Challenge the Boss or Stand Down

Introduction

This case study tells about an ambitious guy named Tom whom had been appointed as the Senior Marketing Specialist by the recommendation of Shannon McDonald; the Vice President of D7 Displays, a company providing self-service kiosks. Tom is obviously thinking so far ahead on the company’s future than his new boss, Frank Davis. Frank is the Marketing Director for the travel and hospitality group, whom Tom mistakenly challenged in the market-strategy meeting that leads to conflict between them both. In the meeting, Frank announced the projections or targets for next year where Tom's region; Eastern, was expected to grow 15%. To his disagreement, Tom in his 'wet towel attitude' and rude manner had challenged his boss in front of other staff by saying that the target is impossible to achieve due to some flaws in their product that need to be improved. Frank is distracted by the comments and feels that Tom was being rude and trying to change the job scope given to him. After that meeting, Frank had emailed Shannon and wrote his concerns regarding Tom’s attitude and behaviour. Tom is required to achieve the said target, and then only Frank would listen to Tom’s new idea. It come to worst when Shannon had emailed Tom and asking Tom a writing statement on how he can improve his performance. She also had mentioned that both she and Frank will evaluate Tom’s suitability for that position after 30 days. Now, Tom is facing the dilemma whether to just comply with what Frank had demanded him to do or directly asks for Shannon’s opinion which will bypass Frank’s position. The case stresses on whether an employee should challenge the boss or stand down.

Business Problem

As the new Senior Marketing Specialist, Tom tried to impress his new boss; Frank, by doing the research on how to improve their product according to the market preference. Whether it is on purpose or not, his initiatives were unnoticed, including his boss. He had not mentioned anything about his findings until the strategy – planning meeting.

Tom had stood up to his idea to Frank that he cannot meet the target due to their undeveloped product. His judgment was based on his studies with his clients in New York, Boston and Orlando. They mentioned that they prefer to use the web-based check-in rather than the kiosk which is expensive to install and maintain. The airlines currently not in a good situation hence web services help them in the same way as the kiosk but at a cheaper cost.

During the meeting, Tom had suggested that in order for the kiosk to compete with web services, it requires additional features. It should act as a profit generator to the owner or provide many other beneficial results. However, these ideas and opinions by Tom were ignored by Frank. Instead, he asked Tom to focus more on the hotels and car rental agencies to reach his target for eastern region. Again, Tom pulls Frank’s trigger by saying that Frank is not comparing those market in the same segment. He mentioned that the hotels need more human based services and the car rental does not require much of their kiosk. This seems as if Tom questioning Frank’s credibility.

Causes and Issues - McClelland’s Theory of Needs

As the position of Senior Marketing Specialist for the eastern north region was opened, Tom had used his relationship with Shannon to get the job. Shannon took the chance to use Tom’s ambitiousness and creativity to the group and thought that the team needs new ideas and direction. She knew that it will be difficult for Tom since he did not have any managerial experience. Moreover, Frank had expected that he was going to be the one to choose the new senior marketing specialist and Shannon was confident that Frank would not have chosen Tom. Thus, her expectation towards Tom is very high in which she asked him to do beyond his best.

Frank’s patience was really tested when Tom had publicly challenged him in a meeting. He keeps on defending his idea to improve the kiosk rather than agreed to Frank’s aspiration on next year's target. Tom might be driven by Shannon’s expectation and that motivates him to excel and prove to Shannon that he can do better than his best. According to McClelland’s Theory of Needs, the motivation and effectiveness of a person in certain job functions are influence and shaped by three needs which are “achievement, affiliation or power”.

McClelland proposes in his theory that a person with a need for Achievement is motivated by the “seek to excel” needs while those with the needs of Affiliation is driven by the needs of “the harmonious relationship with other people and to feel accepted by other people”.  Meanwhile, a person with the need for Power “wants to direct others”.  Amongst these three, Tom is seen as the one who has both, the need for Achievement and Affiliation.

  The situation might be different for Tom if he is on Frank’s favour because currently, it seems like Frank do not trust Tom’s capability. Tom always takes lightly of what he was asked to do and it came to worst when Frank said that Tom was rude by interrupting his meeting.

Frank did not wait for long to email Shannon about Tom’s behaviour as he has been waiting for this opportunity. After emailing Shannon, he called Tom to his office to discuss on what had happened. Frank had given Tom a memo on what he had sent to Shannon, in which mentioned Tom’s attitude as having a “poor judgment” and “questionable behaviour”. He also had investigated on Tom’s task and asked him why he never reported to him on his whereabouts as well as his marketing strategy. Tom seems to overlook on the fact that he is reporting under Frank and they are expected to work together and not on his own. Moreover, he has been given a specific task to complete, instead, he was busy planning other work project without consulting Frank. In this particular event, Tom is portrayed as the one with the characteristics of people with high need for achievement, whereby this type of motivator is often likes to work alone.

Besides, Frank had caught Tom being in New York when he was actually required to be in Boston. Although Tom had given the excuses that his meeting had ended earlier and he rushed to New York to meet the clients, still the issue was that he did not inform his superior all of his work plans and he did not even asked permission from his boss. Frank had repeatedly say that Tom should not be thinking on the project development and focuses only on the regional strategy development. McClelland Theory of Needs also mentioned that, “achievers like situation in which they take personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems” (Pardee, 1990), and that explains why Tom was too keen to concentrate on his project and neglect Frank’s requests, as he sees issues between the kiosk and the web-based services, and he was determined to solve it, until Frank put a stop to it.