- Page 25 Case Study Difficult Connections By Steven L Mcshane University Of Newcastle Australia Sophia Reddy Is An A 1 (57.79 KiB) Viewed 209 times
described by McShane, discuss how this experience is impacting
Sophia’s motivation.
2. Discuss the positive and negative job characteristics of
Sophia’s secondment.
3. What decision making problems occurred in Sophia’s process
when deciding whether to accept the secondment?
4. Using the Team Effectiveness model, detail how the team’s
effectiveness will be impacted by Sophia’s experience with the team
in Winnipeg so far.
5. Using the Communication Process Model (Exhibit 9.1), explain
some of the issues that could arise between Sophia and the team in
Winnipeg. If you were the team’s manager, how would you manage the
issues you have identified?
Page 25 Case Study: DIFFICULT CONNECTIONS by Steven L. McShane, University of Newcastle (Australia) Sophia Reddy is an accountant in her late 20s who works in the downtown Toronto office of Alicamber Ltd., a well- known accounting firm with two dozen offices across Canada. A few days ago, a senior manager in the Toronto office asked her to participate next month in a special project located in Alicamber's main Winnipeg office. The project includes accounting valuation analysis of an insurance firm, and Sophia's specialized knowledge of auditing insurance firms is apparently important for the project team's skill set. She will spend two weeks in Winnipeg working on-site with that team. For two weeks before her visit, as the project gets under way, she will work remotely from Toronto with Thomas Kerbakker, the project leader, and his team members in Winnipeg. Sophia initially looked forward to her involvement in the Winnipeg project. The brief secondment applies her specialized knowledge, she will meet and learn from colleagues in another city, and working in Winnipeg will be an interesting change from Toronto. Two days after being advised of the assignment by the senior manager in the Toronto office, Sophia had not received any text message from Thomas, so she took the initiative to message him first. Hi Thomas. Sophia Reddy here. I am excited to join your project. Gr8 to meet the Winnipeg team and learn from each other. Pls text team member list and schedule. Any b/g info you can send this wk would be helpful 9 Best, Sophia Reddy. Sophia expected Thomas to reply the same day, preferably within an hour or two after her message was sent. Co- workers in her Toronto office typically texted back within that time frame. But no reply was received by the end of that day. When Sophia checked the next morning, Thomas still hadn't replied. So, she sent the text message a second time. Thomas still had not texted back to her by the end of that day.
Thomas's silence was beginning to irritate and worry Sophia. Either her specialized knowledge for the project wasn't valued, or the project had been delayed, which would throw off her schedule working on other projects with Toronto clients. On the third morning, with no communication from Thomas, Sophia checked in with the manager who had assigned her to the Winnipeg project. To her surprise, the manager explained that although Thomas has a company- provided smartphone (whose number Sophia had used for the messages she sent), he is one of those near- retirement managers who apparently doesn't do text messages. Staff in the Winnipeg office are aware of this, so they typically speak to him in person or over the phone. The manager acknowledged that sorting out schedules is important, but also mentioned that the project wouldn't begin for another month. Armed with this information, Sophia returned to her office to finally make contact with Thomas. She picked up her phone, looked at it for a moment, then slowly set it down again. Sophia visualized an awkward conversation. She had never met Thomas, he is obviously much older than her, and his reluctance or inability to send text messages was a sure sign that the two have considerably divergent ways of thinking. In fact, Sophia wondered whether the entire Winnipeg office does things differently than her colleagues in Toronto. Sophia calls clients when required, but even these conversations are getting rarer in favour of text messages, emails, and on-site visits. As with many people her age, Sophia uses her phone to do almost everything, except make phone calls! As a compromise, Sophia decided to send Thomas an email. It was a variation of her earlier text message, but with much more formality as well as a subject line, greeting, salutation, and company signature lines. Sophia even changed "Thomas” to “Mr. Kerbakker" in the greeting. She surmised that Thomas would prefer this status-laden introduction, given his age and phobia with text messages. Sophia felt odd writing so formal an email to a co-worker or manager, but Thomas Kerbakker seemed to be the type who would expect this approach. a
A few hours later, Sophia received an email reply from Thomas. It consisted of terse comments to each sentence that she had written in her earlier email: | Hello Mr. Kerbakker | I am excited to join the [insurance company) project team | in Winnipeg good | It will be an excellent opportunity to meet the Winnipeg group and learn from each other. yes it will | Please send me details of the team members and your | proposed project scheduling. Any background information | you can send this week would be helpful. noted Thomas Page 253 Sophia felt bewildered and dejected as she stared at Thomas's reply. Was he angry with her for some unknown reason? He seemed too busy to welcome her and certainly didn't seem to care whether she was involved in the project. "He didn't even take the trouble to capitalize his words!" Sophia quipped under her breath. Also, Thomas's reply didn't give her confidence that the information she needed would be forthcoming very soon. Sophia increasingly regretted being assigned to this project. “This Winnipeg assignment isn't going to be as enjoyable as I thought," Sophia mumbled to herself.