MENTORING Case study

Venkat is basically a sincere person. He is conscientious and

does his work sincerely. Coming from a rural background
and a humble family he is slightly reserved and a man of few
words.
He is very tall and well built. Anybody seeing his physique
may mistake him for a robust tough guy. Interacting with
him one will find the opposite of the impression his physique
gives.
Though he goes about his work in right earnest his boss
feels Venkat is a less enthusiastic member of his team. The
boss is of the opinion that Venkat is not an ambitious person
and more goes with the motion than taking an enthusiastic
participation in the assignment.
Venkat is in sales department and has been doing fairly well
comparable in performance with that of his colleagues. In
fact he has shown growth over previous year performance
till the 3rd quarter.
However like most of his colleagues he could not meet the
target figure and falls short by 15%.
His boss one day in a bad mood summoned Venkat and
spoke in an unpalatable language and tone. Venkat was
shocked and could not speak up and explain his stand. The
main reason his boss said was that because Venkat was not
so interested in the job he had not bothered to meet the
target.
Now the boss gave a months time to prove his worth. The
condition was unless Venkat met that months targeted sale
he would be shown the door. On top of it he issued a memo
to Venkat, recording the threat of ouster.
Poor Venkat is now baffled .
As a mentor to VENKAT how will you intervene and help
Venkat?