Case Study

Jane Austin was to have dinner at 6 PM with Lily Jackson; her best friend and co-supervisor at Digital Communications, Inc. Jane arrived at 6:15, .slumped in her chair and said, "Get the waiter, I need a drink.' That Michael Owens is driving me up the wall,"

Lily responded, "He's giving you problems again, huh?"

"He sure is," said Jane. "I sure misjudged that guy when we hired him. He came to us with an excellent work record and has a good educational background in computer programming. During the employment interview he made an outstanding impression. He was neatly dressed, well groomed, poised, and obviously knew his business. I thought he would be an outstanding addition to our Special Applications Branch. He immediately caught on to our procedures and began producing outstanding work. The first month he was here he came up with a troubleshooting technique that greatly improved our ability to spot and correct mistakes."

"Wish I had a guy with that kind of problem working.for me," said Lily.

"No, you don't," responded Jane. "The guy is a real wacko. Not long after he started with us he began coming to work in sandals without socks and a muscle shirt. He also grew a beard, and you know how that goes over with our big boss. I finally got him to wear socks and a decent shirt, but he still has the beard."

"Last month, I put him on the Dawkins Company job and told him it was a rush order and that I needed it in three days. The first afternoon after I assigned him the job, I found him with his feet up on the desk reading a magazine. About quitting time, he started working on the project. Someone told me he worked on it all night. He didn't show up the next afternoon until 2 PM, leaving his section unmanned most of the day. I was about to chew him out good when he came in to my office and threw the completed project on my desk. It was an excellent piece of work. The last

programmer I gave a job like that to took three weeks to complete it, and then it was full of mistakes.

'Lily responded, "Okay, so he dresses and acts a little weird, he still seems like a jewel to me."

"Yea", said Jane, "but you haven't heard about his latest stunt how sensitive the work is that we do. If a competitor ever got any of our procedures, we would he in serious trouble. Michael not only refuses to take our security precautions seriously, he thinks they are ridiculous and actually flouts them. A while back, I had a serious discussion with him about his carelessness with a particular set of sensitive programs. He' responded by telling me that the company was paranoid about security, and that the information about one of those programs had recently been published in Computer Magazine. One day I overheard him bragging to some of the other programmers that he had gotten past the security guard that morning by quickly flashing his Playboy Club card at the guard instead of his security badge. I chewed him out, and although he apologized, he couldn't understand why I didn't think the incident was funny.

"He really tipped things this morning. He showed up at the gate without his badge and refused to let the guard issue him a temporary pass. When the guard would not let him in the gate without it, Michael got red in the face and left. He didn't show up for work today, and no one answers the phone at his house."

"Wow,"said Lily. "What are you going to do now, fire him?"

Write and submit through this Bb file YOUR assessment and views considering the factors listed below (all have an effect on this situation):

• The types of competitors and the competitive environment for this company (what outcomes need to be achieved to be effective and efficient and successful)
• Factors that cause Jane to act the way she has
• Factors that cause Michael to act the way he has
• The evidence that can be inferred that changes need to be made
• The type of organization culture that needs to be in place to be successful vs. what is in place now
• YOUR SUGGESTIONS for changes (personal and organizational) that can lead to a WIN-WIN for the company, managers and employees.