Organizational Behavior And Armored Coat

Armor Coat’s Goal and Individual Demotivating Factors

Key Goal:

Armor Coat’s objective is to implement a Web-based solution to survive and remain competitive in the insurance market. In order to be successful, the company must draw on both Ed’s strengths in customer relationships and Roger’s knowledge of cutting edge technology.

Demotivating Factors:

Roger вЂ" He perceives the older generation like Ed to be insecure, arrogant, and resistant to change.

Ed вЂ" He perceives a lack of respect from over-paid, younger whiz kids who don’t “speak the same language” or respect their industry experience.

CJ вЂ" He understands that a generational gap is dividing the company, making it difficult for Armor Coat to meet customer and investor expectations and adapt and embrace a Web-based model. CJ, the CEO, realizes that Armor Coat must move into the Web era, but is having a difficult time avoiding a generational gap between the young tech employees and older salespeople.

Motivational Issues Undermining CJ’s Efforts to Introduce “E-Way” of Selling

Expectancy Model - Valence, Instrumentality, and Expectancy

One of the motivational factors undermining CJ’s efforts to introduce the new Web-based model is Roger’s positive (high) valance and Ed’s negative (low) valance. Roger’s positive valence is due to his anticipated satisfaction from Armor Coat providing insurance products online. If he succeeds, his sense of entrepreneurial flair, entitlement, and brash style would all be confirmed. Ed’s negative valence is due to the dissatisfaction in offering online insurance products. He feels that if the company embraces an online strategy, the value-add of the sales force is diminished, leading to further sales force reductions and eventually to the elimination of his position altogether.

The second motivational factor undermining CJ’s efforts is Roger’s strong belief that offering online insurance products will result in increased sales and provide information and services quickly for comparison purposes, which leads to a high instrumentality. On the other hand, Ed’s skepticism of technology and his continued faith towards the benefits of selling insurance in person leads him to distrust the new “e-way” of selling insurance, which leads to a low instrumentality.

The third motivational factor undermining CJ’s efforts is both Roger’s and Ed’s low belief that the effort exerted in a mentor/mentee relationship will actually lead to high performance. Both of their low expectancies were clearly evidenced when Roger told Ed at the restaurant that the younger salespeople were “getting it”, and when Ed advised Roger not to “ever go into PR” and stormed out. The situation was further exacerbated when Roger called CJ saying that if Ed didn’t leave the team, Roger would leave, and Ed called CJ with the same ultimatum.

Self- Efficacy

Due to the nature of self-efficacy, both Roger and Ed display low self-efficacy for some tasks and high self-efficacy for others. For instance, Roger has low self-efficacy for mentoring Ed, who doesn’t believe that new Web-based technology is essential for the survival of the company. On the other hand, Roger has very high self-efficacy toward his ability to “digitize” Armor Coat and help the company flourish. At one point, he even refers to himself a “digital expert.”

Ed has low self-efficacy towards being mentored by Roger since he believes Roger cannot clearly see how his role has been and will continue to be vital to Armor Coat’s future. Ed also displays high self-efficacy towards his ability to drive sales through deep customer relationships. He even goes so far as to brag about how 300 customers sent him get well cards when he had an appendectomy.

Organizational Justice - Distributive and Procedural Justice

The first organizational justice that undermines CJ’s efforts is the lack of distributive justice. Ed doesn’t believe he is getting what he deserves. In his opinion, sales representatives like himself are “the key to the insurance business.” Because of his seniority, high performance, and close relationship to clients, he feels he should not have to be mentored. In addition, Ed fails to see Roger’s value add and believes he has too much authority for his young age, lacks a formal education, and is overpaid. Ed’s perception results in feeling that negative inequity exists because the ratio of his outcomes to his inputs is less than Roger’s ratio of outcomes to inputs. The perceived inequity is so large that both Ed and Roger are threatening to quit.

The second organizational justice that undermines CJ’s efforts is the lack of procedural justice from both Ed’s and Roger’s perspectives. Neither felt like the process used to allocate outcomes was just because they didn’t have a “voice” in the decision-making process when CJ assigned Roger to mentor Ed. As a result, Roger was less than optimistic and thought the whole experiment was a waste of time, and Ed missed a critical meeting with Roger.

Recommendations for CJ

1. Create and articulate a vision and inspire a growth mindset

First, CJ needs to create a strong vision based on a growth mindset and articulate it throughout all levels of the company. CJ must show that Armor Coat’s future will draw on the strengths of both the sales force with their strong customer relationships and the tech gurus with their ability to implement the Web-based technology. Without both strengths and skillsets, Armored Coat will perish. It is essential that he show the sales force that embracing the new technology will not make their job obsolete. CJ must clearly communicate how the employees must work together to make this vision a reality. He could even bring in a third party speaker to discuss the positive impact moving into “the Web error” has