Thomas Green: Power, Office Politics, and a Career in Crisis - Case Study Example

?Case study Thomas Green: Power, Office Politics, and a Career in Crisis Case study of Dynamic Display describes’ the effects of office politics on the relationship between workers and their superiors. On the case study, Green an employee who gets a recent promotion from accounting executive to a senior market specialist encounters office politics first hand when he disagrees with the sales projection announcement made by Davis his superior. Davis did not consult Green being the specialist in that field on the sales projections, which differs with greens belief and understanding of the market field. Green thinks that the projections are too high to be true and the company will not be able to achieve it. With this indifference in opinion Green does not conceal his feeling, instead gives a negative attitude towards the announcement of the sale projections, which was at 10%. Greens negative attitude becomes the beginning if his problems with his manager Davis and fellow workers. Davis, Greens manager is disappointed with Greens attitude and feels that such attitude is not healthy for the growth of the company, as he believes that Green may influence the other employees in the company to turn against him, thus Davis puts Greens capabilities and career to question. Nevertheless, prior to this misfortune on Green, he was a rising star in his previous career in the accounting department and had great vision for the company only to find himself on the wrong side of the company because of his attitude. This scene of misunderstanding and conflict between Davis and Green is simply organizational conflict. Green in his new job puts his personal agenda and goals first and forgets the companies and other people goals for the company such as Davis whose ideas and projections are strategic for the company. This ideological difference between Davis and Green puts the company operations in a halt. Davis being the manager had the experience and a high level of expertise in the field as compared to Green who had little experience, as he had only been an accountant executive for a period of six months. Green being only 28 at the time, his little experience was disregarded and was limited to his job as the senior market specialist as he was still new in the job. For one to be a senior market specialist, he had to have had other several posts before, which could have provided the experience required in the field, thus the much experience also means that one had to be of age that is in his forties due to the different posts and jobs one had. This fact nullified Green from the job, as he was only 28 at the time and lacked the experience. Furthermore, Green was not Davis first choice for the position thus a fact that made Greens’ job even harder and tough. However, McDonald had warned Green about the job and that he was going to face many challenges, hence, McDonald asked Green not to disappoint her while in the position. Despite Green being the young ambitious and intelligent young man who had the great impressing ideas, failed to understand the flow of power. That is, he was unable to know who has power over him. Thus, Green boldly disagreed with Davis sales projections irrespective of Davis position as his manager in the company, making him face rejection from Davis and become unwanted in the company. In spite of Greens’ ignorance, he had had a performance meeting with Davis, who provided the job requirements and outlined what Green needed to do. However, Green failed to do the task given by Davis and when asked why he did not deliver to the client, he claims that it was not important. Such comment by Green only proved to his boss Davis that he was incapable of the job and was not committed to the company’s objective, giving Davis more reason to fire him. Green was portraying individual informal power that was not required in the company. Davis highlighted many tasks that was to be completed by Green who ignored them and his performance reflected on the first appraisal. Nevertheless, during this appraisal, Green made a commitment that he was going to improve and put more effort in his work a clear indication that his job performance was in jeopardy and needed attention. During his presentation, David clearly stated that in the past five years, the company had attained a 10% CARG, which justified his sales projections for the company. However, Davis lacked the charismatic personality of a leader and power to convince Green that his projection is attainable. Davis lacked the characteristics of a transformational leader. That is, Davis being the manager, he was to increase Greens awareness of the importance of the job, the need for his personal growth, development and accomplishment in the company, thus motivate Green to work for the benefit of the company, convincing him to acknowledge the sales projection. On the other hand, Greens inability to perform was evident as McDonald, who pointed it to Green had also noted it and in fact offered some advice that Green had to improve on his managerial skills which was important in the new job and he lacked it. Given the five months in office, if Green had performed his duties to perfection, then McDonald would have had no problem agreeing with Green on the projections, however, Green was showing his informal individual power and was really performing badly in his tasks, making McDonald believe in Davis as Green was really having a hard time with the job. Even though Davis and Green were working in the same department, Green was unable to seek help and guidance from Davis since their work relationship was already bad from the sales projection. This bad relationship between Davis and Green can only be because their ideas were not the same as Green seems to be more ambitious and his ideas was not in line with Davis and the company. During his early months in his new job, Green worked alone without consulting Davis in any matter pertaining to the job, killing Davis functionality in the department thus, ruining their work relations. Davis realized the problem and told their vice president McDonald, hoping that McDonald would solve and repair the situation, as she was the expert in that field. Greens job was in jeopardy as Davis claimed that if Green continued being lousy on the job, then he would have to sack Green from the job, as he was incompetent. On realizing that his job was on the line, Green accepts his mistakes, swallows his pride and accommodates Davis interest and the interest of the company in a scenario of accommodation. McDonald being the expert and the mediator between Davis and Green allows green to give his personal statement of commitment to the company, as it is the only sound thing to do to resolve the problem. This will help both Davis and Green to maximize their potential without either of the two doing away with their goals and objectives but accommodate each other for the benefit of the company. Thus, saving the situation, their work relationship and maximizing their output. Read More