Reference no: EM133035451

The management of OBL Inc., a consulting company, had a meeting to discuss the potential impact of new social movements on their core business. The board of directors agreed that to avoid potential problems with important clients, it would be important for their consultants to learn more about diversity issues. Following this decision, they hired the services of Maria Fernanda, a professional coach who was known for her masterclasses on diversity in business.

The masterclass of Maria Fernanda consisted of three one-hour training sessions. To verify the knowledge of consultants on diversity issues, the training concluded with a written final exam. The first training session started with Maria Fernanda saying with a very serious face: "Listen, I want you to understand that diversity issues are crucial in today's business. So, let me be clear: I won't "cut slack" and let someone pass this training "just because". You must study hard!" Later, during the first hour of the training, the class was very engaged and listened carefully. The second hour was even more fun: consultants played a simulation game. The third training session was also great: Maria Fernanda brought multiple little gifts and prizes to consultants who answered her questions correctly. But on the way out from the third session Maria Fernanda overheard a couple of consultants talking about her: "She is really tough... Not like any other coaches I've seen before... I feel the exam will be hard!"

Next week, consultants wrote the exam prepared by Maria Fernanda. Having evaluated their answers, she was surprised that nearly half the consultants clearly did not understand how to mitigate and avoid diversity issues during their daily tasks and failed the test. After receiving their results, the consultants complained that the test was very difficult and was full of tricky questions. One of the students who failed even said: "I just don't get it. Without us even mentioning it, you understood that the proposed hours of training were ridiculous for our work. So, you went ahead and convinced the management of OBL Inc. to put training sessions earlier in the day! Why can't you just be cooperative now?! Our job is already difficult enough, help us out with this test!" However, Maria Fernanda insisted: "What are you talking about?! Listen, I know how it is with you, consultants... You are all arrogant, you think you know everything... The test was fair. There will be no changes in the final grades. If you failed, you have to go through the training again!"

Use your knowledge of attribution errors and perceptual biases to analyze this situation. Make sure to use information from the case to support your answer. Please remember that your answer will be evaluated based on its completeness and correctness. The bullet-style answers are allowed. There is no minimum/maximum word limit.