Sergey, your co-worker, always worked extremely hard to hit his sales goals for the month, and he did so month after month.  It meant compliments from his boss, the esteem of his co-workers, and receiving a bonus each month of about 25% of his base salary.  This month he faced an unusual problem.  There had been production problems at one usually quite reliable supplier and the warehouse inventory was quite low on the products that his customers had recently been ordering in the highest quantities.

It seemed to Sergey that it was possible that he would not make his goals this month through no fault of his own.  His customers were ordering, but it seemed likely that the warehouse would not be able to deliver.  Then he hit upon an idea.  Sergey knew Ivo the Warehouse Manager quite well.  They lived in the same part of town, played football together on weekends, and shared beers together now and then after work.  Sergey thought that perhaps he could approach Ivo about giving the orders for his customers priority thus assuring that he would hit his goals.  He even thought about making it worth Ivo’s efforts by rewarding him with some kind of gift.  He was sure that Ivo would help him out.

Sergey had heard that the supply problem was going to be corrected next month so he saw this as only being a one-time thing.  He really didn’t want to see his record of surpassing his goals broken and he really didn’t want to lose his bonus.  He had almost come to depend upon it. Sergey decided to approach Ivo.

Several weeks later, Sergey is casually is sharing with you that he had to take some extraordinary steps to keep record of always hitting his sales goal intact.  When you ask him just exactly what he means, he gets a bit nervous and then tells you the whole story.

You’ve always had a high opinion of Sergey.  Does this make you feel any differently?  

Sergey asked Ivo to break company policy and Ivo agreed in order to help his friend out.  Your company is very strict about complying with all company policies.  

Consider the following:

1. Do you go to management with what you learned?

2. You feel that it’s important that Sergey realize that what he did was wrong.  How do you help him see that?

3. What’s the best thing you can do for Sergey?