IGB CASE ANALYSIS

PRM 42 SECTION B GROUP 6

Case Analysis: Kay Sunderland

Executive Summary:
Attain Learning Inc., a company created in 1998 by Caroline Nicholas focused on providing
custom business training solutions for corporate professionals and were especially known for
their financial training for non-financial managers and their innovative approach to course
design and delivery. Kay Sunderland joined attain in 2007 as an account director and was
admired and respected by her colleagues for formal and efficient management principles,
strong work ethics and strategic mindset but was criticised for being too stiff and demanding
in her projects. On the other hand, Mike Morgan was a project management graduate, who
joined Attain in 2009 as one of the two content development directors, with a similar level of
good reputation among his peers, with them praising Mike for being supportive and
partnering up with their projects with his on-hand approach. Kay liked Mike’s inclination for
sales and strategy, his content development talents and his creative touch in his work but
disliked his tendency to be excessively argumentative for disagreements, while Mike admired
Kay for her expertise in business and strategy, great knowledge and client insight but disliked
her lack of trust in his judgement and wanted more freedom to work.
Gramen Equipment was a big account for Attain and if Mr Nunez, the CLO, was
satisfied by their initial training of 60 middle-level managers, they could land a lucrative
long-term contract with Gramen and for that reason Chama handed over this account to Kay
for managing, who had little prior experience in handling clients from the manufacturing
industry. The problem started when she got a call from Nunez stating that Mike had left many
voice mails and expressed his displeasure that he did not wish to be contacted by Mike. Mike
was not supposed to call Nunez directly as Kay was the only point of contact between them,
but he did and Kay has to figure out why he contacted him.
The proposed solution to the problem is to schedule a face-to-face meet with Mike
and have a frank conversation with him trying to open up and know the reason for his calling.
She should then take Mike along with her when they next meet Nunez so that his ideas, if
relevant can be explained and implemented. This will improve the interpersonal relationship
between Mike and Kay and will help in improving overall team dynamics. If this plan does
not work out, escalating the matter to Chama and solving it there is kept as a contingency
plan.
Situation Analysis:
The case opens with a scenario where Kay Sunderland is being informed by Juan Nunez, the
Chief Learning Officer for Sunderland’s most important client, that he wants Attain’s content
development director, Mike Morgan, to stop contacting him directly. Sunderland was
infuriated by Morgan’s inappropriate action of making so many calls and voicemails to their
potential client which was also against the company norms. She too had to deal with a lot of
work, being the account director for client service activities at attain, and the thought of
misdealing with an important client has all the more increased her frustration.
 Both Sunderland and Mike have been associated with Attain for quite a long time
now. Sunderland joined Attain in November 2007, as an account director. She had work
experience with Oracle after which she pursued MBA and joined IBM solutions. Her co-
workers respected her experience and work ethic. Kay Sunderland was admired for her
strategic mindset and had a good rapport among her colleagues.
Mike Morgan also had a similar equation with his colleagues. Morgan joined Attain in
January 2009 as one of the two content development directors. Morgan loves to work in a
relaxed and chilling entrepreneur environment rather than working in a bureaucratic labyrinth
of a company.
Talking about their relations, Sunderland and Mike Morgan were working together for
two years now. Both of them appreciated each other's work. Sunderland had a view that Mike
becomes extremely argumentative when things don't go his way, on the other hand, Morgan
was of the view that he needed a bit more freedom and should be trusted on his decisions by
Sunderland, to work in the best way possible. He also thinks that Kay gets way too strict in
interpreting the client’s view.
Attain and Greman Equipment Company came together in 2009. Attain was founded
by Caroline Nicholas in 1998. It mainly focused on offering business training solutions that
combined traditional corporate training methods with dynamic multimedia content and case
studies.
Nicholas, the CEO of Attain, interacted with Greman Equipment Company when their
first Chief Learning Officer, Juan Nunez was appointed. The CLO mainly focused on
employee training to optimise between the traditional grammar and businesses and the newly
acquired companies which were in accordance with the focus area of Attain.
Here, in the case, we see that there Sunderland is infuriated about Morgan’s action
and is of the view that being an experienced and talented employee it was extremely
unprofessional on his part to carry out such an action. Sunderland is completely unaware of
the situation under which Morgan might have taken such a step and therefore this becomes
the primary problem in this case. Now Sunderland has to devise a way of handling the
situation with both the client and Morgan.
Objective:
To maintain a healthy relationship among the employees within the organization as well as
with the clients.
Problem Statement:
To understand the reason for which Kay had to send the voice mails to the client Nunez
Criteria for decision making (In descending order of priority)

The alternative selected should:

1. Resolving interpersonal conflicts between the employees.

 2. Improve team dynamics to ensure efficient work.
3. Repair and improve the company’s image in front of the client Nunez.
4. Be implementable on an urgent basis.
Alternatives
The alternative available to Ms Kay Sunderland are:
1. To call Morgan & Confront him aggressively about his mistake.
2. To confront him in person.
3. To report her senior manager John Chama to escalate the matter.
4. To talk to Morgan on a personal level, taking into account the interpersonal skills, should
resolve the pertaining issues and understand his point of view.
Evaluation of Alternatives
1. Alternative 1: Kay should call Morgan on an immediate basis and confront him about
what he had done by calling and sending audios messages to Juan Nunez and make his
apologies about what he did as this would make him realize his mistake and make him
feel guilty and help to learn that he will not do this in future again.
2. Alternative 2: Kay should meet Morgan in person and discuss the incident that has
happened because of his negligence and make him guilty about what he had done and
should be told him that if this type of incident happens again then he would have no
option other than to take this matter to the higher authority and will tell the higher
management that they should take strict action against him.
3. Alternative 3: Kay should take this case to the higher management about the negligence
that is being shown by Morgan by breaking the communication chain and calling Mr Juan
Nunez directly because this thing not only degrades the Attain learnings relation with the
Client but also be the cause of breaking of deal with this client. As the relationship
between the Attain and the Gramen is very old and it is very risky for their firm if any of
their members will talk directly like this with the client then they would have no option
other than taking a harsh decision against him.
4. Alternative 4: Kay should talk to Morgan very patiently over the matter by firstly
listening to his viewpoint as to why he messaged Mr Juan and make him realize more
easily by explaining to him the consequences of that because they are one of their big
clients and they can’t afford to take such a big risk by messing up with them and assure
him that whatever he feels about him, they will try to solve these glitches iambically so
that their relations can be strengthened up. Since this alternative satisfies all of the criteria
set, it is chosen to be implemented.
Action Plan
Kay Sunderland should first schedule a face-to-face personal meeting with Mike Morgan and
talk to him personally regarding the issue and try to understand his viewpoint on why Morgan
contacted the client directly and what was the subject of his voice mail. After knowing the
matter, Kay Sunderland should take into account her interpersonal skills and try to make him
realize that this behaviour is against the policy of their organization and also explaining him
the consequences of his actions that how his actions can negatively impact their relationship
with their most important client, and that could be risky for the organization also. Through
proper interpersonal skills, people can resolve many issues as this makes our communication
more effective and understandable. So, Kay Sunderland should also try to resolve all their
glitches through proper one-to-one communication by using her interpersonal skills as this
would ensure the strengthening of their relationship and also resolving the issue between
Mike Morgan and Juan Nunez. Thus, this alternative would resolve all the pertaining issues.
Just a simple talk and proper understanding would help Kay to develop good interpersonal
relations with Morgan and would ensure smooth relation with Nunez also.
Contingency Plan
If the proposed plan fails, that is Mike is not ready to listen to Kay in sorting out the conflict
between them, then she will have to escalate the matter up the ladder to Dr John Chama
(manages the day-to-day operations) as Mike has broken the communication channel by
directly calling to Client Juan Nunez and not adhering with the policy of the company. His
action might cause the company to lose a potential customer in future thus this need to be
prevented by bringing the matter into the light of Managers and further action taken by them.

Group Members: Rohit Mukherjee P42097 Shivam Kumar Chaurasia P42107

Gaurav Mittal P42070 Shreya Singh P42109
Sangeeta Kumari P42100 Iram Ansari P42076