You are on page 1of 12

Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to

Succeed?
Case

Author: Therese A. Sprinkle & Rosemary Maellaro


Online Pub Date: January 04, 2017 | Original Pub. Date: 2017
Subject: Human Resource Management, Employee Performance Management, Employee Motivation
Level: Complex | Type: Direct case | Length: 5031 words
Copyright: © Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017
Organization: Blue Whale Research | Organization size: Large
Region: Northern America | State:
Industry: Information service activities| Advertising and market research
Originally Published in:
Publisher: SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526403735 | Online ISBN: 9781526403735
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

This case was prepared for inclusion in SAGE Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion
or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein
shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use
only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial
purposes. 2019 SAGE Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

This content may only be distributed for use within Universitas Indonesia.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526403735

Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?


Page 2 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

Abstract
Lia has been forced into making a decision about her friend and colleague Eileen. Eileen has
been an inconsistent performer since she arrived at Blue Whale Research five years ago. She
has been at the center of several expensive mistakes, but appears to rebound from them. Now
she reports to Lia, which has placed Lia in a difficult spot, personally and professionally. Man-
agement is pressuring Lia for a solution, insisting it’s time to cut Eileen loose, but as her first
major decision as a new manager, Lia wants to be fair, not reactionary. Students are read into
Eileen’s performance history as if they were the manager reviewing her file to find the underlying
cause(s) of her inconsistent performance and craft a solution—even if that solution is a difficult
one.

Case

Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this case, students will be able to:

1. Discuss the process a manager must follow to identify the root cause of employee perfor-
mance problems;
2. Apply theories of job satisfaction when making a managerial decision about how to ad-
dress employee performance issues;
3. Show the impact of leader behavior style and job design on employee performance;
4. Evaluate performance history and propose a justifiable course of action for either disci-
plining or setting termination steps in motion for an under-preforming employee.

The Dilemma
“Well,” Lia thought, “I guess I’m going to have to do something with Eileen.” As the new manager of the Blue
Whale Research (BWR) Chicago project management team, Lia knew she had to make a decision about
Eileen, one of the project management employees she had inherited. While Eileen’s client relationship skills
were excellent, her detail work had slipped in terms of quality, and just yesterday there was a serious and
highly visible incident involving Eileen in front of one of Steve’s clients. Due to her newness in a managerial
role, Lia had delayed making a decision about Eileen. However, now she was thinking, “This has been put off
long enough.”

As a Project Manager, Eileen’s position is one of support for Steve, who is a client service representative
currently on probation. Steve had asked Lia and Eileen to attend the meeting to give his difficult client the
impression that BWR had the bench strength necessary to serve their needs. Prior to the meeting, Lia thor-
oughly reviewed the client’s file and determined that Eileen had handled everything appropriately from a pro-
ject management perspective. She realized, however, that flaws in the original design of the study—some-
thing for which Eileen was not responsible—were creating problems with this client. In light of this, the atmos-
phere in the room was tense when Lia and Eileen entered the meeting, and things went downhill quickly from
there. When the client asked for the most recent production reports1, Steve turned to Eileen and repeated the
client’s question, intimating that he had requested them to be available. Everyone looked at Eileen, who obvi-
ously was not prepared to produce the reports. As Steve had ultimate authority with the client, Eileen simply
stood up and said to the client: “I am sorry; I’ll have them in an hour.” Eileen left the room and as the door
Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?
Page 3 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

closed, Lia listened while the client started yelling about the incompetent way her account was being han-
dled, threatening to complain all the way up to the Chief Executive Officer of BWR. Steve apologized to the
client, trying to calm her down. He placed responsibility for the mishandling of the project directly on Eileen,
and promised to remove her from the account. Eileen returned in less than an hour with the reports, and the
meeting proceeded without further incident. After the meeting, Lia called Eileen into her office to discuss the
incident, asking to see Eileen’s project log. Lia was surprised when Eileen showed visible signs of anger, and
said: “Steve NEVER asked for those reports! Why don’t you trust me? Don’t you think I would have delivered
something if I had been asked to do it?”

Meanwhile, after the clients left, Steve went directly to the executive offices for a client debrief meeting with
the head of Client Services and Director of Project Management. In this meeting, Steve pushed responsibil-
ity for the events of the day completely onto Eileen, ensuring that he would not be held responsible if the
unhappy client canceled her project. Shortly after the conclusion of that meeting, Lia was summoned by the
Director of Project Management, who instructed her to put Eileen on probation within the next 24 hours as a
result of the problematic meeting with Steve’s client and her record of inconsistent performance at BWR. He
also informed Lia that she had until the end of the week to decide if Eileen should be let go. This presented
quite a dilemma for Lia, for a few reasons. First, she did not believe that this was the most effective way of
handling performance issues. Second, she also thought it was not in line with the company’s new progres-
sive discipline policy, particularly since she had verified that Steve had never asked Eileen to prepare the
client reports in question. Lia was conflicted about how to proceed. She had worked with Eileen in the past
and knew her to be a responsible employee who did good work; she wanted to be able to support Eileen.
On the other hand, upon recently becoming Eileen’s boss, Lia had become aware of some inconsistencies in
the quality of her current work. Now management’s anxiety over the serious client issue had brought her to
a critical juncture. She knew Eileen was angry with Steve, embarrassed at being called incompetent in front
of the client and hurt that Lia had questioned her behavior. Lia had been aware that the project had been a
nightmare—it had several different components, the client demanded updates hourly, and Steve had been all
but absent whenever a decision had to be made. She also knew that Eileen had worked until 10:00 PM last
night in preparation for this meeting. Additionally, she had never known Eileen to shirk her responsibilities.

All of these factors added to Lia’s dilemma of what to do about Eileen. Now, because of this highly visible
event, she would have to decide if Eileen could be successful in project management over the long term. Lia
sighed again. “This should be so easy” she thought, “but the conflicting circumstances are making it very dif-
ficult.”

Background on Blue Whale Research (BWR)


BWR was an international market research (MR) firm located in Cincinnati, a mid-sized US city in southwest-
ern Ohio. A custom MR supplier, BWR had client service offices spread across the contiguous United States
including the New York Metro area, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and California. Each client service
office housed 2–3 client service representatives (sales) and an administrative assistant.

Suppliers of custom MR work with other firms to try to understand consumer reactions to products, product
ideas, advertising, packaging, brand image, and so forth. Unlike syndicated (big data) suppliers, custom sup-
pliers typically have no contracts binding them to a client company, and are considered only as “good as the
most recent project.” Custom suppliers depend on relationship selling, often referring to their sales teams as
client services or account managers, rather than sales representatives. The MR culture reflected this: expec-
tations were that the client was to be indulged; and employees on the supplier side worked long hours and
weekends to keep projects moving successfully. BWR, as one of the top custom MR firms in the country,
had clients among Fortune 500 organizations, with many in the top 100. These clients ranged in scope from
consumer packaged goods, to hotels and business-to-business services. Projects were billed for as little as
$5,000 and upwards of $100,000+.
Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?
Page 4 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

Project management career path


At BWR, project management was the hub of activity. Each study was assigned a project manager to write
the survey, coordinate the research, and check the data. Project management as a career field requires its
job holders to be detail-oriented, have strong communication skills, and to be highly organized. Most enter the
field with an undergraduate degree in Marketing or Business Administration. The project management career
ladder begins with the entry level position of Research Assistant (RA) or Associate Project Manager (APM).
Entry position was dependent on degree at hire. The career ladder then follows a natural progression through
Project Manager (PM), Senior Project Manager (SPM), and ends with the Account Research Manager (ARM)
as the terminal position in this ladder. Case Table 1 provides an overview of the project management career
path, including responsibilities, necessary skills, and time in grade.

Table 1. Project Management Career Path

Title Responsibilities Skills required Time in grade

Detail orientation
Research Assistant Office clerk duties
Strong people
(RA)* Telephone assistance skills 1–2 years
↓ Supervise temporary help Able to work inde-
pendently

Receives projects from supervisor Detail orientation


Associate Project
Survey development Mathematical
Manager (APM)* skills 2–3 years
Field management
↓ Grasp of market
No travel research

Survey development and operations manage-


ment for increasingly complex projects
Detail orientation
Preparation of simple estimates
People skills
Project Manager
(PM) Broad exposure to market research designs
Increased market 3–5 years
research skills
↓ Direct contact w/Account Executive (AE)
Some statistical
Limited contact w/client
skill
Supervise/train Research Assistants

Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?


Page 5 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

Limited travel

Estimating
Ability to delegate
Survey development and operations manage-
ment for complex projects
Detail-oriented
Senior Project
Manager (SPM) Direct contact with 1–-2 AE’s 5–-7 years/can
Analytical skills
be terminus
↓ Direct contact w/client
Client skills
Supervision of APM, PM
Statistics
Increased travel

Management
Estimating skills

Direct contact w/AE, client Simple analyses


Account Research
Manager Survey development/field management for com- Ability to train Terminus of
plex projects career path
↓ Ability to delegate
Team management
Strong client skills
Travel can be heavy
Flexibility

*Actual entry point dependent on degree program/work experience.

The RA position is designed to expose new employees to all aspects of project management and MR prior
to entering the career path. These positions at BWR were typically filled by interns or new employees who
did not possess a business degree. If an incoming RA grasps MR quickly, he or she will move up the career
path in a year or two. From there, an individual is promoted to APM, where skills in survey development are
honed, and developmental training in MR is provided. At the time of this case, APMs at BWR completed a
three-month internal training program which, among other topics, gave them exposure to the client services
function.

If successful, an APM will be promoted to PM. The PM position is designed to provide broad exposure to a va-
riety of MR techniques and to allow the individual to acquire a strong understanding of project management.
A PM may be in this position for 3–5 years depending on research design exposure and project complexity.
The successful PM is promoted to SPM and is given his or her own accounts to manage, as well as a client
service person for whom they work exclusively. An unsuccessful PM will be asked to leave the company.

Account Research Managers (the terminal position for project management) perform both project manage-
ment and client service duties. In many cases, the ARM can stand in and handle clients for the client service
Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?
Page 6 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

person if they are unavailable.

Working closely with project management personnel within BWR were client services employees. Client ser-
vice positions are sales-oriented, requiring a flexible and responsive individual, who is able to relate to all
types of people, and has a solid understanding of MR. For each project sold, the client service representative
is the lead decision-maker and primary communicator with the client. It was the mutually supportive nature of
the project management and client services teams that had brought Lia, Eileen, and Steve together for the
fateful client meeting that precipitated Lia’s current dilemma.

BWR performance evaluation system


The internal performance evaluation system consisted of feedback that was collected from the support de-
partments, peers, and client service staff with whom the PM worked most closely. Input was not solicited from
the employee or their external clients. Employees in the project management system were supposed to be
evaluated every six months, although frequently this became every eight or nine months due to workload
issues. Information for the evaluation was gathered through a set of open-ended questions coupled with a
quantitative score for each section. The direct supervisor compiled the responses, created a mean for the
individual quantitative scores, and determined an overall score based on the feedback. The overall scoring
was based on a five-point scale; although “3” was an average score, most employees were aware that a “4”
was necessary to achieve a promotion.

Performance evaluations for PMs covered topics such as: quality and accuracy, timing, coordination and com-
munication, planning/organizing, cost monitoring/control. In the performance evaluation shown to employees,
strengths and weaknesses for each topic were detailed using anonymous quotes from peers and co-work-
ers. A summary paragraph was written at the end to call out key points for the evaluation. At the end of the
meeting, employees were allowed to comment on the evaluation; however, the official evaluation form was
not amended to include employee comments. Each employee was asked to sign the evaluation for Human
Resources (HR) files, with a stipulation that it was merely an acknowledgement that the evaluation had been
delivered.

Like many mid-size firms, HR at BWR maintained an employee file; decisions about promotion, hiring and
termination were decided at the managerial level. BWR did not use a Performance Improvement Plan sys-
tem. With the recent addition of a new HR director, progressive disciplinary actions were being introduced at
BWR. That is, HR was developing protocols for providing employees notice for issues and concerns with their
performance that occurred in the periods between formal evaluations, along with establishing a timeline for
re-evaluation. This weighed heavily on Lia’s mind in light of the directive she had received from upper man-
agement to make a decision about Eileen’s continued employment.

Lia’s background
Lia, a 10-year veteran with BWR, was promoted to ARM six months ago and assigned to be the manager of
the Chicago project management team. This was her first true team management assignment where she had
full responsibility for her reports (see Case Figure 1 for Chicago team organizational chart).

Figure 1: Chicago client service organizational chart.

Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?


Page 7 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

Lia was excited about taking on her new team management role and hoped to bring a thoughtful, data-driven
decision-making style to the team. However, she faced two significant challenges: the need to more quickly
develop two very junior staff people who had been at BWR for less than a year, and Eileen a five-year BWR
employee, whose performance in project management had become erratic. From Lia’s perspective, Eileen
had a good grasp of MR issues and excellent client rapport, but her work was inconsistent in terms of quality
and accuracy—at times she made detail errors or assumed too much without asking appropriate questions.
Yet, other times she demonstrated a strong grasp of project design. Eileen consistently worked late into the
evening and was at her desk early in the morning. Upon taking responsibility for the Chicago team, Lia had
heard several reports about the poor quality of Eileen’s work. Lia was not sure she should take these at face
value, though, because the relationship she personally had developed with Eileen through years of work-
ing together on previous BWR teams was quite positive and productive. When Eileen first joined BWR as
a research assistant five years earlier, Lia was one of the PMs that delegated work to Eileen. She remem-
bered how quickly Eileen had grasped MR. With very little guidance, Eileen had built communication chan-
nels through the company and had created allies within several departments. On the whole, Eileen seemed
motivated and energized to work through issues and concerns and make projects go smoothly for all depart-
ments.

On this current Chicago team, Lia was already relying heavily on Eileen, who carried a substantial workload
and had helped to train the junior staff. Eileen was an excellent resource if they had a question on design or
how to work through the system. Lia noted that most PMs at Eileen’s level preferred to concentrate on project
work, and left training to someone else. When Lia asked Eileen what she preferred doing, Eileen said she
got bored doing the same thing all the time—and welcomed the diversion of training in addition to her other
Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?
Page 8 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

work. In reality, making a decision to get rid of Eileen would strain Lia’s ability to service Chicago. The other
thing Lia had to consider was Eileen’s main account—a very difficult client—who had worked with Eileen for
several years. They appreciated and praised Eileen’s flexibility, her “can-do” attitude, and willingness to go
the extra mile. It just seemed so inconsistent: Eileen was a hard worker, had a solid conceptual grasp, and
yet showed poor attention to detail with a detrimental tendency to assume she understood the assignment.
Lia couldn’t decide if Eileen had a workload issue, if she was a poor performer, or if there was another issue.

Before making her decision about what to do, Lia contacted HR. They recommended Lia review Eileen’s HR
file, which would include her resume upon hire and her performance evaluations over the past five years (see
Case Appendix 1 for resume upon hire, and Case Appendix 2 for performance evaluations).

Eileen’s File
Eileen joined BWR a year after graduating from a small liberal arts college in Ohio. She graduated cum laude
with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Her work history included an internship at the Mayor’s office during col-
lege, office administration work during college summers, and one year with a small family-owned marketing
company. Eileen had limited business exposure and was without the type of qualifications that BWR typically
sought in candidates for jobs in the project management track, but she was hired because of her well-rounded
skill set, and her persistence (refer to Case Appendix 1 for a copy of Eileen’s resume upon hire with BWR).
The HR Director said she had never seen anyone as determined to be hired as Eileen, who submitted her
application for several posted positions.

BWR hired Eileen for a new RA position supporting the New York (NY) office. This was a hybrid position that
supported the client service and project management teams. It was also the first virtual project management
team for BWR, so it was very high profile2. In this position Eileen did an excellent job coordinating projects
for all of the project management staff, going above and beyond tasks that the normal RA might perform. She
also had a dotted line reporting relationship with the West Coast team that Lia was a part of, so it was during
this time that she and Lia developed a good working relationship.

Eileen was eager to be put on the MR career path, even though she didn’t have the required marketing or
business degree (Refer to Case Table 2 for project manager Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities). When asked
about her keen interest in MR, Eileen would say that she found the variety interesting, and that she continued
to be amazed at how products she touched in development stages would appear on store shelves years later.
After two years in the hybrid position for the NY office, she agreed to take on a similar position for the Pitts-
burgh Sales Office, with the promise that she would be promoted to APM within a year. The manager for the
Pittsburgh Client Service support team was Janine. Janine was a rising star at BWR who was respected by
her Pittsburgh sales office. However, Janine had extremely high standards and was known to closely monitor
the work of her employees in an effort to ensure that these standards were met. Lia heard that Janine over-
saw everything her team did – every meeting, phone call, or decision and double checked every deliverable.

Table 2: Project Manager Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs)

Project Manager KSAs

Knowledge Survey design and development

Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?


Page 9 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

• Market research expertise

• Strong communication skills


• Highly organized
• Strong people skills
Skills • Data analysis
• Estimating
• Supervision
• Training

• Project management
• Client services
Abilities
• Detail orientation
• Able to work independently

Education: Minimum – undergraduate degree in business or marketing

Under Janine, Eileen worked on relatively simple and routine projects for one $2-million account. Even though
this was double the revenue usually assigned to an APM, Eileen seemed to be disengaged in her work. Her
tasks were very straightforward and repetitive because the same survey and Excel spreadsheet were used
for every product test. She merely had to change the title on the survey and match the right products to the
right test. Curiously, Eileen began making mistakes while in this job. She frequently ordered the incorrect
products in insufficient quantities because she failed to verify the details; other times she forgot to customize
her surveys appropriately. For example, she once ordered 5,000 boxes of staples instead of 5,000 staples
because she neglected to ask a simple question. And, she frequently sent documents for potato chips that
were labelled as pretzel surveys. These were errors that caused confusion to sub-contractors and internal
team members. Since Janine was a micro-manager who monitored everything, she knew about each and
every mistake Eileen made.

Despite these detail errors in her work, Eileen received her promotion to APM based on the sheer amount
of work that she handled for the account. She was sent through BWR’s MR certificate program, a time man-
agement class, and a business writing course. After a few missteps, Eileen earned a reputation for having a
solid relationship with the field agencies and support staff. Her willingness to work long hours and eagerness
to help with clients also earned her respect from many on the client service staff.

After one year on the Pittsburgh team, Eileen received another promotion to PM, and began her work on
the Chicago team under another ARM, Sally. Lia knew Sally from a training program they had both attend-
ed seven years ago. Sally was an extremely hands-off manager—the exact opposite of Janine. The project
management team seemed to like working for Sally and she developed friendly relationships with them. Ad-
ditionally, she gave the project management staff carte blanche to do their work the way they saw fit; she
did not hover over them or second guess their decisions. She only checked in or reviewed materials if client
services suggested it might be important. Lia reflected that this was likely good news for Eileen; after working
for a micro-manager like Janine, she would be able to spread her wings under Sally’s supervision.

When Eileen was promoted to PM, she was assigned to two relatively small clients. These client projects went
well and Eileen continued to perform at high levels, even as she began branching out to more complex pro-
Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?
Page 10 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

jects. In fact, Lia knew that Eileen had received an achievement award from a client for the excellent job she
did coordinating a study that involved a very complicated field and analytical design. Eileen had even helped
the analyst the night before the meeting to rework the presentation by pulling data, reshaping the slides, and
printing the handouts. Eileen began traveling with the client service representatives to client meetings, project
starts, and focus groups, and earned a reputation with her clients for flexibility and strong project coordination.
Lia knew from experience that Eileen really enjoyed the travel, as she was out of the office at least once a
month, and she had a gift for working with difficult clients, which she found rewarding. Lia was not surprised
to see that Eileen’s file was full of client comments: “Eileen is stellar, always there, always knows what to do
next. She’s very accommodating to our needs.” “We would choose Eileen over any other project manager
that we have worked with, she really gets clients and how they need to get their work done.”

Two years after her promotion to PM, however, it became apparent that Eileen’s technical skills were dete-
riorating, causing problems in delivering error-free, quality work to BWR clients. The most serious of these
issues was a project for a new client that had to be repeated three times, collecting data right up to the night
before the presentation because Eileen kept forgetting one important detail, to have the interviewers ask a
key question. Lia remembered hearing about this incident before she moved to the Chicago team. It was aw-
ful; everyone including Eileen, the client service representative, and data analyst were in the office until 1:00
AM, crunching the numbers as they came in. The company lost a lot of money that night. Eileen had confided
in Lia that this was entirely her fault and that she had amended the way she proofed final materials because
of this. Lia found a statement in Eileen’s HR file acknowledging the mistake, along with the subsequent three
month probation that resulted from it. Lia paused for a second, thinking about the very different positions
Eileen had held, and the diverse workgroups she had supported along with the various management styles of
her managers. Most of Eileen’s time at BWR had been spent independently, a team of one really, coordinating
her own projects and communications throughout the organization. This could explain some of the comments
about “lack of delegation” and “isolation from others” in her performance evaluations.

Around the time of Eileen’s informal probation (refer to Eileen’s memo to the Chicago office in her HR file,
Case Appendix 2), Sally’s laid-back management style was drawing negative attention from the organization.
Due to the increased sales in the Chicago office, Sally now had two brand new PMs on her team who needed
guidance, yet Sally was frequently absent. The Project Management Director had received complaints that
Sally was never available to answer questions or provide guidance to her team. As a result, Sally subsequent-
ly left BWR, and that was when Lia was put in charge of the Chicago team. Looking at Eileen’s time sheets,
Lia noted a pattern of late nights that dated back to her work on the Pittsburgh team, coupled with increased
travel. Lia worked late as well, so she knew Eileen frequently pulled long hours, but was shocked at the actual
number of hours she consistently worked. Lia had noted that Eileen had somehow touched more than half of
the clients serviced by the Chicago office. She knew from experience that it was hard to convince Eileen to
say no to clients and Client Service staff. It was evident that Eileen was putting in the time and effort—per-
haps too much? Did she really have the basic skills to know what she was doing? Knowing Sally’s hands-off
style and lack of attention to detail, Lia suspected this was why Eileen’s declining technical performance had
not drawn more serious attention before.

After reading through Eileen’s file, Lia sat back in her chair. Management wanted her decision about Eileen’s
continued employment status by the end of the week. This was proving to be difficult for Lia—particularly
after her review of Eileen’s file, her talk with HR, and the pressure from upper management. It was hard to
ignore the recent mistakes Eileen had made, but there were also the positive evaluations and the client tes-
timonials. Something had to be done, but what? There might be enough data about recent incidents to point
to senior management’s recommendation to fire Eileen, but was that the fair path given Eileen’s performance
over the span of her entire tenure with BWR? The other consideration, however, was the strain that losing
Eileen would create for Lia. Were her inconsistencies a lack of competence or a function of the two different,
extreme styles of management she encountered with Janine and Sally? Should she put her back into basic
training? If Lia took away all the components of the job that Eileen appeared to enjoy to fix the work-quality
issues, could Eileen ever really be satisfied (or successful) as a true PM?
Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?
Page 11 of 12
SAGE SAGE Business Cases
© Therese A. Sprinkle and Rosemary Maellaro2017

Discussion Questions
1. What can we conclude about Eileen’s performance?
2. Based on Eileen’s performance reviews and her comments to Lia, do you believe that
Eileen is satisfied in her work at BWR?
• What appears to happen when Eileen is engaged in her work?
• What appears to happen when Eileen is not engaged?
3. Using Eileen’s strengths and weaknesses as a guide, and drawing on The Wise Leader’s
focus on ethical decision-making show how you would:
• Coach Eileen and help her to continue to progress on the project management
career ladder?
• Evaluate Eileen’s performance overall, and her ultimate success in this position?
4. How did the different approaches to management by Janine and Sally impact Eileen’s
performance? What do you think were the pros and cons of each style for her?
5. What recommendation should Lia make for Eileen? Beyond the normal considerations of
progressive discipline and termination, is there a creative option?

Notes
1. Production reports were daily counts of who had been surveyed for the project during the previous day’s
research. Unless prior arrangements have been made, production reports are not typically shared with clients

2. Virtual teams are defined as teams which are not collocated; team members may reside in separate loca-
tions, for example, other cities, states or countries (Colquitt, LePine & Wesson, 2011).

Further Reading
SHRM Toolkit: Involuntary termination of employment in the United States. Retrieved from
https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/Pages/involuntaryterminationof.aspx
Ganon, D, & Boguszak, A. (2013). Douglas McGregor’s theory X and theory Y. Bulletin of the Centre for Re-
search and Interdisciplinary Study, 2013(2), 85–93.
Hackman, J. (1980). Work redesign and motivation. Professional Psychology, 11(3), 445–455.
Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (2011). The wise leader. Harvard Business Review, 89(5), 58–67.
Pulakos, E. D. (2004). Performance management: A roadmap for developing, implementing, and evaluating
performance management systems. Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management Forum. Re-
trieved from https://www.pdri.com/images/uploads/Performance_Management.pdf
Singh, P., & Twalo, T. (2015). Effects of poorly implemented performance management systems on the job
behavior and performance of employees. The International Business & Economics Research Journal (On-
line), 14(1), 79–94. Retrieved from http://www.cluteinstitute.com/ojs/index.php/IBER/article/view/9034/9027

Reference
Colquitt, J., LePine, J., & Wesson, M. (2011). Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commit-
ment in the workplace. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526403735

Lia’s Dilemma: Does Eileen Have What it Takes to Succeed?


Page 12 of 12

You might also like