Case 1 Sales Engineering Dept
Leadership development: Case for analysis -Sales engineering division
When DGL International, a manufacturer of refinery equipment, brought in John Terrill to manage its sales engineering division, company executives informed him of the urgent situation.
Sales engineering, with 20 engineers, was the highest paid, best educated, and least productive department. The instructions to Terrill: Turn it around.
Terrill called a meeting of engineers. He showed great concern for their personal welfare and asked point blank: what’s the problem? Why can’t we produce? Why does this division have such turnover? Without hesitation employees launched a hail of complaints. I was hired as an engineer not a pencil pusher. We spent over half of our time writing silly reports in triplicate for top management, and no one reads the reports. We have to account for every penny, which doesn’t give us any time to work with customers or new developments.
After a two hour discussion, Terrill began to envision a future in which engineers were free to work with customers and joined self-directed teams for product improvement. Terrill concluded he had to get top management off the engineers back. He promised the engineers, ‘my job is to stay out of your way so that you can do your job and I will try to keep top management off your back too’. He called for the day’s reports and issued an order effective immediately that the originals be turned in daily to his office rather than mailed to headquarters.
For three weeks, technical reports piled up on his desk. By the month’s end the stock was nearly three feet high. During the time no one called for the reports. When other managers entered his office and saw the stack, they usually asked, “what’s all this”? Terrill replied, technical reports.
No one asked to read them.
Finally at month’s end, a secretary from finance called and asked for the monthly travel and expense report. Terrill responded, ‘meet me in the president’s office tomorrow morning’.
When DGL International, a manufacturer of refinery equipment, brought in John Terrill to manage its sales engineering division, company executives informed him of the urgent situation.
Sales engineering, with 20 engineers, was the highest paid, best educated, and least productive department. The instructions to Terrill: Turn it around.
Terrill called a meeting of engineers. He showed great concern for their personal welfare and asked point blank: what’s the problem? Why can’t we produce? Why does this division have such turnover? Without hesitation employees launched a hail of complaints. I was hired as an engineer not a pencil pusher. We spent over half of our time writing silly reports in triplicate for top management, and no one reads the reports. We have to account for every penny, which doesn’t give us any time to work with customers or new developments.
After a two hour discussion, Terrill began to envision a future in which engineers were free to work with customers and joined self-directed teams for product improvement. Terrill concluded he had to get top management off the engineers back. He promised the engineers, ‘my job is to stay out of your way so that you can do your job and I will try to keep top management off your back too’. He called for the day’s reports and issued an order effective immediately that the originals be turned in daily to his office rather than mailed to headquarters.
For three weeks, technical reports piled up on his desk. By the month’s end the stock was nearly three feet high. During the time no one called for the reports. When other managers entered his office and saw the stack, they usually asked, “what’s all this”? Terrill replied, technical reports.
No one asked to read them.
Finally at month’s end, a secretary from finance called and asked for the monthly travel and expense report. Terrill responded, ‘meet me in the president’s office tomorrow morning’.