Lisa Benton free essay sample

Introduction According to this case, we know that Lisa Benton is frustrated about her job in Houseworld. She cannot get the marketing training which most attracted her to this company at the beginning, and she also cannot build a good relationship with her boss, Deborah Linton, and the senior associate in her department, Ron Scoville. Lisa thinks this is one of most important things in her job. In this case study, I will discuss Lisas relationship in the Home Care Division, how did she use her power within the organization, and how can she do in order to develop her power in Houseworld. The relationship between Lisa and her organization Ill try to answer these questions in each relationship: what type of power did Lisa have? How did her power get blocked? Lisa-Linton Because of Bob Mitchell, the vice president of marketing, the recruiting practice has emphasized recruiting MBAs from top-notch schools for entry-level marketing positions. This decision makes it difficult for Linton, also Scoville, to be promoted. This fosters their negative attitudes toward MBAs, especially Harvard MBAs. Unfortunately. Lisa got her Harvard MBA which didnt make a good first impression on Linton. Because of Lisas background, Linton didnt give Lisa a good welcome which made her upset and disappointed. According to her experience, she expected that she could get along with everyone well, including her boss. Besides Linton, Richard Clark, Home Care group Product Manager, seemed to have totally forgotten her. Lisa expects an enthusiastic welcome, but she received an opposite responses which will not fulfill her emotional needs and also will reduce her motivation in her department. Because Linton doesnt like Lisa, it seems that she ignored Lisas ability on purpose and did not assign Lisa a challenging task. Linton uses traditional first line supervisory methods that block Lisa. Using Lintons legitimate as well as her coercive power base is not appropriate for Lisa. These two kinds of power bases are both suitable for low to middle task maturity. In these task maturities, the situational leaderships are telling and selling which mean that employees need to have appropriate task dir ections and opportunities to have two-way communications with their managers. Linton failed Lisa by assuming that her task maturity was low. Since Lisa did a reat job when she was in her full-time internship, she may have enough job skills to develop her expert power. But she failed to do this due to her intimidating conversations with Scoville and Linton. Lisa chose to keep silent when she had opportunities to speak. Also, Lintons behavior blocked Lisas development of her expert power. When Lisa first came into her office, Linton was discussing business with Scoville and she asked Lisa to leave. On another occasion, Linton quickly covered up what she was writing and dismissed Lisa by saying that she was too busy to help Lisa at that time. Besides blocking Lisa from a challenging job, Linton also refused to communicate with Lisa and failed to deal with the problems between Lisa and Scoville. There are several times when Lisa had questions, but Linton refused to answer her right away. Also, the customary performance review that Lisa asked for, Linton should have scheduled automatically, but she didnt. When Lisa complained about Scoville to her, she always said that Scoville is nice, and she doesnt have problems with him. Although Linton promised to assign them discrete projects more than once, she still did nothing about dealing with their problems. According to expectancy theory, if Linton wants Lisa and Scoville to get along well, she should really do something to help them. If she cannot do something helpful, she cannot expect that they will try to get along with each other. Linton used her legitimate power to restrict Lisa from developing her expert power. Lisa-Scoville Scoville has the same attitudes toward MBAs as Linton does, since he did not have his MBA, which is one of the reasons that he had difficulties being promoted. The relationship between he and Linton is somewhat intimate, and they were rumored to be having an affair. Their closed relationship isolated Lisa from them. Because Scoville has some legitimate power over Lisa, he talked to Lisa in a condescending way but he never supported Lisa in her job. On the other hand, Scoville used his position to ask Lisa do some gopher tasks and didnt care about whether Lisa was busy at her own job or not. Besides his negative attitude toward Lisas background, Scovilles personality made him less acceptable to most of his colleagues. When he needed help, his coworkers always refused to give him a hand, but they were always willing to help Lisa. But Scoville failed to realize that Lisa has some reward power over him. Lisa could always ask others to help but he could not. If Scoville used his expert power rather than his legitimate power over Lisa, both of them would have obtained more benefits from their good interactions. Lisa-peer group The relationship between Lisa and her peers was the best part of her relationship to her organization. Lisa is good at getting along with people since she worked in Right-Away Stores, and she has that kind of personality that makes friends easily. It was a piece of cake for Lisa to have good relationships with her coworkers. Due to Lisas personality, she can develop her information power with her good peer relationships. But Lisa failed to transfer the information power that she gained from her peers to her relationship with Vernon. Ill discuss how Lisa failed to develop her information power in the relationship between Lisa-Vernon,. Lisa-Vernon In this case, Vernon seemed to be the best person to listen to Lisas problems between Linton and Scoville. He agreed that Lisa had enough job skills when Lisa did a good job on one important memo. Because he knew Lisas job ability, he didnt think Lisa should do a secretarys job since she was hired as an assistant product manager. He was, unlike Linton and Scoville, willing to encourage Lisa to develop her expert power in the organization. Because Vernon is linked to the top management, Lisa has strong information power over him since she had good relationship with other coworkers. Vernon opened a communication channel to Lisa instead of restricting her information power. However, Lisa did not take advantage of this chance. She only mentioned that she could not get along with Scoville well, but didnt talk about the problems with Linton which were the main reason for Lisas dissatisfaction with the company. What can Lisa do about it? In our class discussion, there were two ways that make people who have powers hold onto these powers. First, emphasize your importance in this organization. Second, decrease your dependence on this organization. How can Lisa emphasize her importance in the company? We can discuss this in three different aspects: Lisa-Linton, Lisa-Scoville, and Lisa-Vernon. Because Lisa thought she is in a learner process, she didnt express her opinions when they had meetings. This behavior made her boss, Linton, think that Lisa lacked confidence, and she didnt feel that Lisa really had strong job skills. Lisa should have expressed her intelligent opinions. By doing so, although Linton blocked her development of expert power, Lisa still could have developed her expert power over Linton gradually. On the other hand, Lisa should keep her good relationship with her peers and use this to her advantage. Scoville didnt get along with other people well in this organization, so he seldom got others help. Lisa could try to be a buffer between Scoville and other peers. If Lisa encouraged others to give him a hand, Scoville would realize that Lisa had a reward power which would give him some benefits. The last thing that Lisa should do to develop her power is communicate with Vernon. Since Vernon recoganizes her job abilities, he was willing to help her solve her problems, including the relationship between Linton and Scoville. She should tell Vernon the truth and the problem that she really experienced. As we know, Vernon is a top manager, so he cannot understand every detail in organization. But this detail may be the reason that decreases productivity. He needs to access this information. If Lisa can reflect on her problems, she can help Vernon deal with the morale problem, and she also can solve her own problems. After Lisa develops her different power bases in the organization, she can hold her power by decreasing her dependence on this organization. Since Lisa did a great job at Right-Away Stories, her boss, Scott Kingston, really wants her to stay there. Besides, Lisa doesnt have living problems which means she doesnt have to keep this job. To her, working in Houseworld is an optional decision. If Lisa develops her power in Houseworld successfully, she could use this strategic method to hold her power. Although Scott Kingston had been angry at Lisas rejection of his offer, Lisa is very sure that she could return to Right-Away Stores, since Scott Kingston still spoke highly of her contribution to the organization.