the entire team can't be successful? What is your instinct? What do you think is happening" he asked. Finally, after 10 hours in the meeting and with patience running out, Greene snapped and yelled, "Okay, fine, let me tell you why I wasn't able to make the target last year," he began. "It's because of him!" he said, pointing at Lars. Lars stood up to defend himself. "I could have done that order. Remember those 100 kiloliters we missed because you were not able to deliver it? We were not able to deliver it because your guys didn't send it on time." Greene pressed on, insisting Lars was to blame: "Yes, my guys didn't send it on time because by the time they were online in St. Vincent, you said to just cancel it because it was too late." "Why didn't you ever tell me this?" Lars interjected before Greene could answer. "We could have fixed this!" 7 It was now approaching 11:00 p.m. Everyone was exhausted. Wilde was glad to finally hear a deeper level of communication. Brown, Lars, and Greene did not all agree on what their focus should be as a leadership team. But they knew that they had to start by understanding their team better. Brown suggested reaching out to every team member for thoughts on why the group was failing: "Look, guys. Let's not decide for everyone else. Let's give them a fair chance, as well. Let's hear them out." Wilde and the rest of the team concurred and decided the next step was to meet with all team members as soon as possible. In the Field Over the next week, Wilde, Brown, Lars, and Greene embarked on a whirlwind tour of the group's other offices to better assess the situation on the ground. These site visits introduced Wilde to the markets and some of the key customers, but the primary focus was on the other team members spread over the region. As they met the team members in small groups, Wilde and the leadership team asked everyone for their opinions on the group's performance. Their meeting with Farah, a Jamaican customer service associate, was emblematic of the visits they had elsewhere. "Why do you think market share has declined by 5% over the past two years?" Wilde asked. The look on Farah's face told Wilde all he needed to know-that this was news to him. "I had no idea the group was doing poorly. I thought we were fine," Farah responded. "But didn't you know Kingston wasn't meeting its targets?" Wilde pressed. "I suppose, but I thought we were doing better than that. Plus, targets only come up for us a few times a year. I think they're more on the minds of salespeople. They're more focused on making the sale. But what does more sales mean for me in customer service?" Farah reasoned. Wilde recalled a training that taught him how to discern the most important values for individuals and how to leverage those personal motivators to drive team performance. He started with a new line of questions. "What motivates you, then, Farah? Why do you come to work each day? What inspires you?" After a pause, Farah responded, "I want my work to be valued and important." Wilde nudged Farah for more, "Okay, but what really makes you get out of bed every morning?" After another pause, Farah finally responded. "I suppose money motivates me. I need to be able to provide for my family. I like advancing within the company since it also shows I am doing a good job and management trusts me. " Still not satisfied, but sensing he was getting closer, Wilde tried one more time. "Is there anything that pushes you to do well here? What would make you try above and beyond what is simply required?" "Maybe I feel like I need to believe in something. I think I perform best when I am passionate about even just one aspect of the job." 8 Wilde was starting to get a better sense of where the team members stood and he began to think that he could actually turn this team around, something he desperately wanted to do. He was eager to see what other insights the group might have to offer. Maybe he would soon have enough information to know whether or not to head up this team. Cultural Insensitivity at the Top As Wilde travelled with Lars and the rest of the senior leadership, he saw problems that stretched all the way to the highest levels. While in St. Lucia, Lars, Wilde, and two salespeople went out to dinner with some clients to finish plans for a new deal. After working out the details, the clients wanted to celebrate with vodka. It was a strong local tradition, essentially necessary to closing the deal. When Mohamed, a member of the team, politely declined to drink for religious reasons, Lars told him to just do it and then Guyanese loudly said that he "didn't know when the Guyanese would enter the 21st century."