Conflict


Conflict arises every day in the professional world. Whether it is internal or external, tailoring a solution to the problem is essential to ensuring the business continues to thrive. Throughout my lifetime, I have experienced many different types of conflicts. However, when thinking about a conflict at work or at an RSO, there is one that comes to mind. Last summer, I was an intern for an insurance agency in Chicago. My job title was set at a college financial advisor, and I was tasked with identifying any financial needs for clients and help them reach their goals. The hard part of the job was that I had to build my own book of business. Being a 22-year-old, many people didn’t take me seriously and were not willing to work with me and share their personal financial information. It became very tough for me to find new people to reach out to due and overtime I exhausted my network of friends and family. One day when there were only a few hours left in the workday, my boss approached me and found me staring at my computer screen. All the work goals that I had been set for the week in terms of appointments, prospects, sales, etc. were not being met. I was working extremely hard to meet these goals, however, it just wasn’t working out. I was following the guide they had given to a tee, making 40 calls a day and 25 appointments per week. But, when it came time to meet with my potential clients and I gave them a call to confirm our appointment, they would always back out.

When my boss had walked up to me that day, he saw me doing nothing. He caught me at a time where I was stumped and trying to brainstorm new prospecting ideas. However, from his point of view, I looked like a slacker as I wasn’t meeting my sales quotas or goals. He called me into his office and sat me down. He then proceeded to bombard me with questions and accusations of my work ethic. Respectfully, I told him that he was perceiving the problem to be something completely different than what he thought. He continued to press me on the issue and get me to admit to wrongdoing. However, I was not willing to budge. For the next few weeks, my boss became extremely strict on me and pestered me at my desk. I had no chance to think to myself, as we constantly would pop in to antagonize me. From his perspective, he was just “pushing” me to do my job. In reality, he was causing me to work inefficiently and become distracted. He had now become a coercive leader, constantly threatening my job security. Over time, I became extremely fed up with his character and rose the problem to the managing director of the office.

I approached Kyle and told him everything that had been going on between my boss and I. Even the other coworkers had become aware of my boss’ behavior and it began to distract them from their work as well. Due to his poor actions, the managing director ended up transferring him to a different office in the district. The problem could’ve been approached differently to make sure both my boss and I were on the same page. Ultimately, it was resolved but only after I put in a lot more effort than was necessary.





Comments

  1. Professor ArvanNovember 18, 2019 at 4:37 AM

    Before getting to the gist of your story, I could use some clarification on what it was you were selling and what line of business the company you worked for was selling. You said it was an insurance company but it sounded like you were trying to be a financial services advisor, perhaps for a targeted group of people (those saving to put their kids through college)? In any event, I didn't understand this, so it would help to provide a bit more information about it.

    Then, I wonder whether there were other interns at the place doing similar work as you and/or if there were permanent staff doing such work. The story would be quite different if you were the only one doing this, as compared to several others also doing this. In the latter case, your performance could be compared with theirs. In the former case, even a good salesperson can't get a sale if there is little demand for the product.

    Now, extending this some, if there were others doing the same work and your performance was lagging behind theirs, it still might not indicate shirking, but could be that you were dealing with a niche where demand was weaker. However, it is now a possibility that it is shirking so the company should monitor more closely.

    Then, it would be good to talk about compensation for you and for your boss (if you know that). Were there performance incentives in terms of getting more pay for each sale? If the boss had such a performance incentive, at least you can understand why he was pushing you. It may have been counterproductive (a lesson for us about goals versus the ways to achieve them) but at least the behavior would make some sense. If he didn't get a performance incentive then maybe he got some flak from his boss. But, it sounds like that didn't happen.

    I know it is frustrating to put in a lot of effort and get very little out of that effort. I'm afraid that a lot of sales jobs are like that nowadays.

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    Replies
    1. Adam Smith Econ 490 fall 2019November 21, 2019 at 5:15 PM

      In January before my internship started in June, I was required to take a class to get my accident and health as well as life insurance license. Hence, this was the product that I was selling as it was the only thing I could legally make a profit on since I only held a license for these two products. The company I worked for had almost every financial service you could think of, ranging from insurance to wealth management. My title as a college financial advisor was basically a financial advisor in training. Once again, I was limited in what I could do since I didn't have my Series 6, Series 67, securities license, long-term care license, etc.

      There were other interns tasked with the same job function and roles as I. However, they were able to make sales to their family to keep the boss off their back. My family didn't need any insurance needs, and wasn't willing to switch from their current plan just so I could get a gold star at my internship. Afterall, I shouldn't have to sell to my parents or grandparents just to make it by at my job. Only two out of the 10 interns were able to land a sale outside of their "warm circle" which goes to show how difficult it was.

      There definitely were performance incentives to getting sales. Every week I was paid a $100 stipend and then the rest came from commission. Making a sale with an annual premium of $1000 for instance would yield me $500. However, they strongly encouraged us to partner with a full time advisor to help secure the deals. In the event of this, the commission would further be divided split 50-50 between the advisor and I. The boss also got some kind of chunk out of the deal, although it wasn't in my contract. The entire work place was basically a pyramid scheme with each position making a cut out of the person below them.

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