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Once you have finished reading, respond to the questions below in a separate Word Document before submitting. Please write at least two paragraphs on each of the following questions. Each paragraph should consist of 4-5 full sentences, free of typographical, grammatical, and spelling errors, double-spaced, 1" margins, size 12 font. Writing should be professional and avoid use of slang words and phrases.

Case Study Parts 1 & 2

Part 1: "Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off." -General Colin Powell

Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It's inevitable, if you're honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: You'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you'll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by not trying to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally "nicely" regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people that you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.

That said...

Part 2: Application

Suzy Parker had been working at the Concord Conference Center for about 2 years. It was a wonderful place to work as the facilities were state-of-the-art and her fellow employees were very competent. Because of the nature of the conference center business, she found that she worked primarily Monday through Friday and seldom at night. She spent the first year of her employment in the front office training rotation and had become familiar with the operations of the front desk, guest relations and reservations. For the last nine months she had been working in the Sales department and had reached a point where she was actively involved in developing and making presentations to potential clients. Her background in statistics and computers had prepared her particularly well for this new position.

Suzy spent the last several weeks doing research and preparing a presentation to the executive board of a medium-sized manufacturing firm. Concord was attempting to get this company to sign a multi-year contract to use the facility for its management development training programs. If Concord was successful, the contract would be worth several hundred thousand dollars. The presentation, however, did not go as Suzy expected. She had two major complaints. She felt her work had not been well represented, first, in that she had not received credit for what she had done and, second, that Evelyn the Sales Manager who had actually made the presentation, had altered a lot of her material and falsified some information.

Several days after the presentation, Suzy approached Evelyn to discuss the situation. When Suzy entered Evelyn's office she found that Evelyn was excited about getting the account and Evelyn initiated their conversation by congratulating Suzy for her hard work. Although Evelyn was excited and was attempting to make Suzy feel good about the success, this only made Suzy feel more uncomfortable about what she had to say. Evelyn was surprised to learn that Suzy had come to see her about a problem and was even more surprised that the problem was about the new account.

Suzy began by asking why some of the information she had worked so hard on researching had either been changed or left out of the presentation entirely. Evelyn responded by asking, "We wanted to get the account didn't we?" This made Suzy very uncomfortable, as in a discussion prior to the presentation Evelyn had assured her that everything in Suzy's report was right on point and that no changes were necessary. Suzy said that she felt it was dishonest to the customer to falsify information, but Evelyn reverted to her previous argument that her actions were in the best interests of the company. Evelyn did not understand Suzy's disappointment, because they had gotten the account, and replied simply, "it's a dog-eat-dog world out there."

As Evelyn continued to praise Suzy for all the hard work she had done, Suzy felt that this was an opportune time to question her about the lack of credit she received at the presentation. Evelyn explained that she did not get the recognition because she was her subordinate and that, "it simply doesn't work that way." She informed Suzy that the higher she gets in the company hierarchy, the more credit she will get, no matter who does the work.

Still annoyed by the situation, Suzy requested that any changes or "falsifications" in her work not be made in the future or, at least, if they were, that she would like to be informed. She told Evelyn that she would feel better if she was able to expect any changes, rather than having them surprise her, and asked if they could meet prior to the next presentation to go over the material. Although Evelyn noted that the word "falsification" was much too strong, she agreed to meet and notify Suzy of any changes the day before the next presentation.

1. Who was right in this situation? Is it important? Why?

2. Do you think Evelyn was trying to apply the premise presented in Part 1? Could she have done it better?

3. How often do you think this type of incident occurs? Describe a situation where your experience was similar to Suzy's.

4. What are some of the possible "costs" involved, both tangible and intangible?