University of Kansas Work Promotion Dilemma Case Study
THE PROBLEMJohn James has worked at one of the world’s largestaerospace firms for more than 15 years. He was hiredinto the division during the “Clinton years” whenmany people were being brought onto the payroll. Johnhad not completed his engineering degree, so he washired as a drafter. Most of the other people in his department who were hired at the time had completedtheir degrees and therefore began careers as associateengineers. Over the years, John has progressed throughthe ranks to the classification of engineer. Many of theemployees hired at the same time as John have advanced more rapidly because the corporation recognized their engineering degrees as prerequisites foradvancement. Years of service can be substituted, buta substantial number of years is required to offset thelack of a degree.John began exhibiting signs of dissatisfaction withthe corporation in general several years ago. He wouldopenly vent his feelings against nearly everything thecorporation was doing or trying to do. However, he didnot complain about his specific situation. The complaining became progressively worse. John started to exhibitmood swings. He would be extremely productive attimes (though still complaining) and then swing intoperiods of near zero productivity. During these times,John would openly surf the Internet for supplies for anew home repair project or for the most recent Dilbertcomics. His fellow employees were hesitant to point outto management when these episodes occurred. Most ofthe team members had been working together for theentire 15 years and had become close friends. This iswhy these nonproductive episodes of John’s were sucha problem; no one on the team felt comfortable pointing the problem out to higher management. As timeprogressed and John’s friends evolved into his managers, while John remained at lower salary grades, John’smood swings grew more dramatic and lasted longer.During the most recent performance appraisalreview process, John’s manager (a friend of his)included a paragraph concerning his “lack of concentration at times.” This was included because of numerous comments made by John’s peers. The issue could nolonger be swept under the rug. John became irate at thereview feedback and refused to acknowledge receiptof his performance appraisal. His attitude toward histeammates became extremely negative. He demandedto know who had spoken negatively about him, and hiswork output diminished to virtually nothing.ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMClearly John has not been happy. To understand why,the history of his employment at this company needsto be looked at in greater detail. The group of coworkers that started together 15 years earlier all had similarbackgrounds and capabilities. A group of eight peoplewere all about 22 years old and had just left college;John was the only exception to this pattern, as he stillneeded two years of schooling to finish his engineering degree. All were single and making good moneyat their jobs. The difference in salary levels between anassociate engineer and a draftsman was quite small.Figure 4.5 shows the salary grade classifications at thiscorporation.This group played softball together everyWednesday, fished together on the weekends, andhunted elk for a week every winter. Lifelong bonds andfriendships were formed. One by one, the group startedto get married and begin families. They even took turnsstanding up for each other at the weddings. The wivesand the children all became great friends, and the fishing trips were replaced with family backyard barbecues.Meanwhile, things at work were going great. Allof these friends and coworkers had very strong workethics and above-average abilities. They all liked theirwork and did not mind working extra hours. Thiscombination of effort and ability meant rewards andadvancement for those involved. However, since Johnhad not yet completed his degree as he had planned,his promotions were more difficult to achieve and didnot occur as rapidly as those of his friends. The differences in salary and responsibility started to expand ata rapid rate. John started to become less satisfied.This large corporation was structured as a functional organization. All mechanical engineers reportedto a functional department manager. This manager wasaware of the situation and convinced John to go backfor his degree during the evenings. Although John hadgood intentions, he never stayed with it long enough tocomplete his degree. As John’s friends advanced morequickly through the corporation, their cars and housesalso became bigger and better. John’s wife pressured himto keep up with the others, and they also bought a biggerhouse. This move meant that John was living above hismeans and his financial security was threatened.Until this point, John had justified in his mindthat the corporation’s policies and his functional manager were the source of all of his problems. John wouldopenly vent his anger about this manager. Then a drastic change took place in the corporation. The corporation switched over to a project team environment andeliminated the functional management. This meantthat John was now reporting directly to his friends.Even though John now worked for his friends,company policy was still restrictive and the promotionsdid not come as fast as he hoped. The team leader gaveJohn frequent cash spot awards and recognition in anattempt to motivate him. John’s ego would be soothedfor a short time, but this did not address the real problem. John wanted money, power, and respect, and hewas not satisfied because those around him had more.Although he was good at what he did, he was not greatat it. He did not appear to have the innate capability todevelop into a leader through expert knowledge or personality traits. Additionally, due to the lack of an engineering degree, he could not achieve power throughtime in grade. By now, John’s attitude had deterioratedto the point where it was disruptive to the team andsomething had to be done. The team leader had to helpJohn, but he also had to look after the health of the team.This detailed history is relevant because it helpsto explain how John’s attitude slowly deterioratedover a period of time. At the start of his career, Johnwas able to feel on a par with his peers. When everyone was young and basically equal, he knew that hehad the respect of his friends and coworkers. Thisallowed John to enjoy a sense of self-esteem. As timepassed and he gave up in his attempt at the collegedegree, he lost some of his self-esteem. As the gapgrew between his friends’ positions in the companyand his position in the company, he perceived thathe lost the esteem of others. Finally, when he becameoverextended with the larger home, even his basicsecurity was threatened. It is difficult to maintain alevel of satisfaction in this situation. The problem wasnow distracting the team and starting to diminishtheir efforts and results. Because of the friendships,undue pressure was being placed on the team as theytried to protect John from the consequences of hisactions.The team leader had to try to resolve this problem. The challenge was significant: The leader had toattempt to satisfy the individual’s needs, the group’sneeds, and the task needs. When John’s individualneeds could not be met, the group atmosphere and taskcompletion suffered. It was time for the team leader toact decisively and approach upper management with asolution to the problem.POSSIBLE COURSE OF ACTION:The team leader put a lot of thought into his options.Because of the friendships and personal connections,he knew that he could not make this decision lightly.He decided to talk individually to the team memberswho were John’s close friends and then determine thebest solution to present to upper management.After talking with the team members, the teamleader decided on the following list of potentialoptions:1. Do nothing.2. Bypass company policy and promote John.3. Talk John into going back to college.4. Relocate John to a different project team.5. Terminate John’s employment.The option to do nothing would be the easiestway out for the team leader, but this would not solveany problems. This decision would be the equivalent ofburying one’s head in the sand and hoping the problem would go away by itself. Surprisingly, this was acommon suggestion from the team members. Thereappeared to be a hope that the problem could be overlooked, as it had been in the past, and John would justaccept the situation. With this option, the only personwho would have to compromise was John.The second option of bypassing company policyand promoting John to a higher level would be a verydifficult sell to management. John was recently promotedto a salary grade 18 (his friends were now 24s and 26s).This promotion was achieved through the concertedefforts of his friends and the team leader. The chancesof convincing management to approve another promotion so quickly were extremely low. Furthermore, if theteam leader was successful at convincing managementto promote John, what would the long-term benefits be?John would still not be at the same level as his friendsand might not be satisfied for long. Chances were goodthat this would be only a temporary fix to the problem.After the shine wore off the promotion, John would againbelieve that his efforts exceeded his rewards. It wouldbe nice to believe that this solution would eliminate theproblem, but history seemed to indicate otherwise.The third option of trying to talk John into goingback to college and finishing his engineering degreewould be the best solution to the problem, but probably the least likely to occur. If John could completehis degree, there would be no company policies thatcould obstruct his path. He would then be competing on an even playing field. This would allow himto justifiably receive his advancement and recapturehis self-esteem. If he did not receive the rewards thathe felt he deserved, he would then have to look at hisperformance and improve on his weaknesses, not justfall back on the same old excuse. This solution wouldappear to put John back on the path to job satisfaction,but the problem with it was that it had been tried unsuccessfully several times before. Why would it be different this time? Should the corporation keep trying thisapproach knowing that failure would again lead to dissatisfaction and produce a severe negative effect on theteam? Although this third solution could produce thehappy ending that everyone wants to see in a movie, itdid not have a very high probability of success.The fourth option of relocating John to a differentteam would be an attempt to break the ties of competition that John felt with his friends and teammates. Ifthis option were followed, John could start with a cleanslate with a completely different team, and he wouldbe allowed to save face with his friends. He could tellthem of his many accomplishments and the great jobthat he is doing, while complaining that his “new” bossis holding him back. Although this could be considered“smoke and mirrors,” it might allow John the opportunity to look at himself in a new light. If he performed athis capabilities, he should be able to achieve the esteemof others and eventually his self-esteem. The teamwould consider this a victory because it would alloweveryone to maintain the social relationship whilewashing their hands of the professional problems.This option offered the opportunity to make the situation impersonal. It should be clear, however, that thissolution would do nothing to resolve the true problem.Although it would allow John to focus his dissatisfaction on someone other than his friends and give him afresh start to impress his new coworkers, who is to saythat the problem would not simply resurface?The fifth option, termination of employment,would be distasteful to all involved. Nothing to thispoint had indicated that John would deserve an actionthis severe. Also, since this option also would sever thesocial relationships for all involved and cause guilt forall of the remaining team members, resulting in teamoutput deteriorating even further, it would be exercisedonly if other options failed and the situation deteriorated to an unsafe condition for those involved.Questions:1. As the team leader, you have weighed the prosand cons of the five options and prepared a presentation to management on how to address thisproblem. What do you suggest?2. Consider each of the options, and develop anargument to defend your position for eachoption.