Harshal Naik

100953980

How was Wendy Peterson taken charge of the Plano branch office?

Took charge under pressure to fuel growth

Junior manager of account service clients
No experience with sales organization
Excellent at bringing business through client
Inherited team of 11 sales persons and 3 sales assistants
Decent mix of experience and enthusiasm in sales team
Stable revenue through established clients
Inherited underperforming division

What is your evaluation of Wu's performance?

Wus performance is ambiguous since although he landed one large client and
generated revenues of 400,000 he generated further revenues though add-ons

that the client perhaps didnt need

Wus work ethic was questionable, there are numerous instances to support
this: He was always at a meeting with a client, he was rarely at his desk, never
updated the sales pipeline tool which he knew very well and never took sales

calls publicly
He also printed his business card in mandarin
While one may argue Peterson was a little too involved in her employees

work, Wu derelict his administrative duties entirely

In his first moths he exposed himself as a dedicated student. He arrived early
and stayed late nearly every day. He showed curiosity and attention to detail.

He, also, enjoyed being expert for a change.

After his first month he started his real sales efforts. Then he spent only early
mornings in the office. He was not updating Peterson for his daily progress

with clients;
his attendance at the weekly pipeline meeting was inconsistent, as well.

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Wu enjoyed passing knowledge along to his colleagues and Peterson was

pleased wit his office conduct.

Wu was disconnected with the rest of us on a personal level.

If you were Peterson, how would you respond to Wu's request for an assistant?
What factors would you consider? what specific actions would you take to improve
Wu's performance, as well as your working relationship with him?
I would be impressed with his signing his first client; with a contract of over $
400,000.00 he almost doubled his annual goal of $250,000.00. A dark spot on his
performance was the sale of additional services to the existing client without
managers approval. Overall he achieved his goals but I am very unpleased by the
way he did it. Allowing Wu to have personal assistant would be a precedent for
AccountBack with negative consequences for the company in long run and it is
unacceptable. Every true manager should show empathy and melt the crosscultural differences with his employees. I believe his request for assistant is also a
counter reaction of my negative feedback for his office and administrative work. I
believe that repairing my relationship with Wu and make him feel appreciated in
the company would improve his performance. Doing some research in Chinese
culture revealed that Asians are high context culture and Americans are low
context culture. In order to improve his performance I have to acknowledge his
Chinese culture and try to incorporate him in our American organization. I would
try to sponsor some Chinese activities in Plano to have their community to
recognize our company as a friend. This should help me connect better with Wu
as well. It is very complicated situation and explaining the reason for refusing the

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request for an assistant is only the beginning of the solution process. I have to face
the cross-cultural differences and find the explanation of Wus behavior. Also, I
have to revise the psychological contract with him and assure myself that as a
company we guarantee our input in it. I also have to revise my leadership style to
his personal norms based on the cultural differences and his readiness to accept
more duties. In our conversation tomorrow I will clearly set my expectations from
his work so he have the performance standards by which he will be evaluated.
Acknowledging the cultural differences I will insist for him to do his office work
as every other salesman. (I am thinking of giving my salesman more freedom to
sign and manage accounts and spend less time in paperwork and useless reports. I
do nor want my employees to feel that they have been micro-managed.) As far as
staying close with the customers after signing the contract I could allow if this
pleases the customer. Pretty much will show him the way to solve the conflict is
moving from competitiveness to cooperation trough compromises from both
sides.

5. What are the particular challenges and dilemmas in managing subordinates who
have different cultural backgrounds and working styles from your own?

Managing subordinates with different cultural backgrounds and working styles from your
own is very hard because it makes your decision as manager subjective. Managers tend to
evaluate the attitude of the subordinate not his performance and any differences are seen
as problems. This creates tension at workplace, atmosphere of low cooperation. Dealing
with situation like this should be done with reflecting mind set and self regulation. The

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manager should step back, explore the issue, weight positives versus negatives, accept the
person the way he is and try to be objective in his evaluation. Dealing with different
subordinate involves paying specific attention to the concept of psychological work
contract. According to this concept the employee will maintain the high production, low
grievances if the manager guarantees and respects the norms of the employee informal
culture (let the employees alone, make certain they make adequate wages, and have
secure jobs). The issue is that subordinates norms of informal culture are altered and
usually managers keep requiring the same input without keeping his part of the contract.
Understanding the different cultural background and accepting the different working style
should help you in taking rational decision. A manager should not be thinking about a
problem employee but an employee with problems. When problems are caused by a
broken psychological contract the self regulation of the manager would help to deal with
the situation and maintain balance between the companys and employees input in the
work contract.

If you were Peterson's regional director (her immediate supervisor), how would you
evaluate her performance?
Although Peterson is a very good manager with excellent capabilities and high
aspirations and targets there are certain glaring issues:
Peterson cannot click on personal level with him since the very beginning of the
companys relationship which is causing troubles in the companys communications.
Another reason for the companys communication problem could be the different cultural
background they have and the companys opposite personalities. Peterson believes

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employees should be able to connect to their leader to become good followers. She is an
extrovert and should be able to get closer to him over time but there are some other issues
that she needs to address immediately. She has a problem with Wus performance
inconsistencies his vision of how things should be done, obviously conflicting with my
leadership style. He definitely is able to do as she says but not willing - he does not
keep daily contact, works outside the office more than normal and his various meetings
usually conflict with AccountBack activities and meetings. She does not know if this is
based on cross cultural differences or situational leadership.
She definitely should consider a mismatch of leadership style and development level of
her subordinate. she reconsider her participating approach towards her employees. It
definitely worked for the companys branch and the financial results are proving it but
most of the salesmen were new to the company. In case of salesmen with more
experience and high readiness to do the work and accomplish results she must lower
relationship behavior and delegate more duties. Low level of cooperation that the
company has causes a competition between us and solving the conflict could come only
after compromising with each other, accommodating the companys expectations and
collaborating to achieve the companys goal.