Read the following case study involving Dennigee's Store:

Case Study Leading a High Performance Team

You are the store manager at Dennigee's, one of 988 mid-sized profitable lawn and garden stores scattered throughout the West, Midwest and Southwestern parts of the United States. Your store is located in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dennigee's offers lawn and garden products and fresh plants in a great atmosphere and at an affordable price.

Its mission statement promises:

To be the leading provider of quality lawn and garden products; providing customers with a better life by saving them money and time; providing employees with respect and opportunities; and giving shareholders a return on their investment.

The company's strategy is to be a customer-driven provider of high-quality lawn and garden products and fresh plants

The focus for this fiscal year is simple and straightforward. Dennigee's will continue to focus their execution on their corporate strategy, referred to as the "Big Five":

Grow Customer Numbers Faster than the Competition

Lead in Revenue Growth

Ensure a Great Customer Experience Every Time

Lead in Profitability Growth

Use the Strength of Our Culture to Compete

Executing the Big 5 is critically important to the company's success.

The following is background on the Phoenix Dennigee's store: LY Revenues: $1.6M

TY Plan: $1.8M

13,000 sq. ft combined inventory storage and selling space

Total of 6 Dennigee's stores in the Phoenix market

Home Depot within a 2 mile radius

Lowe's and Menard's within a 5 mile radius

The stores current performance stats:

Current Fiscal Year: Focus Period, Jan 1 Mar 31

QTR 1, Mo 2, Wk 3

QTD	MTD	WTD
Sales Performance: $410K Revenue/Productivity Shrink and discounts: 9.9% vs. target of 6.8%	Sales Performance: $97K Revenue/Productivity Shrink and discounts: 10.2% vs. target of 6.8%	Sales Performance: $28K Revenue/Productivity Shrink and discounts: 10.3% vs. target of 6.8%
Operational Goals: Cash Balance -1.8% vs. goal of -1% Shrink: .09% vs. .03% target	Operational Goals: Cash Balance -1.6% vs. goal of -1% Shrink: .08% vs. .03% target
Customer Retention: Churn: 1.45	Customer Retention: Churn: 1.55
Customer Service Scores: NPS: 45%	Customer Service Scores: NPS: 48%	Customer Service Scores: NPS: 42%
Employee Turnover Exempt: 28% Non-Exempt: 46% Company Turnover Exempt: 18% Non-Exempt: 26%	Employee Turnover Exempt: 18% Non-Exempt: 48%
Job Openings: 6.3% vs. 2.0% goal

You joined Dennigee's less than three years ago as a department manager. You were promoted to assistant store manager at the end of 18 months and then six months ago, you took over as the store manager following the departure of James Kidd. The promotion was based on your selling success. You turned many one-time or infrequent shoppers into profitable repeat customers.

And, the changes you made for displaying product choices and pricing were so productive and efficient; they became operational standards for all stores. As a store manager, your main responsibilities include driving revenues, increasing the number of items per customer transaction, and improving inventory turns.

Executing each of these responsibilities has its challenges; however, developing your staff into a team has been the most challenging. You have a growing respect for other store managers everywhere as you have learned firsthand about the daily, unpredictable people side of the business. Retaining top talent is an ongoing issue. The average tenure for an employee is 16 months, while it is 22 months for supervisors and managers. There are many performance issues, which vary from person to person. But, you have successfully formed and trained the managerial and supervisory staff who function very well as a team. The part-time employees are a different story. They typically fall short of meeting their daily responsibilities, represent the bottom 25% of the districts employee performance ratings, and their NPS survey percentages are below 60%. You have 26 PT employees. You also have two assistant store managers and 6 department supervisors who all have diverse talents and tactics for motivation.

You just completed a Monday morning store walk through. You evaluated and took note of the areas of the store that needed attention, as well as the inventory in-stock status. During the walk, you evaluated all operational areas to make sure they were recovered from the weekends business.

Overall, the store had not fully recovered. Last weekend, residents enjoyed sunny, warm weather, which translated to an especially busy Saturday and exceeded revenue targets. As you walked the store you made note of the following:

Promotional signage was up-to-date and appropriately displayed.

Cleanliness standards were not met. Discarded product packaging and scrap cardboard were

observed in some selling areas. Restrooms needed mopping and the mirrors were streaked. Paper products in the restrooms were not adequately stocked.

The walk-in greenhouse was up to standard.

The watering equipment department was up to standard.

Some of the inventory levels were short, especially for the current planting equipment

that was being promoted. Liquid fertilizers were also in short supply.

You received two e-mails on Sunday from customers complaining about long wait times over the weekend. Plus, selling items at the checkout (gardening gloves and knee pads) were not

You decide that your first step in preparing for conversations with Eddie and Amy is to use the T-Sheet, a tool your district manager gave you to capture performance data. You completed one for Amy.

Amy Anderson, Assistant Store Manager	Date: Spring Season, May
Support	Develop
Avoided a difficult situation with an unhappy customer by listening and clearly explaining what she understood the situation to be. Offered solutions and options.	Late twice this month. Said car trouble.
Highly energetic and involved in team meetings. Helps employees understand business results. Offers suggestions and ideas.	Good natured, but occasionally too aggressive approach with customers. Visibly turned off an elderly couple who needed help making a product selection.
Consistently executes promotional signage planograms and works toward maintaining very high standards in the store.	Received two complaints from department supervisors managers. Amy keeps cutting them off in front of other employees and customers.
Helps employees up-sell customers using suggestive selling techniques.	Store selling area not fully recovered three times this month.

your professional experience as you review the case study. Consider the situation from the perspective of a team leader. In 300 400 words, double-spaced, use the results of your analysis to complete the following: 1.State your vision for the store; explain 2.Determine and describe three objectives on which your team should focus, then list them in priority order 3.Use the Dennigee's Case Study leader plan template to outline your plan; based on your leadership priority list, insert specific goals for each of your objectives (by month, by quarter, and by season) 4.Explain how the objectives you have identified and the goals you have set align with the company strategy stated in the case study Note: Next week, you will use both this case study and template when completing 4.1 Discussion: Workforce Analysis.