Turner and Cardullo

Turner and Cardullo are continually struggling with decision-making in the workplace. This concerns Turner because it impacts his leadership role, consequently the overall productivity of the workforce.

Analysis:

One hypothesis as to why Turner and Cardullo are constantly struggling with decision-making is because Cardullo possesses emotional holes in his personality. Emotional holes come from infancy, areas during our youth that have lacked attention and that further on in life we try to compensate for in another ways. These gaps can be very influential in our lives because if they are significantly deep rooted they can dominate your future life and have an impact on your behaviour. Also they cannot be filled later in life, doesn't matter how much money, awards or prizes you win it will not replace what has been missed in the past and that can lead to a lot of frustration and emotional distress.

I believe Cardullo is facing an emotional hole because he does not want to give up his position at MLI; he wants to remain in power. However in the interview with Turner, Cardullo told him that he was giving him "[...] a free hand in reorganizing the marketing area, and had all but guaranteed that Turner would take over as president within two years." There is a misunderstanding and this is because Cardullo is not ready to give up his position. His emotional hole could be related to the fact that in the past he might not have received enough attention and being the boss of MLI was fulfilling that gap or at least trying. The anger that Cardullo expresses in the workplace can be an explanation of the fact that it might frustrate him to realize that the position he holds at the moment isn't satisfactory but that's all he has to fill the gap. He promised Turner that in a matter of two years he would take over his position as president therefore seeing that Turner is doing great at his current job might be scaring Cardullo and makes him realize when he steps down that feeling of fulfillment will be gone leaving him with anxiety.

The problem is that Turner was given autonomy but Cardullo kept on interfering in the decisions Turner was making. Cardullo not being willing to give up his position leads him to continue having involvement in the decision-making process of the company causing Turner and Cardullo to argue.

Another hypothesis as to why Turner and Cardullo are constantly struggling with decision-making is because Cardullo memes are conflicting with Turner's memes. Memes are ideas and beliefs that people acquire over time and pass on to others in their surroundings. They can either be conscious or subconscious and can shape our motivation and behaviour .However some memes can become so familiar that we don't think about but we act upon them. Memes can be like a quote, saying or even superstitions for example "Avoid black cats, they bring bad luck" that are quite dominant in people's lives.

In the case of Cardullo and Turner there is an issue because both have a different strategy type of meme and it conflicts with one another. Cardullo focuses on financial performance and margins therefore his meme would be like "Cash is King". It showed at several occasions that Cardullo is only interested by the end result as mentioned here ; "Cardullo's plan far too simple [...] it treated every product the same, regardless of differences in demand, competitive situation, or the unique qualities of each item or system." As for Turner, he tends to lean more towards the logic and the process so therefore a meme he could be following is for example "There are no shortcuts to life's greatest achievements".

Cardullo and Turner are experiencing problems because memes affect our behaviour and we take them for granted. When confronted with someone else's that does not fit with ours, our behaviour is likely to show reaction towards that idea or belief and in this case both of them show frustration and incomprehensibility. In this case they are not able to come to an agreement on the pricing strategy.

The following hypothesis as to why Turner and Cardullo are constantly struggling with decision-making is because Turner has VABES that are not being met due to the actions of Cardullo. VABES are values, assumptions, beliefs and expectations that we have about the world, the way it should run. VABES develop when we are young and are put into place by our surroundings; family, friends, school etc, and it defers from culture to culture. One of the main problems with VABES is that we expect people to see the world and act the same way, and when they don't we tend to judge them and have no understanding of why they would see it differently. Not only are the VABES different from culture to culture but also from person to person depending on each other's experiences.

Jamie Turner is 32 years old, a former student with excellent grades and with an MBA from a top-rated business university. Knowing this we can assume that he values education and achievement. However he feels his life is stagnant and wants challenge and autonomy of his job and after leaving two previous positions he is worried of what people will think of him therefore he wants to prove his competencies at MLI and remain as long as possible while climbing to the top of the ladder, obviously he is driven and has high expectations. Further on he cares about people, values what they have to say and wants to get better understanding of them. On the other hand Cardullo had been an engineer for most of his life and became president because there was no one there at the time to fill the position and had experience in high tech-companies. Cardullo doesn't value success and people like Turner does here is says; "He was only acting as a steward, at MLI until he could find an aggressive, intelligent young manager to take his place [...]" This shows a lack of interest as well as other of his actions that he is there to fill the position, get the numbers right and nothing more.

This problem has lead to many conflicts between them because Turner is trying to work his own way, take the time, consider every detail, and familiarize with the people and industry in order to succeed at his job but also at his own personal level. Cardullo with is rough style and inconsideration is slowing and even blocking Turner from growing and meeting his VABES.

Another hypothesis as to why Turner and Cardullo are constantly struggling with decision-making is because of the generation gap reflected in their personalities. People are born in different generations and that has an impact on the way they view the world and conduct their lifestyles due to different outside events that have occurred during their life. We have