Integrity vs. getting results

- Integrity is probably the most common word you'll find listed on company value statements. But something else you'll find most companies value, whether it's stated or not, is getting results. So your job is to figure out what the right thing to do is in this situation. When those values collide, given your company's values and ethics. Ready? Here we go. So imagine you're at a retirement party for one of the company's best sales people. A guy named Dave. And everyone's standing around, giving toasts and telling stories about Dave's career. But one of those stories stood out to you. It was a story about one of Dave's early assignments as a sales rep, calling on a grocery store chain in Arizona. Now, Sally, Dave's boss was all excited to tell the story and introduced it by saying, "Did you know that Dave "is the only sales person in the history of this company "to get that chain in Arizona to carry every single size "of our fabric softener for a whole year? "It's true! "And if you know the buyer down there "you know he prides himself on being something "of a tough cookie and only taking the best items. "He's always got to say no to something." Well, anyway, after a couple of years of only getting them to buy a few sizes, Dave rewrote the sales pitch and went in with a goal of selling all five sizes. Well, when he was about half way through the pitch, the buyer had already agreed to the first three sizes. So Dave started working on number four. And it was a tough sale, but he eventually got them to agree to that one too. Now he only had one more size to go and it was the sample size. The littlest one. So, Dave went into all the reasons why they needed to carry the sample size. At how shoppers who never bought fabric softener needed a cheap way to try it to see if they liked it and how the profit margins were higher for the sample size. But as hard as he tried, the guy just wasn't impressed. So, Dave eventually gave up and wrote up the order for the other four sizes. And then she said, "But if you're wondering "how Dave eventually got them to carry every size, "it's not because he went back again and tried later. "The reason is that there are only four sizes to begin with. "That sample size didn't even exist. "He just made it up to give the guy something to say no to "and make it easier to sell the other four. "And that's why Dave will forever be the greatest salesperson at this company." Now, everybody started clapping, but you just stood there. A little unsure of how to feel about what you just heard. Now there wasn't anything specific in the company policy manual about not selling items that didn't exist, and that definitely helped the company achieve the sales target that they'd been after that year. But it also just didn't seem like a high integrity kind of thing to do. So, considering your company's values and ethics, what do you think about what Dave did? Would it be considered a clever sales tactic worthy of all that applause? Or would it be an ethical violation, resulting in Dave getting reprimanded or maybe even fired? Answer the questions in the Q and A tab, or check out a deeper set of questions in the exercise files before moving on to the next case.