Case Analysis: Thomas Green: Power, Office Politics, and a Career in Crisis

(1) What are the work styles and personalities of Thomas Green and Frank Davis? Thomas Green is a practical person who follows the traditional well defined rules and regulations with abundant experience in sales field. On one hand, Green is an ambitious, innovative and confident guy and is concerned with practicality of a decision. In essence, Green would like to under-promise and over-deliver. He was interested in the end result performance but not in the detailed plan. On the other hand, Green’s strong woo talent made him love the challenge of meeting new persons and winning them over. He likes to work independently and is more of a face to face guy when delivering his ideas to client and recommendations to Davis. He prefers verbal communication over written form of communication and does not like to present his thought through the aid of presentations, reports etc. However, lacking of experience in marking analysis and lacking of formality in business dealings are something cannot be ignored, making him difficult to work smoothly in Dynamic Displays. He has short term focus and lacks longterm strategic decision making skills, making himself not well adjusted with the politics and putting himself in a disadvantage situation in the company. Frank Davis, marketing director of Dynamic Displays, is an excellent strategic player and has a micro-managing, intense style of leadership. To put it in other saying, he is an achievement-oriented person who is serious in details and less social in relationship. He is also a good reader because he prefers written content over others. David’s excellent analytical strength along with his seventeen years of experience enabled him to come up with a 10% market growth. Additionally, Davis likes to make decision based on fact and his working style seems to be direct and to the point, therefore, He prefers taking support of reports, memos and presentations where recommendations and strategies should be justified using hard data rather than relying on verbal conversation. What’s more, Davis wanted the team to be in a positive mindset in order to keep moral up. He is so aware of the office politics and pays attention to strong effects and enthusiasm of the employee. He is a transactional leader who is good at setting goal, sales projections and expectations. For one thing, Davis values team work, for another he also values good communication with status update and quick responsiveness. Davis is a veteran employee who has gained much knowledge over the years and has an ability to show his skill in planning what would be best for Dynamic Displays. As the leader of marketing analysis, Davis was expecting a precise plan of every detail, schedule and documentation from Thomas Green and wanted him to provide recommendations for changes in attitude, behavior, and communication. (2) How do the actions of Thomas Green differ from the expectations of Frank Davis? In my opinion, there are lots of difference in action of Thomas Green and expectations of Frank Davis. First of all, Green’s previous position of account executive was conservative and his priority is only to communicate with productive clients and meet the sales target. After Green skyrocketed rapidly to the position of senior marketing analysis with McDonald’s appreciation, Green did not transfer well in market sense and work style. Frank Davis expected Thomas Green to be a reliable and professional person who could identify industry trends, evaluate new business opportunities and establish sales goals. That is to say, Thomas Green not only needs to develop general market and specific strategies to help the account executive enhance sales and achieve the target results, but also needs to be strategic in identifying patterns, anticipating problems and providing relevant solutions.

On the other side, Frank Davis is unsatisfied that Thomas Green didn’t build an effective communication channel with him. To be more precise, Frank Davis was not aware of Thomas Green because Green never informed Davis about his schedules. It is well known that one of the major tasks of senior market analysis is to follow up market information but Green failed to give feedback on the supporting data that required to be put on memos and presentations before the required deadlines which is violating Davis’s work standards. What's worse, Thomas Green was not enthusiastic and wasted time by complaining on the problems he faced. Frank Davis was irritated by Green’s negative attitude as he expected his subordinate to be optimistic and responsible to official work. (3) What is your analysis of Thomas Green’s actions and job performance in his first five months? What mistakes has he made? It is universally known that every coin has two sides, the good side and the bad side. Firstly, let us begin with the good side. Although Thomas Green have gone through a tough period of the five months, there were a few achievements which should not be neglected. Thomas Green was effective at the beginning of the first few weeks after his promotion. Green accomplished a lot before the Budget Plan Meeting and was able to impress Davis when it came to selling his ideas to client. As Frank said, “We had some good meetings this week and the clients responded well to your ideas”. In the next 3 months, Green worked independently on his individual assignment and went traveling to meet with his client and market specialists. There's no doubt that Green was highly appreciated by other market specialists who accompanied him in few meetings by mentioning that he was “charismatic and can think quickly on his feet.” Nevertheless, there were lots of obvious mistakes which need to be mentioned. Though he was known for working charismatically, he never supported his work with convincing data as evidence. Worst of all, the biggest mistake that was done by Thomas Green was the disagreement with Frank Davis on the sales target. This was the root causing of the following problems between Frank Davis and Thomas Green. In addition, Green failed to maintain an effective communication with his boss and has not cultivated well with his superior. Davis is an experienced marketing person who prefers to read information materials rather than verbal communication but Thomas completely failed to realize this. Green did not inform his superior about his location and progress, ending up with the result that he was unable to make Frank trust and depend on him. Besides, Green mixed the personal with the professional. He thought Davis was criticizing him for the reason that he was promoted to this position with the help of McDonald and Frank wanted to offer this position to someone else. This wrong perception resulted in many poor judgements of Davis in many following occasions. Last but not the least, Green has not been able to adapt himself well to the organization and failed to understand the politics in the new environment. He was unable to develop a good network with his work colleagues who can guided him on how to tackle his boss and helped him by sharing job related resources including information, professional advice, political access and material resources. (4) What are the possible underlying agendas of Davis and McDonald? Agendas of Davis As mentioned above, Davis is a wise old bird with a working experience of seventeen years since he joined Dynamic Displays in 1990. He was ambitious and climbed up the career ladder to the position of Marketing Director.

However, Davis was not a shining eye catcher compared to McDonald who joined the company later than him but got promoted faster than him, it is tough for Davis to accept the fact that McDonald got a senior position as Vice President which he believes should belonged to him as being service the longest in Dynamic Displays and having more work experience. More than this, it is unacceptable for Davis that McDonald did not consult Davis and made a decision to promoted Thomas Green to a senior market analysis, the position where it took years for Davis to reach whereas Thomas got easily in just six months and that Davis had expected to choose someone else but Thomas. Therefore, the most underlying agenda of Davis is to prove that McDonald was serving her own personal interest to hire Thomas rather than being sincere with the success of the company on merit basis. By exposing her manipulation of bureaucracy to the CEO, the possibility for Davis of replacing the position of McDonald as Vice President will greatly increase. Agendas of McDonald McDonald, in lieu of the benefit of the Travel and Hospitality Division, possesses the sufficient power in her hands to demonstrate and take decision. Compared to Davis and Green, McDonald is so clever and familiar with the politics in the organization. She was also aware that Davis may be threatening and had all the intention to find her mistake and weaken her position in the company. What’s more, McDonald was pretty good at playing politics and using people for her own good as she knew that Green was from her own state and graduated from the same university. There are so many advantages that McDonald could take and she could easily control Thomas compared to any other employees. Therefore, it is obvious that McDonald’s motive is to enhance her position, increase her network and inforce her influence by getting information of Davis’ department from Green. (5) What actions, if any, would you take if you were Thomas Green? Supposing that I were Thomas Green, there are only a few options that I would take in front of me which are. a. Communicate and consult with McDonald First: since it was McDonald’s decision to hire Green, McDonald would never let this kind of situation go worse, or her reputation and authority will be terribly affected. By far, Thomas should urgently setup a meeting with McDonald, clarifying all the misunderstanding and wrong perception and consulting advices to develop a further roadmap for him in the company. b. Prepare a formal and detailed email to McDonald: In order to improve the situation, First and foremost, accept all my mistakes that has led to the present misunderstanding and promise to find ways to improve the relations. Secondly, state all my achievements still date, all the marketing strategies that I had conducted, all the sales tactics that had increase sales of the eastern region. Lastly, I would come up with a detailed and comprehensive plan and schedule in a very professional and respectful manner. c. Manage my superior in a smart way: I would take into consideration Davis’s strengths and weaknesses, analysis his work styles, and then follow his order and foot-steps in a preferred work style. Since I have no experience with forecasting whereas Davis is expert in this field, I would ask for advice to get more exposure and training from Davis. d. Create networks in workplace: I would seek suggestions from other Senior Market Specialists in the department. Having good and cordial relationship would benefit me in my progress as I would have people to support and guide me. d. Adapted to the politics in a quick way: No one cannot just ignore the

political environment and survive well without paying attention to it. If necessary, I may expose the sales unrealistic figures in a suitable method to McDonald and show evidence to prove that Frank’s projection was wrong and my anticipation was right. e. Hunt for a new job: This would be the last resort, or the final desperate approach if Thomas lose out on allies and failed the expectation of McDonald. But if I were Thomas I would never think of leaving the company because now his mortgage payment was due and the new furniture was scheduled to be delivered soon.