Thomas Green Case Essay Example

Thomas Green Case Essay Example Thomas Green Case Essay Thomas Green Case Essay In order to determine what course of action Davis should take, the root cause of Greens struggles at Dynamic Display (ID) must be examined. Simply stated the root cause for Greens struggles stem from a lack of power and influence and a lack of credibility; however, the contributing factors for these causes require deeper examination. To fully understand the lack of power, a brief history of both Green and Frank Davis must be analyzed. According to the Beckman article, Greens short professional background included 6 years as an account manager in the banking division of a company selling Tams to regional banks in the Southeast. He was recruited to ID as an account manager in their Hospitality and Travel Division selling self-service kiosks. Due to his outstanding performance, Green was invited to a week-long training session at the corporate headquarters where he met Shannon McDonald, the Division UP. After several conversations Green discovered there was an opening for a corporate marketing role and began lobbying for the job (Beckman Gasser, 2008). Green utilized his time to persuade McDonald that he would be a good fit for this marketing role. According to Jay Conger, the four essential steps process of persuasion are establish reducibility, frame goals on common ground, vividly reinforce your position, and con neck emotionally (Conger, 1998). Greens track record of outstanding performance gave Green the credibility he needed to initiate this discussion with McDonald. He framed his goals using the fact they both attended the university of Georgia to build rapport and gain McDonalds support. Explaining his goals to McDonald and elaborating that he wanted to make a significant impact in the company vividly reinforced his position while allowing them to connect emotionally. As a result, McDonald promoted Green o Senior Marketing Specialist reporting to Frank Davis (Beckman Gasser, 2008). Green was able to quickly move in to a senior-level position in what could be perceived as a short time frame with very limited experience; a typical career path to the senior marketing specialist at ID included tenure and field experience in the marketing specialist role (Beckman Gasser, 2008). Green moved into a role where he owned no currency or credibility, and was heavily dependent on both his manager and team. It was clear that Green did not have the power to effectively manage his team or work with his anger and O be effective, managers must find ways to acquire power With those on whom they are dependent. (Hill, What It Really Means to Manage: Exercising Power and Influence, 2000). It is important to note that the power An individual accrues is context-specific and hence dynamic: if the context changes, other things being equal, the individuals power Will ch ange. (Hill, Power Dynamics in Organizations, 1995). In this case, any power Green established while he was an individual account manager was lost in his new role, and he needed to find a way to grow power quickly. Unfortunately, Green possessed neither the expertise nor the track record in marketing to garner credibility with Davis and his own team, two very important characteristics needed in establishing power. Instead, Green chose to utilize a mask in order to help cover up his lack of power in the organization, further contributing to low performance in his role. According to Peter FUD and Richard Buddha, if Green had simply asked, What imperfections might he have been concealing (FUD Buddha, 2011), he would start to understand how his actions were contributing to a poor situation with his manager. By adopting the movie point of view to reflect on the situation, Green would understand how his lack of action was perpetuating his problems with his manager and allow him to recognize what changes in his behavior needed to occur. Had Green spent time reflecting on the situation, he would realize he needed to reach out to others within the organization for coaching. For example, his peers would have offered valuable insight. From an organizational and experiential perspective they could provide Green with relevant and credible direction while relaying knowledge around Davis performance expectations. McDonald could have offered valuable insight as Greens mentor and Offer ideas to help Green develop his sales strategy. Perhaps the best resource to reach out to for coaching would be Davis; Green could have learned what made Davis successful and leveraged both Davis and McDonalds positional power with the marketing specialists who reported to Green to help build credibility and establish his own power. Conversely, Greens manager Frank Davis appeared to have sufficient power and influence at a positional and personal level. For instance, his tenure with ID was 1 7 years, during which time he held various sales and marketing positions. ROR to his promotion to Director of Marketing he spent several years as a marketing specialist and a senior marketing specialist (Beckman Gasser, 2008). His tenure allowed Davis to gain the requisite knowledge and skills to perform both marketing roles prior to his recent promotion. This allowed him to maintain positional power within the organization while allowing him to build more influence throughout the organization. Credibility is a key factor in any organization, and since Green lacked credibility in his new role he was unable to successfully have an open dialogue with Davis regarding his tasks. One example involved feedback through which Davis recommended areas of improvement to Green; specifically, he expected Green to begin developing new marketing strategies for his region (Beckman Gasser, 2008). Davis set Green up for failure by using his positional power to put pressure on Green, even though he knew Green lacked the credibility with his team to complete this task. In the workplace, credibility grows out of two sources: expertise and relationships (Conger, 1998). Since he was Newton the role, he was still developing relationships which would allow him to be successful. His lack of experience reverted him from possessing the appropriate expertise to build credibility with his team. Additionally, when Green did not agree with Davis, he openly voiced his opinions to fellow employees and mana gers, and on one occasion during a budget planning meeting, Green directly challenged Davis on some of his forecasts. His relationship with Davis eventually reached a point where he purposely avoided interactions with Davis whenever he could (Beckman Gasser, 2008). If Green had successfully gained power and credibility with those he was heavily dependent, the relationship with Davis would not have deteriorated so quickly or to the extreme it did, and would have increased Greens chances for success in his current role. Failure to complete assigned tasks also hurt Greens credibility with his manager. In his former role, Green was very effective at building credibility by performing at a high level; this is evident because of the fact that .. Enron executives Quickly took notice of Greens performance and were eager to strengthen his relationship with the company (Beckman Gasser, 2008). Only through high performance and strong credibility could Green attract that kind of attention with executives. In order to build this type of credibility, Green must have met or exceeded all of the goals and objectiv es outlined for him; had he found a way to perform at that level in his new role, Green would have succeeded in gaining credibility with Davis and avoided the poor relationship with his manager. He could also have leveraged his sales experience, along with the requested information from Davis, to further build the credibility and meet his goal of making an impact at ID. Along with a lack of power and credibility, Thomas Green lacked influence. One of the key ways he lacked influence was illustrated by is inability to effectively persuade his manager. For example, when Green challenged Davis regarding the sales figures Davis presented at a meeting, Green did not have sufficient data to help support his claims that the numbers proposed by Davis were unreasonable (Beckman Gasser, 2008). For Davis, having quantitative data was very important for any discussion and would have provided Green common ground to engage in open dialogue. This also would have allowed Green the support needed for his position, and could lead to fact-based open discussion rather than an assumption-based argument. Stilling self-awareness, Green would have recognized that rather than directly challenging his manager in an open meeting, an off-line discussion would have allowed both sides avoid the risk of letting their passion control their arguments. When combined with a data-driven discussion, Green would have been able to successfully argue his points while gaining credibility with his manager. Alternative Theory E-mails Davis sent to McDonald paint a picture of an employee who is lazy and incompetent, supported by a line from an e-mail that read Thomas wastes a great deal of time complaining about the problems of selling And Numerous incidents of poor judgment and questionable behavior concerned me (Beckman Gasser, 2008). Green ineffectively dealt with office politics while unsuccessfully managing the challenges of interdependency (depending on others to get things done while they dependent on you), diversity (the differences between managers and those whom they depend on), and power gaps (the formal authority over those whom they are dependent) (Hill, Power Dynamics in Organizations, 1995). While suggestions have been made on how to improve his work within the office and with clients, Green chooses not to follow through with them. Green openly challenging Davis in a meeting set into motion the negative aspect of the law of reciprocity (do to others what they do to you) (Hill, Power Dynamics in Organizations, 1995). By making an enemy out of Davis, Green destroyed any credibility he had. He also complained about Davis to other coworkers which can slowly poison a work environment. These statements show that Davis is appropriately considering a change with Greens position, but perhaps Davis should reconsider the consequences of terminating Green. A little bit of self- reflection would show that a percentage of the blame should be focused on IM. Davis needs to take into account that his role has changed, and that he should look to lead more strategically compared to how he did as in his previous role. He should leverage the fact that Green is a rising star in the organization and Offer as much support as possible. While he has given Green specific goals, explaining his expectations to Green and helping him gain power and influence would also reflect well on Davis as a director. Although his role as a senior marketing executive is probably coming to an end, he can seek to be placed back into his former job in the organization. From there, he an continue to be mentored by McDonald and gain the crucial managerial experience. Due to the economy, Davis could theoretically easily find another person to fill Greens role; however, terminating Green would show that he is unable to develop new talent within the organization and reflect poorly upon himself. It may also take longer than anticipated to find a viable replacement for Green. As businesses are cutting back due to the economy, Davis must consider the potential revenue loss of having Greens position sit vacant. Recommendation Our recommendation is that Green be put on a performance improvement Lana and given a short leave to reflect upon the information that has been communicated to him from Davis and McDonald. During his reflection he should take a close look at the series of events that have occurred and come back to discuss with Davis. He needs to determine if he would handle his role moving forward given the knowledge he is now equipped with. He will then need to address the issue of office politics and how he sees himself in the corporate structure at Dynamic Displays. Finally, he needs to ask himself if he feels that he is a cultural fit or does he need to part ways with the company. Implementation After the appropriate paperwork is filed with human resources, Davis should have a mediated discussion with Green prior to Greens leave of absence. Assuming Green chooses to return to Dynamic Displays, the first thing he needs to do is address his work flow issues in order to restore his rapport with Davis. He can do this by completing the tasks already requested by his manager. This will be an effective way to show initiative, be a team player, and work to repair his credibility within the organization. Finally, Green should work to be a more effective listener, taking special note of when to talk and when to listen. Green should also work on not biblically challenge his superiors, even when he does not agree with their decisions.