Navigating Organizational Politics

The Case of Kristen Peters

MBA 6322

Background and Problem Statement

The case being analyzed is one that shows how power shifts the dynamics of

organizational politics. Kristen Peters is an athletic ex AmeriCorps teacher, development officer,

and tennis coach who graduated with a degree in history from Hamilton College. After being

admitted as an MBA student to Columbia Business School in the spring of 2017, she projected a

lucrative career and future as a woman in Private Wealth Management (PWM) then immediately
set out to find a summer internship for 2018. At his time the economy was strong and growing.

Narrowing down her options to two firms, she felt the one where she had connections would give

her the leg up on her resume. Due to these connections, specifically with Susan Buckley, she was

able to bypass traditional processes after the initial interview. Buckley would also be the final

decision maker in whether Peters was extended a full-time offer or not. By the time Peters’

accepted an internship offer in March 2018 at one of the top Wall Street firms, Taylor Reed (TR),

negative news regarding the economy started to surface with firms exposed to subprime

mortgages started showing significant losses. Right before she started the internship, Buckley

had been moved to a different position and was replaced by Richard Wagman, who was tough as

nails compared to Buckley. At the start of the program in June 2018, financial firms started to

report historic losses as the economy continued on a downward spiral. The first half of the

internship was a 4-week classroom session aimed at helping interns learn company policies and

practices, all while making useful connections with several existing employees of TR. Peters

struggled with several aspects of the internship in the beginning, such as not communicating with

several people she should already know and taking the course seriously. It wasn’t until later in

the internship, when Peters learned that Wagman wasn’t fond of her, that she started to take

initiative and follow advice from experienced people. While TR initially claimed they had

openings for all 30 interns, the continued economic crash resulted in major losses for TR, forcing

them to only bring on 2 out of the 5 remaining interns at the New York office. Kristen was not

one of those people. Instead, one male and one female were granted offers. After later learning

from Buckley that she was on the path to being the 3rd intern to receive an offer, Peters found

out the other woman who shared an almost identical background as she did receive the second

spot. Ultimately, Kristen walked into the internship with connections and immediately got
comfortable believing she would be an automatic hire even with her main connection having less

power. Although she made tremendous improvement towards the end, it was her shortcomings in

the beginning along with the economic downturn that gave her a disadvantage in the decision

making. It’s obvious that TR wanted someone with a diverse background and unique transferable

skills. While an economic crash is out of Kristen’s control, approaching the internship with a

different mindset maybe would’ve placed her in a more competitive position. The general

problem being discussed is Kirsten’s inability to integrate herself into the company culture and

navigate the politics of the TR-PWM organization. We see how the loss of legitimate power on

Susan Buckley’s behalf decreases the power Kristen possessed that stemmed from being close to

her, leaving her to navigate Taylor Reed politics on her own.

Analysis of Problem

There are several variances that contributed to Kristen’s problem of navigating the

organizational politics within Taylor Reed. These variances include:

1. Being all for self-preservation and growth; she thought of herself as above the

other interns and lacked teamwork. The fact that she wasn’t housed with the other

interns seems to have played a huge part in this.

2. Walking into the internship with an obscured opinion and not taking it seriously

because of her connections; she was late to a session, on her phone, and generally

ignoring company policies.

3. Holding on to the emotional aspects that kept her comfortable; she mainly

networked with people she either knew or were in the New York office, where she

already assumed she would be assigned.

 4. Failing to fully utilize her resources; while she did have connections to get ahead,

she wasn’t transparent with them regarding her struggles all while ignoring the

advice of those in important positions.

5. Being “too nice” and not assertive enough; several people have mentioned that

she was too nice for the department. We saw this in action when she never

mentioned how well she did on the side project Wagman specifically called her to

do. She didn’t hold him accountable in her final review.

6. All-around not fitting into the company culture; she only accepted the internship

at Taylor Reed because of the resume recognition and her connections, knowing it

wasn’t a good fit for her.

7. The economic downturn in which we know now as the Great Recession; this later

affected the number of interns who would receive full-time offers.

Many of these variances made Kristen look uninterested, unprepared, and unprofessional all

while ignoring the company values. They are solvable with a change in behavior as we witnessed

from Kristen during the second half of the internship, but the factors she couldn’t control

ultimately resulted in her lack of a job offer. There were several important people who weren’t

too fond of her in the beginning but seemed to flip the switch later. Respectively, her efforts were

noticed but they also allowed her to be taken advantage of and get the short end of the stick in

the end. Another candidate with a nearly identical background ended up being 1 of 2 to receive

an offer due to the economic downturn. Considering the varying opinions of the experienced

workers she met with, it questions whether Kristen was more interested in the benefits of the job

and less of the methods and aggressive persona needed to become successful. In a sense, Kristen

lost her small bit of prestige power.

Alternative Solutions
Peters could have taken a different course of action from the beginning of her internship,

which ultimately would have gotten her the desired outcome. The relationship with her

constituents affected her in a negative way and made her think she was ahead of the game when

she was not. Her relationship with Buckley was the most damaging, leading up to Peters starting

her internship, Buckley was supposed to be the head hiring person for the New York office. But

before she started, Peters was informed that Buckley would no longer be the Director of PWM

New York. Buckley’s explicit advice to not to worry about the human resource employees led

Peters to believe they were not important, so she overlooked them. It was so noticeable that the

human resource employees told Peters she was treating them like event planners. Peters should

have properly networked with all employees as if they were on the same level. Even with having

Buckley as a connection, Peters should have taken the opportunity to personally get to know

everyone and for them to get to know her. You can never have too many connections and you

never know when you will need to tap into those resources. Another one of Peters connections

had recently gone through the internship and accepted a full-time job. He told Peters the

classroom portion was not important and she just needed to focus on the office portion. Again,

Peters took some advice wholeheartedly and completely ignored the classroom portion. She was

completely unaware of the fact that a file was being kept up with all interns and they were being

observed during this time. She failed to realize her friend did not have any power over her

decision to get an offer. His experience could have been different than hers. In life it is important

to take advice and criticism with a grain of salt, for this specific reason Her oversight from her

connections made her believe she could mentally speed through the process and focus on areas

of her choice. Peters background was in teaching, she should have seen the first half of the
internship as a chance to immerse herself with new knowledge and been eager to learn as much

as possible. By showing an interest in the classroom portion it would have looked good in front

of the other employees. Instead she was constantly told how tired she looked and how she was

not motivated by money. She should have ceased the opportunity to network with everyone there

and receive feedback from them, instead of waiting until it was time for her first review. Peters

should have used her personal power to show her personality, been transparent about her daily

tasks, and got people on her side that had power in the decision-making process. Peters did not

leave a good impression with the other employees in the beginning, thus she had to play catch up

the rest of the internship. Wagman was an employee who had power at the firm and Peters was

told to get on his good side in order to receive an offer. He gave her a personal project to

complete, she was told to drop everything she was working on just for him. It appeared to be a

great opportunity at the moment but again Peters had not communicated properly throughout the

whole internship. So only Wagman and her knew she was working on this project. If she would

have been making her rounds and speaking with all the employees, she would have informed

them what she was working on. At the very least the whole firm would have had an idea of what

she was doing, rather than nobody knowing anything. Ultimately the project did not help her at

all, Wagman never phoned in for her final review, nor did he mention anything to the other

employees. Peters had numerous opportunities to make the most out of her internship, but she

chose to follow her own playbook. She never got to know the other interns on a personal level

and find out what they were working on. If she would have been open minded and networked

with her competition , she could have learned a lot from their shared experiences and even gain

some insight on the current culture. Being proactive and taking initiative would have been the

best remedies for Peters to land a job offer.

Criteria to Evaluate Alternatives

By looking at Kristen Peters’ current strategy to reach her goal of being hired at Taylor

Reed, we see that she attempted to play some organizational politics. These are informal

approaches to gaining power through means other than merit or luck. She tried to ingratiate

herself with whom she believed and was told were influential people. She thought that her

performance was being measured subjectively, meaning “who do you know”, when in fact, the

people charged with reviewing her had a fair and objective way of judging all of the interns’

performance, starting at the classroom setting, without resorting to favoritism.

Whereas we recommend a building relationships and avoiding political blunders

approach, Peters current strategy was focused on gaining power through connections and it

backfired on her. Firstly, by limiting her focus on developing tactical contacts in the New York

office, she was perceived as disingenuous. She was explicitly told to reach out to company wide

associates, not just New York-based personnel. This was a key aspect of what the political

environment demanded, and Peters unfortunately failed to recognize it. Similarly, other demands

included actively participating in the classroom setting during the first part of the internship and

to follow policy such as no tardiness and limiting cell phone usage. All of which boils down to

Peters underestimating her advisors’ role during her evaluations; another failure of identifying

the key people who could help her in her success to being hired. She had to play catch up and

damage control with how others perceived her. Secondly, Peters withheld pertinent information

about the special project she performed for Wagman. Dougherty counseled her to take initiative

and ask for extra projects. Although she took this advice and dropped everything for Wagman,

she once again neglected to keep her other advisers in the loop. Lastly, Peters also lacked
relationships with fellow interns, which was not conducive to team building, and was surely

marked in her review.

In a firm like Taylor Reed, where “the TR way” is deeply rooted in a corporate

philosophy of a flat organizational structure (Figure 1), team emphasis, transparency, and

information sharing, only certain aspects of organizational politics would be beneficial to its

people. Therefore, to evaluate our alternative solutions, we need to assess how applicable they

would have been to improving Peters’ approach at organizational politics.

We will explore 3 criteria and explore how they relate to Peters’ case: Performance,

Communication and Political skill.

Evaluating Alternative Solutions

i. Performance – How does Building Relationships and Avoiding Political Blunders

perform against Gaining Power?

Peters did not successfully employ strategies aimed at gaining power such as developing power

contacts and doing what the political environment demanded (Dubrin, 189). Instead, to be

favorably perceived by top-level decision makers, Peters should have displayed more loyalty

toward her fellow interns and internship advisors by actively connecting with them. Taking the

approach of building relationships would have shown Peters that Human Resources personnel

are more than just event coordinators, which can be considered politically incorrect. In this case,

they were influential sources of industry knowledge and company culture. The network of

associates she should have connected more closely with were advisors Crawford, Williams,

Malling and Forte. Then, Peters would have fully grasped the importance of participating in class

and following policy, contacting company-wide associates, and maintaining open

communication with her advisors. It would have also helped her in building alliances with

interns and other office associates.

ii. Communication – Does adhering to company value of transparency and sharing

communication help?

After identifying the key constituents who held the legitimate power of offering full time

positions, Peters should have observed company values via open communication. It was

important for her to build and maintain rapport with those who could be helpful later. We can see

how a gaining power approach limited her in various communication aspects. She was not good

at obtaining vital information, such as Buckley no longer overseeing the hiring process, Wagman

not being available to vouch for her during the final review, and even not knowing how many

spots were available due to the economic instability of late 2008. It was also key for her to share

ample information because everyone should have been aware of Peters undertaking Wagman’s

personal project.

It is noteworthy that Peters took the unexpected negative feedback from the first few weeks of

being seen as “low energy” and “unengaged,” and constructively applied them, by making sure

to reach out to her advisors with weekly reports. Regrettably, the last and biggest project she was

tasked to do by Wagman, she failed to share with them. Declining his request would have been a

political blunder, so Peters did well in taking it on. However, only her and Wagman knew about

the research she completed. This severely hurt Peters during the final review, because her good

work was not discussed or considered. Inquiring at closer intervals to gain more feedback about

her performance would have also helped Peters cleared the air sooner.

iii. Political Skill

Lastly, Peters needed to improve her political skill, or her interpersonal style, and impression

management. She was first seen as someone who mismanaged her relations. Peters needed to be

somewhat more socially astute – foster relationships where she could gain others’ confidence and

trust from them. After all, she was described as being able to “put others at ease,” yet she did not

showcase this personality trait of trustworthiness (Abrahamson, pp 2). Peters missed out on one

the fundamental pieces about managing her impression: it is not so much how she perceives

herself, but how others perceive her. She was able to recognize where she went wrong and

gained some positive feedback for her changed behavior, but ultimately, it was too late. It is

possible that other interns with similar backgrounds as hers did not have to spend so much time

in image damage control. Had Peters employed a building relationships approach, peers and

managers would have gotten to know her as someone who could be part of their team.

Recommendations

Research of Individual firms: Peters wanted to explore and research each Wall Street Firm

individually. However, instead of approaching Buckley directly, she should have interviewed

with TR’s PWM human resource department to get familiar with the firm’s culture. This misstep

resulted in her being unaware of the structure and expectations in TR.

Interactions Skills: Kristen Peters felt a connection with PWM when she found her interest

familiar with the strengths (sales and relationship building skills) required to succeed in PWM.

Besides, her personal strengths were fundraising skills and financial knowledge. Her

presumption of using these skills to interact and build connections did not come out well for her

since the beginning when Buckley noticed Peters was unable to form strong relationships with
recruiters. Here, Peters should have worked on her interaction skills when advised by Buckley to

improve her performance.

Dependency: Kristen Peters felt a better connection with the people at Abbot Pierce but due to

personal contacts at Taylor Reed, Peters decided to pursue their offer while not familiar with the

culture and possible effects. Instead of depending on her personal contacts she should have

accepted the offer from AP where she knew that it would be easy to build rapports as considered

one of the strengths to succeed in PWM.

Furthermore, seeking right advice matters the most. The second-year student whom Peters

contacted, told her that the classroom would be a “Piece of Cake”, interns would be assigned to

different regional TR PWM offices and she would leave a good impression on people to receive

good feedback. Peters focused more on his advice regarding the nature of class-room sessions

instead of building rapport with people. However, classroom sessions would have been a bit easy

if guidelines and instructions were followed accordingly. Also, Peters’ belief of her being

assigned to New York’s PWM office was too early and failed to plan other possibilities.

Review Firm’s Culture and Classroom’s Guidelines: Peters should have properly reviewed and

comprehended the classroom sessions’ guidelines, expectations and culture. Since Peters was not

aware of the evaluation process of classroom sessions and followed the advice that sessions

would be easy, she failed to consider them as an important part of the internship. Here, Peters

should have approached Buckley for recommendations on how to perform or what to expect

from classroom sessions, since Buckley is not a Director of PWM so she should have inquired

about Richard Wagman with Buckley or other advisors to get familiar with his style of

evaluation. Another recommendation would be that Peters should have reached the PWM HR
department, which she skipped during the process to build a strong relationship with them as

well and familiarize herself with the expectations she needed to fulfill.

Classroom Evaluation Process: Taylor Reed should have provided clear instructions to the

interns that classroom sessions would be evaluated by HR personals. Like Peters, there would be

other interns who would have been unaware of the evaluation process and evaluators.

Time Factor and Social Gatherings: Peters knew that class begins at 7:00 am so she should have

left her apartment with a 30 minutes window in order to avoid any unexpected hindrance.

Moreover, Peters used to leave the office by 9:00 PM unlike other interns leaving at 7:00 PM to

save their energy and gather at the hotel for class related discussions. Peters should have attended

those social gatherings with other interns to bond relationships, share relevant information and

improve her interaction skills.

Build relationship with Forte: When Peters found out that her interview with Mark Forte did not

go as expected, she should have worked on her relationship with Forte. As Forte was one of the

advisors of classroom sessions, she should have asked his advice about her performance in class

sessions and areas she can work on.

Sign-up for Feedback: As the sign -up procedure was first come first served, Peters should have

signed up for all weeks ahead of time. She missed the second week’s feedback from Kurtz as the

slots were full. This would have provided negative feedback to her advisors. Here Peters should

have planned her upcoming weeks at the start of her classroom portion, which would have saved

her from missing her second week feedback.

Feedback Slots: Taylor Reed should provide enough feedback slots to their interns based upon

the number of internees attending the internship.

Networking Opportunities: Peters should have availed the opportunity provided during lunch

meetings to meet with associates across the country, instead she utilized her free slots to meet

people only in New York. Meeting people outside the New York office would have also helped

her in forming good relationships with Crawford as she is one of the advisors of classroom

sessions.

Role of HR Staff: Peters should not have underestimated the role of HR staff as they were

responsible for her feedback during her classroom sessions. Since Peters missed an opportunity

to meet them during her recruiting process, she should have kept meeting them during her free

slots to discuss events and sessions since the beginning, instead of isolating her meeting sessions

with people in the New York PWM office.

HR Assistance: When Crawford and Forte realized that Peters is struggling to understand the

process and did not have clear expectations, they should have provided her assistance or advice

to improve her performance by informing her to socialize with people outside New York office,

conduct meeting sessions with them after class or approach them if she needs any information

regarding events, sessions, product or evaluation. Their advice or instructions would have helped

her or other interns to succeed in the upcoming portion of the internship.

Late for Classroom: As mentioned earlier, Peters should have kept an adequate time window

before leaving her apartment. New York is a busy city so traffic could be unexpectedly high at

times, therefore, knowing the rules of the classroom she should have taken the guidelines

seriously.

Grace Period for Classroom Sessions: TR should provide a 5-10 minutes time window for interns

being late, stuck or unable to make it to the class on time.

Crawford and Forte’s feedback: Peters should have acted promptly on Crawford and Forte’s

feedback. She should have asked the advisors to elaborate on low-energy and unengaged to take

preventive measures and improve her performance in the next portion since classroom session

was already over. Also, Peters would have considered negative feedback as an opportunity to

identify the problem, devise a plan for the next portion and avoid repetition.

Wagman’s feedback: Though the feedback from Wagman was negative and discouraging, Peters

should have kept improving her performance and focused on becoming better than best from

others. She should have kept the advisors from classroom sessions in a loop to gain their advice

of what to do next.

Correspondence with Buckley: Peters chose TR based on her personal contacts so she should

have informed Buckley about the past feedbacks, Wagman’s email, her being late to work and

cleared her unfamiliarity with the firm’s culture or Wagman’s style of evaluation.

Stay Part of the Team: Peters should have kept a contact with Forte and Williams after the

classroom portion was over. She knew Forte was not convinced with her performance before so

it would have done a double damage to her reputation.

Wagman’s Personal Project: Wagman should not have gone against the policy of the firm by

assigning a personal project to Peters while going on a vacation. Also, he should have

encouraged Peters for her improvement she showed in the second portion.

Reporting: Peters should have reported about Wagman for assigning her a personal project. She

should have either mentioned it to other advisors or Buckley about Wagman’s personal favor, so

they would have escalated it for further investigations.

Clear Feedback: Peters should have asked the advisors to elaborate the term “too- nice” or “low-

energy”. Advisors should use clear verbiage when providing feedback, instead of using difficult

analogies.

Wagman’s Participation Final Review: Wagman was scheduled to call during the final review

and never called but he arranged a non-participatory business manager who chose to end his

feedback over the term “low-energy” instead of providing a feedback of the second portion’s

performance.

TR’s Negligence: TR supposed to notify all the interns about their offer status in a timely

manner.

Implementation of Recommendations

● Kristen Peters must always be mindful that attempting to influence a group or

individual’s behavior through persuasion and the manipulation of situations can

sometimes yield unintended results. Persuasion can be a useful tactic, but its’

effectiveness is dependent upon style and situation

● Be prepared to re-evaluate and adjust your strategy with consideration of external

factors that you nor the organization has control over. However, analyzing economic

climates can assist in forecasting future trends within a said industry

● Align yourself with the company's goals. This will allow you to effectively solicit

support for your personal goals without undermining your past and present

contributions to the company

In summary, Kristen Peters must embrace the cooperation theory which is a belief in cooperation

and collaboration rather than competitiveness as a strategy of self-preservation. Kristen’s ability

to learn from her experiences should allow her to become more participative in contributing to

her company’s goal of building a culture of trust and teams that are will to share information. If

she understands the collaborative style of leadership, it will allow her to pursue her personal

agenda in a positive manner that is beneficial to herself, her team, and the company. Thus, she

may find herself in a win-win situation.

Conclusion

Kristen Peters chose a political strategy to acquire, develop, and manipulate the influence of her

allies and constituents to gain an advantage over her peers. Her method was to utilize the

privileged insight and knowledge shared by her superior as leverage in navigating the perception

of key decision-makers within the hierarchy of the company's organizational structure. If

detected, such an approach can be perceived as being dis in genuine and lacking sincere motives.

In Peters's case, this proved to be true.

Throughout Peters' internship, she seldomly displayed her leadership skills as she chose to work

independently of her fellow interns. This was counterproductive as "the TR way" places

emphasis on teamwork and the ability to get along with all types of people. Chapter 9 of the

Leadership in the textbook, she would have benefited from working to create and contribute to a

"climate of trust." This method could have assisted Peters in avoiding various pitfalls i.e. lack of

transparency among teams, perception of poor work ethic.

References

Abrahamson, Eric; Jick, Todd; Kitts, James. Columbia CaseWorks. October 10, 2013.

“Navigating Organizational Politics A, The Case of Kristen Peters.” New York.

HBSP Coursepack: https://hbsp.harvard.edu/import/754209

Dubrin, Andrew J. 2019. Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills. 9th edition.
 Chapter 7. “Power, Politics, and Leadership.” (pp 169-194). Boston, MA: Cengage.

Figure 1 Organizational chart of Taylor Reed’s Internship Program Department