A manager criticizes the Excellence Club because she believes that it

QUESTION

A manager criticizes the Excellence Club because she believes that it encourages negative behavior that otherwise would not happen. She believes instead that business developers should be rewarded based on the revenue they bring in.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports this conclusion?
A) Business developers often pursue deals that generate revenue in the year they are completed but are bad propositions in the long term.
B) Business developers who are less successful have been known to try to take credit for deals completed by more successful business developers.
C) Business developers have sometimes lied to customers about the real value of the deals they offer.
D) Toward the end of the fiscal year, business developers outside the top 10 percent put in extra hours in order to increase their chances of qualifying for the Excellence Club.
E) Business developers outside the top ten percent have contacted some customers of those in the top 10 percent in an effort to prevent those customers from completing their deals.

ANSWER

Answer: E
Explanation: E) The Excellence Club rewards people in the top 10 percent. That could encourage people to try to earn more in order to qualify, but it could also encourage people to destroy other people’s deals in an attempt to bring those rivals out of the top 10 percent. Choice E, if true, is an example of negative behavior that most likely would not occur under the “revenue only” approach. The Excellence Club gives people an incentive to destroy their rivals’ deals, but that incentive would disappear if others’ performances were irrelevant. Choices A, B, and C are bad things, but they would be encouraged by either approach. Choice D is an example of what the company wants to happen.