Making the Grade at Attain Learning

Kay Sunderland: Making the Grade at Attain Learning

1.) Describe Sunderland's management and work style. What are her sources of power? Describe Morgan's management and work style. What are his sources of power?

According to Sunderland's coworkers, Sunderland is described as formal and efficient as she always sets expectations at the outset of the project. She is also tough but fair, gas a great strategic mindset and provides insightful critiques and suggestions. Moreover, she is very hardworking confident, and motivating to her coworkers to develop the best product for clients. However, her coworkers find her to be controlling, inflexible, and overly demanding at certain times. She is also single-minded in delivering everything her client requires limiting room for creativity, developing content outside of the box. Sunderland is the current account director for Attain Learning. This position is above Mike Morgan's role as content developer. Sunderland had also worked for Oracle and IBM solutions as high management positions.

Mike Morgan is the content development director at Attain Learning. Morgan's style is more relaxed compared to Sunderland. As a content developer, he is more open minded to allow his creative side to prosper. He deems Sunderland as too strict which restricts his team's creativity thinking. Moreover, he believes that sometimes client's requirements are too unrealistic and is not the best way to approach the content. As a director, he is described as a supporter and a partner, standing up for his team whenever higher authorities give are too critical. Morgan had working experience from Streamlined Inc., a small company that specialized in lean manufacturing training programs. It is also important to note that when Attain had to lay off other content development directors, he was the only one retained. This indicates that Morgan is a valuable asset of the company.

2.) What is going on her? Why did Morgan call Nunez? Why did Nunez call Sunderland?

Sunderland had numerous high profile accounts she was working on, on top of Gramen Equipment Company. She had just been informed that a potential client was about to sign a substantial contract. She was extremely busy and stressed with all the clients she was managing. Sunderland, Morgan, and Nunez have been meeting as Morgan presented his custom case studies for the training program. Morgan discovered that cash flow issues in the company however Nunez dismissed this and told him to focus on increasing inventory turnover and capital utilization. The fact that Morgan called Nunez implies that he does not respect Sunderland and believes that he does not need her consent on the project. He may have directly contacted Nunez because Sunderland might have just criticized his work or creativity, which he feels that is very limiting and not always