Team Case Analysis 1 James Cranston & Eugene Kirby

Lindsay Ryan Margaret Pesikov Alejandro Management 302-B Lori Coakley October 24, 2011

Case Analysis Executive Summary: James Cranston, the Vice President of Colonial Food Services, is about to conduct a performance appraisal interview of the district manager, Eugene Kirby, who is ten years his senior. Cranston is debating whether or not Kirby has the personality traits and abilities to become a successful Operations Manager for the organization. In the appraisal, Cranston highlights Kirbys best assets as his administrative knowledge and his ability to motivate employees to achieve organizational goals. Kirby, however, performs poorly in decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution. Kirby sees himself as misunderstood, and has an explanation for all of the defects that Cranston perceives him to have. Both Cranston and Kirby agree that Kirbys lack of education makes it difficult for him to grow within the company, setting his career at a plateau. Kirby believes that his 20 years of work experience should compensate for a college degree; however, Cranston insists that Kirby would benefit from training seminars. This leads to conflicting points of view coming into the interview. On the day of the meeting, Kirby is forced to wait for several hours before James Cranston finally has the time to begin the interview. Even when Cranston is ready for the meeting, the two men have to move to a different location just to have it. Through Cranstons nonverbal communication, he shows a lack of interest in Kirby. In the following analysis, we assume that the organization already has an Operations Manager who is either retiring or transferring to a new location. We assume that Cranston and Kirby have a close relationship because they talk frequently and are very defensive of each other. Cranston thinks Kirby is experienced, has high technical competence, and an ability to meet forecasts, which makes him a suitable candidate for Operations Manager position of CFS. However, for all of the positive qualities, there are also negative aspects that prevent Kirby from becoming a qualified operational manager. Also, we assume that Kirby has a lot of autonomy because he is able to fire and hire who he wants, but his decisions must be approved by Cranston. In this case there are several smaller issues and problems that contribute to the major problem. Within the past twenty years of working at the company, Kirby has only been evaluated three times, a contributing factor in his inability to handle criticism well. Due to the evaluations being so infrequent, Kirby feels as though the evaluations only occur when he is doing something wrong, instead of regarding them as standard procedure. This makes him defensive and reluctant to accept the criticism. The corporate level officer in charge or organizational development felt that Kirbys assessment workshop results were that he does not handle feedback well, and tends to block out results from questionnaires and constructive criticism. Cranston and Kirby also have differing opinions on whether or not Kirby needs to attend college in order to fill the Organizational Manager position. We recommend that evaluations are made more frequently and are administered on a regular basis so that they are regarded as standard protocol to make Kirby accustomed to receiving criticism. Also, establish periodic training sessions and cross-functional training programs so that Kirby is more knowledgeable about the organization. In addition, these small doses of training will keep Kirby from being offended. Problem Statement James Cranston and Eugene Kirby are walking into this performance appraisal interview with different expectations due to conflicting role perceptions, biases, and miscommunication.

Cranston is entering the interview with a developmental angle, whereas Kirby is entering the interview with the expectation of being promoted. Cause and Effect One of the major causes of the dividing issues between James Cranston and Eugene Kirby are their conflicting perceptions of Kirbys role within Colonial Food Services. Role perceptions are the extent to which people understand the job duties assigned to them. There are several forms of role perceptions including an understanding of the tasks and duties expected in a particular job, an understanding of the priority of tasks and performance expectations, as well as an understanding of the preferred procedures used to accomplish these tasks. Eugene Kirby does not have a handle on what is directly influencing the performance of the company because he goes through managers instead of directly being on the floor with workers. Also, he does not have a clear vision of what people do within the company, which impairs his ability to set up priorities for these tasks. Kirby has a false impression of success because he does not see all the faults the Cranston sees in him. Going into this interview, Kirby believes he is the right candidate for the management position, while Cranston thinks he may not be good enough. These conflicting perceptions of Kirbys role and success within the company, lead to both Kirby and Cranston going into the interview with different expectations. There are also several biases that contribute to this rift between expectations. One of these biases is the halo effect. The fact that Kirby did not go to college makes Cranston believe that he is not good enough to hold the position of Operations Manager. It is evident that Cranston focuses on Kirbys lack of education as a halo effect for Kirby as a whole, which leads to imperfect perceptual processes of both men coming into the interview. This ties into unintentional systemic discrimination because Cranston has an idea that the ideal person in this role should be someone who graduated with a degree in the field, rather than having 20 years of experience. Also, self-serving bias is a significant cause to the difference in expectations. Kirby tends to interpret company successes as result of his effort and expertise. Due to this, he sees himself as a critical asset to the company and as an effective employee. Cranston, on the other hand, does not attribute these successes to Kirby and therefore sees Kirby in a different light and thinks that he still needs long term development. In addition to the halo effect and self-serving bias, Kirbys self-concept contributes to his inaccurate belief that he deserves a promotion. Kirby thinks that he is sensitive to other peoples needs and that he is very good at selecting and training managers. He has a very high opinion of himself which does not coincide with Cranstons evaluation. Communication is a vital aspect in any business model, and any company that is lacking proper communication is due to have conflicts between employees. This will inevitably affect the performance of the organization. There was miscommunication between Kirby and Cranston due to barriers in their encoding and decoding of information. Also, there is evidence of nonverbal communication. Cranston made Kirby wait a long time to have his performance interview which indicates a lack of respect for Kirby and a lack of confidence in him. In another instance, Kirby speaks to Cranston on the phone and all of Cranstons responses are simple and uninterested. It seems as though Cranston is trying to rush Kirby off of the phone. Kirby did not have active listening skills. Another source of miscommunication in this case was noise, more specifically Eugenes tendency to filter out negative information. After every single performance appraisal, Kirby ignored the negative information because it defied his self-concept. This is also evident in

the fact that Kirby refuses to return to college because he cannot stand his performance being graded with a letter. Alternative Solutions Alternative solutions that are recommended for the Cranston/Kirby case can be seen in Appendix A, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative. Recommended Action In order to have prevented this conflict in expectations from occurring in the first place, Kirby should have received effective feedback in the years prior to that meeting. The feedback should have been timely, relevant, credible, and specific. Had Cranston used these criteria to give Kirby feedback on his performance and been more open about his true views of him, Kirby would have been more accustomed to receiving negative evaluations and would have been more likely to try and improve himself. If the feedback was timely, instead of occurring three times every twenty years, Kirby would have a more accurate perception of his abilities and weaknesses. Kirby should have gotten feedback from Cranston, his boss, because that is what his role should entail. Also, Cranston should have participated in active listening and both Kirby and Cranston should have communicated constantly considering they are both upper level management. Had this been done prior to the performance appraisal interview, Kirby and Cranston would have come to the interview with coinciding visions about the potential outcome of the interview.

Appendix- A

Alternative Solutions:

Kirby is fired from the company. o Pros: Company has the opportunity to hire a college graduate instead and add motivation and creativity to the company through this new talent. o Cons: This solution is costly because they have to spend a lot of money on the selection process as well as on training the selected applicant. Also, company must spend money to compensate Kirby in terms of unemployment. Kirby had some good qualities such as his ability to motivate and 20 years of company experience, so by firing him the company is losing a strategic knowledge worker. Kirby walks out and quits. o Pros: Company is not required to compensate Kirby for unemployment. The company is able to promote from externally. Instead of promoting Kirby, the company is reducing the chance of employee cloning by recruiting from an outside source. o Cons: Loss of Kirbys talents and acquired knowledge. Cranston and Kirby create a developmental performance strategy. o Pros: Allows the company to capitalize on Kirbys current skills and experience. Company is able to develop and effective performance strategy that can be used in future situations with other employees. Company is able to develop Kirby into a more a ideal employee, in terms of Cranstons perspectives. o Cons: Company would have an uneducated Operations Manager and lose out on the opportunity to hire an educated enthusiastic college student. Companys profits may remain at a plateau because the personnel within the company is not changing.

Works Cited

McShane, Steven Lattimore. Organizational Behavior. New York: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print. Case Book Organizational Behavior MGT302B, Harvard Business Publishing, James Cranston, Eugene Kirby