Assignment Form

Course: Organizational Behavior And Leadership

Instructor: Zhang Zhen

Homework: Case Analysis 2: Thomas Green: Power, Office Politics,

and a Career in Crisis

Name:
Bennett

Student ID No.: 16210224

Class: 2016PA

STUDENT DECLARATION

I declare that this assignment is my own work, which all sources of reference are acknowledged in full
and it has not been submitted for any other course.

Signature: Date:

(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, Greens 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 long-term 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. Davids 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.

Whats 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, Greens 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
McDonalds 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 didnt 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 Daviss
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 Greens negative
attitude as he expected his subordinate to be optimistic and responsible to official work.

(3) What is your analysis of Thomas Greens 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.

Whats 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
McDonalds 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 McDonalds 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 Daviss

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 Franks 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.