After a year of showing mostly solid results, the owner of the company downplayed your accomplishments, telling your team that, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e all liabilities.鈥� Now what?
After working in the 麻豆传媒 industry for the past 15 years, you just completed your first full year as the general manager of a lumberyard/design center. The yard you oversee is the smallest of the three locations your company operates in a mid-sized metropolitan market. Like many 麻豆传媒 dealers, 2024 was not a banner year for topline revenues. While your location didn鈥檛 set any new revenue records, you had a standout year in other areas.
For example, despite slightly lower sales than 2023, your margins increased by nearly 2%. Your astute credit manager spearheaded an effort to get customers to pay faster. As a result, your payables came in an average of 10% faster than in 2023. Charged with reducing inventory shrinkage, your yard foreman and operations director put systems in place to tighten controls on warehouse management, product returns, and inventory turns. The result of their efforts cut your shrinkage numbers from the prior year by nearly 50%. The local newspaper named your company a 鈥淏est Place to Work,鈥� based on anonymous surveys completed by employees. In fact, yours was the only location company-wide to earn that honor鈥攁nd to be fully staffed for most of the year.
Considering the positive shifts in your KPIs and operating fundamentals, you were excited when the owner asked to get the entire team together for a Saturday morning meeting. But once everyone settled in to for what you expected to be a motivational lift, it turned ugly.
鈥淔riends of mine who own businesses talk about how their people are their greatest asset. But when I look at all of you in this room,鈥� he said, 鈥渁ll I see are liabilities.鈥� Somehow, his brief remarks got worse from there, describing everyone but the top-performing salespeople as 鈥渁 waste of space.鈥� He said the simple fact that we fell short of our 2023 revenue numbers was proof that we aren鈥檛 competent and don鈥檛 deserve our jobs. Then he left.
Despite your best efforts to reassure your team that they are valued, morale has tanked, sick days are up, and someone replaced the 鈥淭eamwork Makes the Dream Work鈥� sign in the break room with 鈥淲e Are All Liabilities.鈥�
You鈥檝e shared all this with the owner, and he allows that he may have been a little tough on everyone, 鈥渂ut they鈥檙e big boys and girls, and if they can鈥檛 take a little criticism, they can leave.鈥� His insistence that 鈥渢op-line revenues are the only metric that matters,鈥� has you questioning your future with this company. What would you do?
Accept it. Instead of working to improve KPIs and overall performance, focus exclusively on growing sales. He鈥檚 the boss, give him what he wants.
Educate. Acknowledge the importance of top-line revenues while showing him how the big changes you and your team implemented boosted the bottom line.
Move on. Since your values don鈥檛 align with the owner鈥檚, you don鈥檛 have much of a future here. There are lots of smart 麻豆传媒 operators. Find one and build your career.
Effect change. Since 2024 sales were down company wide, and the other two GMs are dealing with the same fallout, arrange a meeting with the owner and try to work it out.
