Running Head: THOMAS GREEN CASE STUDY

Thomas Green: Power, Office Politics, and a Career in Crisis

Harvard Business Publishing Case Study - Power, Office Politics, and a Career in Crisis

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Harvard Business Case Study
Thomas Green Case Study
Q1: What are the work styles and personalities of Thomas Green and Frank Davis?
The work styles and behavior of Thomas and Frank Davis are quite different. Frank is the
Marketing Director and Green is a newly promoted superior marketing specialist (Partridge,
et.al, 2014). It can be seen that Frank Davis concentrated on deals objectives where as Thomas
would concentrate on customers and their needs. Frank portrays that with arrangement and great
sales approach, the sales targets would be achieved and there would be a boost up in the growth
of the company (Green, et.al, 2011). Nevertheless, Thomas just concentrates on the thoughts of
the item and tries to persuade how the item would produce benefits. Straight to the point work
style included presentations, spread sheet models and business sector review and information;
whereas Green was generally approaching customers (Partridge, et.al, 2014).
Green had an extremely convincing identity and he had the capacity of persuading his
customers about his thoughts. From reading the case study, it seemed as if he fails to offer the
capacity to back up his thoughts and hypotheses with true market information. Green
concentrated all the more on setting up a solid case that would suit his clients need (Mollica,
et.al, 2013). He created great compatibility with his clients and because of his persuading
identity he found himself able to conclude some great arrangements for the organization in the
first year (Green, et.al, 2011). From reading the case it can be concluded that he didn't have faith
in documentation. For example, all of his information and methods were used to be verbal as
opposed to on paper. This turned into one of the main considerations of contradiction in the
middle of Green and his manager Davis (Partridge, et.al, 2014).
Davis was an accomplished chief and he had a sorted out method for doing things. He
was specific about the documentation of information, arrangements and techniques (Mollica,

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et.al, 2013). He had confidence in giving the clients powerful supporting subtle elements for all
the arrangements. Davis constantly needed to have points of interest of information and
supporting reports for each proposal (Green, et.al, 2011). Davis was extremely specific about
taking after expert convention and expected the same from Green. Case in point, Davis imparted
Green's execution report to McDonald as convention since McDonalds had promoted Green.
Actually, Green normally did not keep Davis informed while doing any of his tasks.
Q2: How do the actions of Thomas Green differ from the expectations of Frank Davis?
As experiential in the case study, the measures of Thomas did differ from expectations of
Frank Davis. Being the Market executive, Frank expects data in regards to plans and timetable of
his subordinates (Mollica, et.al, 2013). Nonetheless, Green doesn't give the data of timetable of
his gatherings with customers and reaches them without any notice given to Davis (Baldwin,
et.al, 2012). Additionally, Frank hopes to get required updates from Green when it is asked for,
yet Green doesn't level up to the desires. Forthcoming Davis expects everybody in the division to
have an inspirational mentality towards deals target and accomplishment; however Green doesn't
have such quality and has negative demeanor which is not satisfactory to Davis (Partridge, et.al,
2014).
Q3: What is your analysis of Thomas Greens action and job performance? In his first five
months? What mistakes has he made?
Green was very ambitious from the very beginning, and he sought acknowledgement.
Very quickly, he moved up to a more responsible position in the head office. However, his lack
of experience in management got him into problems with his boss (Mollica, et.al, 2013). Thomas
Green joined Dynamic Displays as an account executive but he wants to do more work than an
account executive. Therefore, he forcefully worked hard to stand and be noticed by of by upper

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management in the company. Thomas had made extraordinarily great affiliation with the clients
and made his ideas accessible very quickly. By this impressive work, he was promoted as the
senior market specialist by McDonald. Green is very charismatic and he puts lot of thinking into
his strategies. He visited many clients during the initial months and maintained a great rapport in
front of the clients. Green in his meeting would bring out his ideas and create new sort of
thinking for his ideas. His ideas were not supported by market data as such, yet, he would
convince the clients. Regardless that he was freshly promoted to senior market specialist and had
not much of experience, he was able to display good efforts. Green was not able to meet the
expectation of his boss due to certain mistakes that he made in the first five months. First, he
objected to his boss proposal in front of everyone and challenged him on that. He should have
discussed the issue with Davis in private and should have tried to convince him by providing
objective data. Instead, by reacting openly he set a negative image with his boss. Secondly, he
did not keep his boss in loop while working on any project. He also did not respond efficiently to
any of Davis concerns or requirements (Partridge, et.al, 2014). Third, he did not work on
preparing supporting data or presentations to strengthen his strategies for customers. Finally, he
did not try to change his working style even when Davis pointed out several concerns (Baldwin,
et.al, 2012).
Q4: What are the possible underlying agendas of Davis and McDonald?
Shannon McDonalds was vice president of travel and hospitality division and Davis was
the marketing director. Davis and McDonald were about the long term goals of the company.
They wanted someone with more than sales skills; someone who could plan new strategies and
also work in coordination with different departments. They wanted a person with a broader
vision; someone who could look beyond the short-term sales target or personal gains, and work

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towards the overall strategy of the company. Davis was fully focused on the sales goals to be
achieved by applying sale strategies (Green, et.al, 2011). McDonald was in favor of betterment
for the company. As per the case, that could be a great performance and ideas of Green which he
presented in front of the clients. This would have not been done by Davis as he solely finds sales
targets as the main aspect of firm's growth and not by the things which would satisfy the
customer. The agendas of both were different. This difference in agenda's caused tension within
Green's position.
Q5: What actions would you take, if any, if you were Thomas Green?
On the basis of an article I read Managing your Boss there are a few recommendations
that could be offered to Green and should be used going forward. According to the article a boss
can play an important role in connecting the manager to the organization (Partridge, et.al, 2014).
First, Green should have made an attempt towards understanding his boss and his goals (Mollica,
et.al, 2013). This would have been very important for developing a healthy working relationship
with his boss and for finding a mutually conducive working style. Secondly, Green should have
maintained a smooth flow of information with his boss, in order to build trust. Using these two
simple approaches, Green could have aligned himself better with the companys long term vision
(Baldwin, et.al, 2012). This case portrays office politics and if not treated properly can create
problems in an organization (Green, et.al, 2011). This case gives insight on how power distance
in an organization can cause problems and the importance of proper statements between different
members of an organization and the case also proves the point that if proactive action is not taken
by the leader then it can result in bigger issues (Green, et.al, 2011).

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References
Baldwin, T. T., Bommer, W. H., & Rubin, R. S. (2012). Managing organizational behavior: What
great managers know and do.
Green, T. H. (2011). Works of Thomas Hill Green (Vol. 3). Cambridge University Press.
Mollica, A., Pinnen, F., Costante, R., Locatelli, M., Stefanucci, A., Pieretti, S., ... & Hruby, V. J.
(2013). Biological Active Analogues of the Opioid Peptide Biphalin: Mixed /3Peptides. Journal of medicinal chemistry, 56(8), 3419-3423.
Partridge, M., Davis, F., James, S. W., Tatam, R. P., & Higson, S. P. (2014). The effect of surface
pressure modification on the speed of vortex rings. Fluid Dynamics Research, 46(5),
055503.