1.

Identify power of Bill Thompson

Bill Thompson is the manager and the positions itself shows he has legitimate power on
others. Legitimate power is the formal authority to control and use organizational
resources based on structural position in the organization. It also includes the member’s
acceptance of the authority of the position. Based on this case, he has a certain power
including can suspend or fire employees even though the final decision is not in his
hands. So Bill Thompson is the one who bring the issue to the boss first before the final
decision is make. So employees have a perception that Bill Thompson as a manager has
the authority to exert control and has the right to give instruction to them. It shows that
Bill Thompson has a legitimate power.

Bill Thompson also has a reward power. He has the ability to influence amount of
rewards given to employees. In other words, he also can influence the employee to act in
any situation for the sake of company. Bill is responsible for evaluating the performance
of the employees. The result of appraisal rating is up to him whether it is good or bad.
The appraisal rating will affect the size of employee’s annual merit raise. The reward
power can enhance the level of motivation so it helps employees in Vermont to be more
focus and consistent between an individual sales and department sales.

Bill Thompson also held a coercive power. It is depends on fear of losing job, being
suspend and receiving a poor appraisal rating. Bill Thompson has the ability as a
manager to force an employee to follow his instruction through the threat of being fired,
suspended and reduction in annual merit. Being not consistent with individual and
department sales means that the employees are fail to achieve the organizational goals.
So those who are fails are candidates for termination. The threat of being fired for
failure to achieve the organizational goals is a coercive power.

2. Is Sally is a person who can ruined the company? What influence tactics could be
used in this situation to influence Sally?

Sally have a good relationship with customer. This can be seen when she spent a lot of
time socializing with sales people and customer. However, when her friends visit the
shop, she also spend her time treating them. Sally can be consider as important person in
organization because she has good communication with others and know how to comfort
them to buy their goods. But Sally probably didn’t realize that some of customers feel
unsatisfied with the service because they have to wait more time to get served. Sally’s
behavior could damage the company’s image and reputation because customers are not
satisfied with the service and prefer to buy products from their competitors who offer a
better services. So Billy could use the proactive influence tactic to influence Sally. This
tactic could influence Sally to carry her task properly. Bill can use a rational persuasion
by presenting the evidence that some of the customer is dissatisfied with her service. Bill
 should tell Sally to be more focus on customer service and still allowed her to socialize
with her client. The current behavior of Sally needs to be changed so that his goal of how
the department ski runs can also be changed. But if Sally refused to change, Billy can use
a pressure tactic to change Sally’s behavior by telling her that she will get a bad
feedback for her performance appraisal.

5. What should Bill do to improve store performance?

Bill should fix the problems that exist in the ski section of the store. The main problem is the
Sally behavior that is more on socializing compare to give a better service to customer. He also
can create different incentives so that employees will increase their productivity and decrease
their sick days and making employees as efficient as possible. Bill’s power will continue to
increase if he embodies these changes and they prove to be effective after implement the
changes.