End Term Exam – GPP B

Submitted by – Jyotsna ( 2019023)

Que 1 Please read the attached case titled as “The Nice Guy” and answer the following
questions based on class room discussion.

1. What must Paul do to land the top job? (20 Marks)

Paul Kennedy was driving from his home to office and was thinking about the things that are
happening in his life . The day was important to him as he was planning an expansion plan in
from the company’s CEO as was in the hope that he will be promoted as next CEO.

His thought process during the commute tells a lot about his personality as a leader in Daner
Associates and his relationship with people around him.

1. Paul and the operations manager Lisa : His thoughts reflect his empathetic nature for
the people working with him . He is aware of their needs and respect their priorities and
commitments. He is ready to compromise with her work.
2. Paul and his family: He understand the family commitments and give equal attention to
them. This is evident by the plans of dinner and buying roses for his spouse.
3. Paul and his parents: He are appreciative of the balance that his parents tried to make
for work and life and consider them their role model. His nature of giving equal
importance to his family and work can be assumed to stemmed from his upbringings
4. Paul and George: He feel that George will be fine reporting to him and lacks technical
expertise and need to work on his customer management skills.
5. Paul and Larry: He shared a close relation with Larry in the past but lately they don’t
meet often outside office to discuss ideas and Larry was not much involved in the
expansion plan that Paul have come up with. There seems to be a gap in the
wavelengths where both of them are operating
6. Paul and employees: concerned about their commute and staff development program.

Larry expectations for the Future CEO of the Daners Associates:

1. He should not compromise with the company’s offering when it comes to deals
2. As the economy is going down and there is rising competition, he should be aggressive
and tough
3. Someone who is not afraid of taking risk and possess entrepreneurial skills
4. He is ready to challenge existing systems and is willing to take up anything to achieve
results
 5. Should have strong confidence and intuition for expansion plans. Data analysis matter
but intuition does play a major role.
6. Should have demonstrated agility in challenging environments.

Paul can be considered as a socially intelligent leader as he is empathetic towards his

employees and is sensitive to their needs. He puts in a lot of importance and is sympathetic to
other emotions and feelings. He is aware of what is happening in the organization on account of
both his long experience and his capabilities and skill set.

But there are few areas where he still needs to take measures to improve . For example, he is
way too much flexible which leads to delay in the completion of the work and also hints the
subordinates that it is okay even if they don’t complete the task that has been assigned to
them.

He is not focused as well, from his thought process it seems that he is juggling in so many
personal and professional happenings all at a time.

He is not critical. For an employee its equally important to give feedback and criticize
constructively.

Potential reasons why Larry chose George over Paul

1. George don’t compromise with the work and want to lay off Lisa. Larry also feels that
there should not be any concession given when it comes to work.
2. He takes no prisoners when bidding on business - he and Larry have a similar approach
while dealing with clients.
3. He is tough and aggressive and have the potential to sail off the business even during
tough time.
4. He is great at technical skills and have impressed Larry with his work in the past two
years
5. He is willing to take on anything and challenge Larry for his actions which demonstrate
his confidence and that he puts in his views for crucial matters concerning the company.
6. His leadership style resonates with George style of Learning which is familiar to
autocratic style of leadership.

What can Paul do to land the top job?

1. He should demonstrate Larry what all he has contributed in the past ten years and what
all plans he have in mind for the company. He can go into the details of his expansion
plans in Europe.
2. He can convince Larry on the grounds that why he considers that the George is best
fitted for the role of the VP of business development -

He can give rational mentioning about the suitability of George for the role of VP of business
development and also emphasize that he has been there in the company only for two years
have experienced only on the new business operations

Also, he can emphasize on the importance of maintaining customer relationship in their

business. He should not sound complaining about George or try to put him in bad light, He
should make Larry realize that these are the important things for the business to grow and
sustain in the dynamic changing environment

3. He should resume his out of the office time with the Larry: This will help in better
understanding the expectations of Larry when it comes to business. This will also help in
putting forth his ideas of staff management and other employee development programs
in front of Larry.
4. He should not take things as they appear on their face and start questioning the actions
taken up by Larry based on rationales and logics , this will give Larry an indication that
when it comes to business he has the potential to challenge the status quo.
5. He should also try to make Larry realize the importance of aspects that he is considerate
about when it comes to employees of the organization like the culture of the company
6. He should reflect inwards and understand his strengths and weakness and try to work
on it. He should be aware of his weakness when it comes to be an able leader
7. He should focus more on his communication skills and management of relationships
with employees and specially with Larry and try to keep him in loop in his ideas that he
has for daners associations.
8. He needs to work on his decision-making abilities as well and should be willing to take
tough decisions . He should not simply ignore the slacks .So in case of Lisa he should
send her for some leave and look for alternatives till the time she comes back, instead of
just comprising with no work. Being empathetic is good but it should not lead to loss in
company’s work.
9. He should not be juggled with data and should demonstrate his case with conviction and
confidence , the trait that Larry wants from future CEO.
10. He should also ask for continuous feedback for his work from Larry and another
employee which will help in taking suitable course of action for himself to grow in the
company
11. He should not form opinions and look in narrow context as in case of George where he
feels that he is psyching to be promoted the VP for business development.
 12. On the account of his deep understanding of the business , he can reflect his willingness
to take up and succeed in whatever it comes.

Overall, Paul should take a moment and introspect regarding his soft behavior and ensure that
this doesn’t come into his way to moving in the top of ladder. He should maintain a balance in
his nice behavior and what it takes to be a leader in terms of tough decision, risk taking ability,
resilience etc. He should not be seen as someone who will compromise with his work. He needs
to be more assertive when it comes to his professional world.

These measures are not the quick fixes , it will take him time to change his basic nature and sort
things in the life. For the immediate action, talking to Larry about his visions and career
progression goals seem really important. He should not lose heart and demonstrate that he is
capable for leading the company.

He should focus on building and developing his relations with the Larry, to understand his
perspectives, his leadership style and what he expects out of a future leader of the company

Reflecting confidence and balancing the thin line between toughness and niceness is necessary.

Please read the attached case titled as “Left on Mountainside” and answer the following
questions based on class room discussion.

2. What is Ed about to do? (20 Marks)

Context of the case :

Ed Davidson was invited as a delegate to World Economic Forum’s annual conference and he
considers himself as the future CEO of the Car stone Waite. During his stay at Davos, he got to
know from Frank, CFO and his mentor that David, the current CEO is not planning to name him
as CEO and he and others will try to change his mind.

This results in frustration and disappointment in Ed as he believed that he was the right
candidate for the position on the ground of both his relationship with current CEO as well as his
capabilities and business skills. Meanwhile, when he got to know that Frank has been fired, he
gets another blow and decided to deliver in his speech the wrongdoings of his current CEO in
terms of his track in social responsibility and other actions and misrepresentations that he
have done in the past.

Understanding Ed states of mind

1. Feeling cheated and betrayed: He and Frank supported David for his candidacy and
made a difference and therefore he expected a return favor from David and now that is
not happening , he is feeling cheated and humiliated
2. He shared a closed relation with David and trust him with his secrets and considered
that their chemistry worked and therefore he will be the one David will chose to run the
company.
3. On the basis of his skills and capabilities and his past results in running the business
profitably he felt that he is a deserving candidate.
4. He is deeply shattered by the firing of his friend and mentor Frank whom actions were
considered to be detrimental by the company as per David.
5. As he is disappointed with David, he is looking for short term gratifications and looking
for ways to harm David.

What is Ed about to do ??

Ed is about to deliver a speech on behalf of David and it is highly likely that he will disclose all
his wrongdoings that David have done so far in public forum. This is on account of his impulsive
behavior that he has demonstrated in the past. These can have negative implication such as

1. Loss in Reputation: The place where he is delivering speech consists of delegates from
all over the world. Such speech from future leader will not leave a good impact and can
damage his reputation
2. Not only his reputation, but the image of entire company will be at stake and it will
become target for the issues that protesters are raising. It can have serious impact on
business performance in terms of loss in valuations and employee lay over etc.
3. It is highly likely that he will be fired from the company on the charges of defamation
and false claims
4. This will also lean his chances of getting into any other company and will ruin his
relations in the industry.
5. He might feel and get satisfied that he has taken his revenge, but this speech can make
or break his entire career.
6. David can get away with the allegations easily as there is no sufficient evidences for the
claims that Ed will make and also, he can come in public forum and nullify the claims.
7. This might also happen that David is asked to stay away from the business and get under
scrutiny by the officers.
8. He was so disturbed that he was losing touch with reality and was taking sleeping pills to
help himself with the sleep

This decision will lead to immediate gratification and revenge seeking but will hinder his
career progression

What should Ed Do:

Ed should not resort to his emotions and deliver the speech as it was drafted earlier and
thereafter to get out of bad state of mind, he can may be take a day off and go for skiing
Taking a break and analyzing the entire situation with cool mind will help him in looking
for effective solutions and course of action. As an able leader, he should not resort to
decisions without fully analyzing its implications. Listing down few of the things which
he can do:
1. Firstly, he should try to seek the entire information on why he was not considered
for the role of CEO . There is an information gap as he received this information from
Frank and not from David itself. It might happen that David has some real underlying
reasons for putting a hold to this decision. David simply said that he wants to stay
close to the business for a while. He should not be swayed by the narrow
perspective.
2. He should consider the questions that Lucy put forth and think rationally as David
never really promised him to promote. It was him and frank who believed that he
should run company one day.
3. He should also try to understand the relation that frank, and David shared because it
has been seen that Frank was moved to marginal divisions. He should try to
understand the underlying reasons behind his dismissal as when frank was being
fired there was no discussion about the Ed.
4. Although, he feels that he is well suited for the position of CEO he should make an
internal assessment of what all it takes to lead the company, and have he
demonstrated the same skills in the past.
5. Resolution of the entire matter internally is the best way out. He can write a mail to
David as he is not in the country and can ask him what he has in mind for the
company’s next CEO. In No way should he be complaining about David’s decision.
David and he shared a good relation and their chemistry worked, David have always
admired and appreciated his work and therefore he should ask David for the
feedback and constructive criticism for his work.
6. Ed can also discuss about his vision for himself and the company with David , this will
also give indication of David regarding his interest towards the future heir of the
company.
7. He should try consulting with the other boards of member and employee regarding
his candidature and work on building good relations with them as well.
8. If after discussion with the David, he feels that the company is no longer providing
him the opportunities for career progression which he deserves that he can also
consider switching the job. He is young and have demonstrated track record
performance.
9. He should understand that his personal relation with David as a friend who share
secret should not be used as an instrument against him.
The situation could have been avoided if the company had effective succession plans in place.
Also, regarding the mis representations of the data there should be effective monitoring and
checking at place so that such errors could be avoided .

Please read the attached case titled as “All the Wrong Moves” and answer the following
questions based on class room discussion.

3. What’s the right decision-making process for Nutrorim? (10 Marks)

Context: The Company Nutrorim sales are growing and the new product charup with lipitrene
have been launched in the market which is also performing above the expectations. An
investigator report health issues because of the consumption of new product. After various
internal discussions the company finally recall the product, but later got to know that the
product is exonerated. Don call for an external consultant to review the decision-making
process in the company.

Existing culture and decision-making process in company :

The existing culture is democratic , participative and inclusive where everyone was given equal
opportunity to voice their opinions. For every decision, a committee was formed which comes
up with solutions and senior management used to vote for that decision.

We can clearly see the paradox of strategic decision-making process here, which is that the
pursuit of consensus and affective acceptance is reducing the decision quality.

Drawbacks:

1. It was really time consuming and when the decision was to be made in uncertain
environments with clear winner and losers, it seems not to work. It doesn’t look like an
effective process.
2. There was formation of teams which come up with solution , but at times important
people were not involved in that team which resulted in ignorance of diverse
viewpoints. So, for example Steve was excluded from the analysis of Powerup case,
because he seemed to be passionate about the product. Bringing him into the loop,
might have resulted in to not recalling the products at first place.
3. When Nora asks Don to be more dictatorial she meant that as a CEO he should also take
few decisions and not always rely on meetings and consensus. He appears to be
someone who don’t take accountability and ownership of his decisions
 4. Group decisions may not always be right for the company. The group can have their
own biases and can result in superficial results.
5. Opinions were voiced but every head of the department was concerned about their own
depts. only . It is the responsibility of the leader to keep in view of all the functions and
take an integrated and inclusive decision

Right Decision making

As indicated by the hired consultant, the decision-making process of the company needed
certain changes . As Don himself is not sure of which way to go, it seems like a good idea to
work along with the hired consultant.

1. Don experience in his first job has resulted in his beliefs that the decision making should
always come from consensus. But he is losing out on important decisions because of his
inabilities to take decision on his own. He should understand that at a position like him,
you are expected to make few decisions on the lines of the mission and vision and not
simply driven by the consensus.
2. In case of situations, which are uncertain this becomes more important as decision
should be quick, timely and responsive to the stimulus
3. He should also work on the team that he chooses for coming up with analysis and
proposed solutions, it should consist of stakeholders which are more experienced and
relevant. The group chosen should give voices to all the opinions and should not be
biased with their respective role in the organisation.
4. In case a decision is sensitive to time, he himself should come up with decision and asks
for differences in opinions in meetings.
5. He should work on improving his image where he is seen as someone who doesn’t take
accountability of the decision by participating equally in decision making process and
adopting a inquiry based approach and challenging the group decision
6. The decisions should be made through the critical evaluation of the process in which the
team members are identifying, extracting and synthesizing their perspective to produce
a decision.

Overall, a process where different view points are valued after gathering all information
should be implemented in the organisation in case of predictive events and for the time
sensitive and unpredictable events a unilateral decision by Don should be there. This might
result in some resistance within the employees who are used to existing democratise and
open decision-making process but will help company in taking better and effective
decisions.