Name Drishti Garg

Question 1

Instance 1: On Lisa first day at work, she was taken to meet her boss Deborah Linton
whom she didn’t meet during the interview process; Linton greeted Lisa Benton pleasantly,
and said that she was not expecting Benton for another week and that her office was not set
up yet. Later that morning, Linton invited Benton into her office and after explaining some of
the demands of the job, she declared in a quiet but firm tone that, "MBAs act like they know
a lot more than they do. The only way to learn is on the job, and your formal education
won’t help you. I’ve known some Harvard MBAs, and I don’t like them." Which made Lisa
feel dishearten as she wasn’t expecting such kind of welcome on her first day!

Instance 2: On first day afternoon while Scoville took Lisa for lunch he also mentioned that
he was not impressed with MBAs, especially those from Harvard, but that if Benton relied on
him, she would learn a lot. Scoville also promised to teach Benton all the ropes of product
management, and soon Lisa Benton began to feel that he was acting like an overbearing big
brother. She was even bothered by Scoville’s condescending manner, and Scoville even
allocated Lisa with clerical task such as copying reports, while rest of the staff was leaving.
This was one of the reasons for creating friction between her and Scoville.
Question 2

Answer for Part A.

Trait Level: High/Low Example supporting the answer

Openness to High Scoville had moved from operations into

Experience marketing and did not even have an MBA, in
spite of which he was ready for new
experiences and challenging roles, which
makes him high on openness to experience.

Conscientiousness Low Highly disorganized and had a bad habit of

completing most of his work and changing
planning at last minute, because of which he
handed most of his work to Lisa and always
needed a helping hand from her (copying
episode), which makes him low on
conscientiousness.

Extraversion Low He is low on extraversion as most of the time

he didn’t join them for lunch; he even faced
challenges while getting work done from
different department. Along with that Lisa’s
most of colleagues complained that he is
condescending and apart from that Scoville
has a destructive behaviour in office.

Agreeableness Low In another run with Scoville where Lisa tries

to show him hers analysis part initially he
accepts but after sometime he asked for facts
and figures from Lisa regarding what made
her derive at that conclusion which makes
 him to doubt her ability and later he later
even started challenging her assumptions,
which shows he is very low on accepting on
what is being presented.

Neuroticism High Scoville is extremely high on neuroticism as

he yelled loudly at Lisa which was heard by
entire floor! Which clearly shows he is short
tempered.

Copying incident where he just back

answered "Oh, I see, you’re too good for
copying," is just another example.

• I feel Lisa should work on her “Neuroticism‟. She should lower her neuroticism and
must learn to deal with Scoville with a calmer mind. This will also help her to reduce
her temper and frustration and she can develop better relations with Scoville and
Linton.
• Lisa should increase her “Agreeableness‟. This can help her accept Scoville and
Linton as the way he is.

• Adding further to this even if at some point even if Scoville points out her mistakes
instead of reacting negatively (frustration or anger) she can accept those mistakes
calmly and react to it with an accepting positive attitude.

Question 3

Hidden area or Facade

 1. Lisa should open up at the time of discussions, meetings and presentations, and
express herself so that Linton understands her capability and skills and her approach
towards the problems or situation.
2. Lisa can even tell Linton about how she feels and even highlight other information
about herself which she feels is hidden this could reduce the gap and increase the
open area, which will help Linton know her key areas and help him to decide the key
areas for her for which she had been searching for a long period of time.
3. Lisa should try communicating with Vernon, because Vernon knows her key strength
and he was willing to solve her problem’s, which even included her relationship with
Linton and Scoville.

Question 4

1. The ‘I like, I wish, I wonder,’ technique:

➢ Linton could have given the feedback in a positive manner for example: “I like

the way you help Scoville, I wish you could have done things in a different

way (highlighting effective way),and I wonder if you could improve more in

your taking initiative side and add up more confidence in yourself.”

2. The 3-2-1 technique:

➢ He should have talked about three things that he liked about her (highlighting

her key strength)

➢ He should have named two areas that she needs to work on and improve

herself

➢ After that he could highlight the one thing that he most genuinely liked about

her.
Question 5

1. Emotional engagement: Houseworld should organize, different types of teams

building activities, annual sports activities, a picnic for employees etc., so that

employees spend time with each other and get to know each other’s talents and

key skills in a better way. This will help building an emotional connection among

employees and with the organization.

2. Short-term rewards: On-spot recognitions, incentives, rewarding the best

performer in every quarter in front of all other employees would motivate other

employees to work hard to improve themselves as per the requirement and push

themselves to achieve the company’s objectives. Not necessary the rewards have

to be tangible like some gifts, it can be even intangible like a “Thank you” and

appreciating the person in front of everyone can also be motivating sometimes.

3. Cognitive engagement: Linton could have allocated Lisa with all the monthly or

quarterly targets and regularly monitoring the same by taking feedback from her

regarding how the work is going. This can be a way of showing that what all she is

doing is directly related to companies’ vision and can let her know, what she needs

to do to achieve the best possible return on her job efforts and in job roles.

Question 6

Soft Tactics

1. Impression Management: Lisa should use her skills and use them in any upcoming
meeting while taking initiative and showcase her views in the meetings and handle
problems with confidence, this will help Lisa to rebuild her impression which was
wrongly created in front of Linton.

2. Persuasion: Lisa can persuade Scoville at some point where they can actually discuss
about their frustration with each other over a lunch.

Hard Tactics

1. Coalition Formation: Lisa colleagues in other departments who felt Linton was a
terrible manager and they readily came in her support after hearing about Scoville's
shouting episode. Lisa even got support on Linton's terrible management style from
another assistant product manager. She should use the support from her colleague to
form a coalition to her ideas to both Scoville and Linton.

2. Assertiveness: It is using legitimate and coercive power to threaten subordinates.

Lisa can be assertive in her conversations with both Scoville and Linton. Lisa should give
an assertive reply to Scoville about his dirty style of management. This could have
minimized her negative experiences like doing menial jobs which Scoville asked her to do.

Question 7

1. Fairness breach:
➢ It keeps a check on whether an action treats everyone in the same way, here
Linton and Scoville as they didn’t like MBA graduates, especially graduates from
Harvard Business School. Hence, they used to treat Lisa with dignity.
➢ It also ensures that there is no discrimination or favouritism in the company, but
here Linton showed a major favouritism towards Scoville and didn’t support Lisa at
any point!
2. Rights breach:
➢ It focuses on the respect for human dignity. Human dignity is based on the
freedom to choose the way a person lives his life, here it was also breached
as he stopped her from participating in team meetings and presentations by
using his designation power, he disrespected her in heavy tone which was
heard all over the floor.
➢ Talks about people having a moral duty to respect others in the same way,
its breached as it can be seen that despite of many complaints received
about Scoville harsh behaviour towards others Linton kept on favouring him
 and ignored Lisa.

Question 8

Lisa should not leave her current job and role in Houseworld.

Lisa should understand the relationship between Linton and Scoville and try having a
different approach for their behaviour. Even though there are other department
colleagues who understand and support her, even Vernon who is boss of all the managers
was quiet impressed by her abilities and talents and even asked her if she had any
problems, she could approach him in a positive manner regarding handling of different
projects.

The general advice from most of her colleagues was that Pure and Fresh was a normal
temporary project (12-18 months) which is quiet standard in the marketing department.
Lisa could just hold on for a few more months until she is moved to a different
assignment or allocated with different projects.

There might be situation that she will feel depressed or because of anger issues she can
even feel like quitting her job, but I feel like she should be strong and hang in tight. It’s
just a turbulent time and will pass away, but the strength and courage that she will show
during these times will define her as a better professional in future.