Power, office Politics and a Career in Crisis Essay Example

it was apparent there was a personality conflict between the two. Davis, a 17-year veteran of the company, felt the need to have everything Green was working on documented and wanted “prompt” communication with him. Davis also was aggravated that Green didn’t make use of his Outlook calendar as to the updates of where he was traveling. When Davis confronted Green about the issues at hand, Green’s response was that he has all the info “in his head” and that daily emails, Outlook calendar updates, and documented work updates were simply not his style, and just “politics”.

Thomas even had a conflict with Frank during Budget Meeting at the point of setting next year’s sales goals. Thomas did not hold back in putting up his argument and challenged Franks proposals and predictions. Soon after that, Thomas and Frank met several times for performance reviews, during which Frank showed absolute dissatisfaction. Later the word of conflict went up the level of McDonald after performance reviews and Frank even proposed to lay off Thomas, had the things not work out as Frank would have wanted.

Thomas Green holds a bachelors degree and does not have much managerial and strategic position experience under his belts. Green, comparatively, spent too much with executives and under-estimated the vitality of giving equal importance and respect to his immediate boss. Moreover, even after knowing that Frank wanted to bring someone else in that position, Thomas should have spent more time and effort in winning Franks vote of confidence and secure a place in his good books instead of spending first week in Boston.

Apart from giving importance to Frank, Thomas also did not comply with

or followed the “ways of” working in a strategic and managerial position, including keeping outlook calendar update, documenting all his work, negotiate and be thorough with hard data, learning the use of small modern managerial tools and having good interpersonal skills, and managing to have a good relationship with line managers.

Green’s next big mistake was speaking out against his supervisor’s forecasts at a meeting. While Green may have been correct in his thinking, a conversation between the two gentlemen should have occurred outside of the meeting if Green had any questions about the forecasts. It is often better to let your boss be found to be in the wrong then try to correct them publicly. One more thing he did wrong during that whole period was to talk to people on the outside, people other than Frank.

There he tried to justify his actions and wanted to prove everyone that Frank’s plans were too ambitious and unattainable, and taking recommendations from irrelevant people, instead he should have kept all that between himself and Frank, knowing that he has no good friends or allies in the organizations. In the end, a combination of lack of experience, not adjusting to the job requirements and roles, not giving enough respect to the immediate boss and openly challenging him and talking bad about boss without making any good friends in organization brought a young and talented professional’s career at the brink of a disaster.