I hear a lot of you out there in manufacturer-land unfairly maligning your field managers. It’s true that there are Regional Managers who are ineffective, improperly trained, and are living examples of the Peter Principle (“A person rises to the level of his own incompetence.”). But whose fault is that? Are you ready to continue to “point the finger” or are you ready to “pull the thumb”?
Your Regional Managers should be the “glue” that holds your field sales group together, bridging the gap between your top management team, and your sales agencies and/or sales reps. They implement strategy and organizational changes, keeping these second-party sellers engaged and informed during both good and bad economic cycles.
Have you properly prepared them for this responsibility? Have you given them the tools to do a good job? Do you incent them properly to align with your priorities? Do they thoroughly understand their role within the organization, or do they think that being an RM is merely a rung on the ladder to somewhere else?
Based on both formal statistics --- as well as casual feedback from clients --- many companies are seeing significant turnover in their Regional Managers, and turnover creates an obstacle to proper field execution of strategy. Wharton Executive Education Dean Thomas Colligan remarks, "Top management can spend all their time creating strategy, but without someone there to implement it, where are you at the end of the day?"
These observations were never truer than in our current lagging economy. Unfortunately, this “middle manager level” RM is the one that will again bear a significant part of the pain that the current economic conditions will bring. After the last downsizings in the 1980s and 1990s, a few of the regional manager positions that were eliminated have since been reinstated thru “reorganizations” occurring in the last few years. Unfortunately, these same positions could be likely targets for downsizing again.
In addition, as companies go thru economic cycles like the current one, RM’s also get hit with the elimination of rewards and incentives and, in some cases, layoffs. "In cost-cutting times, knee-jerk reactions happen. There is a paradox where middle managers are essential, but end up sacked when restructuring occurs. It's a rough situation because the people needed to run the most important projects are in the middle."
There is also the stereotypical situation in which middle managers have no authority but all of the accountability. It may be change that you didn't have much to do with, but you need to nevertheless translate it to your sales partners while making them feel protected and valued. This is a challenging situation for the best of managers. Are yours comfortable that THEIR positions are secure? Have they been properly informed of all the issues surrounding the shift in strategy? Have they truly “bought into” the changes, or are they following orders?
Given the high cost of turnover and the importance of Regional Managers in implementing strategy and change:
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Individual incentive and development plans that are tied to (and connected with) your organization’s corporate goals and strategies.
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Access to training tools, educational opportunities, and corporate knowledge archives can play a large role in effectiveness as well as retention rates
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Access to coaching and mentoring
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Company intranet bulletin boards, wiki’s and blogs will help the RSM voice his opinion, as well as solicit feedback on issues he may be addressing in his region.
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Participation in the corporate planning process, allowing them to participate in a change decision, design, and implementation will lead to buy-in and ownership.
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Communication to engage midlevel managers in understanding a company's new strategic initiatives…expressed in tangible terms of what is expected of them.
Are YOU doing the “right things” to assure that your RM’s are everything you want them to be…and everything they CAN be? Pull the thumb…its good exercise.
“They can because they think they can.” --- Virgil