Suma Latha is Executive Director for INDIA INC Bank, a large bank with about 600+ branches, 3000+

atms and over 1 lakh employees. As a result of a recent reorganization, Suma must choose the new director of sales. The director will report directly to Suma and will be responsible for improving sales and creating/testing new products. This regional division of INDIA INC employs about 2000 people. The choice of directors is important because Suma is receiving pressure from the president and board of INDIA INC to improve the companys overall growth and productivity. Suma has identified three candidates for the position. Each candidate is at the same managerial level. She is having difficulty choosing one of them because each have very strong credentials. Elina Smith is a longtime employee of INDIA INC who started part-time in the promotional sales while in graduation school. After finishing school, Elina worked in as many as 10 different positions throughout the company to become manager of new product marketing. Performance reviews of Elinas work have repeatedly described her as being very creative and insightful. In her tenure at INDIA INC, Elina has developed and brought to market four new product lines. Elina is also known throughout INDIA INC as being very persistent about her work: When she starts a project, she stays with it until it is finished. It is probably this quality that accounts for the success of each of the four new products with which she has been involved. A second candidate for the new position is RV Ram, who has been with INDIA INC for 5 years and is manager of marketing for established products. Ram has a reputation of being very bright. Before joining INDIA INC, he received his MBA at Harvard, graduating at the top of her class. People talk about Ram as the kind of a person who will be president of his own company someday. Ram is also very personable. On all her performance reviews, she received extra-high scores on sociability and human relations. There isnt a supervisor in the company who doesnt have positive things to say about how comfortable it is to work with Ram. Since joining INDIA INC, Ram has been instrumental in bringing two new product lines to market. Thomas PK, the third candidate, has been with INDIA INC for 10 years and is often consulted by upper management regarding strategic planning and corporate direction setting. Thomas has been very invovlved in establishing the vision for INDIA INC and is a company person all the way. He believes in the values of INDIA INC, and actively promotes its mission. The two qualities that stand out above the rest in Thomass performance reviews are his honesty and integrity. Employees who have worked under his supervision consistency report that they feel they can trust Thomas to be fair and consistent. Thomas is highly respected at INDIA INC. In his tenure at the company, Thomas has been involved in some capacity with the development of three new product lines. The challenge confronting Suma is to choose the best person for the newly established directors position. Because of the pressure she feels from upper management, Suma knows she must select the best leader for the new position. Added to the above Arif Ahmad is the head of the operations department reporting to Suma 20 employees directly report to him. Before coming on board at the bank, he has worked as an

independent operations consultant. At the bank he took a position that was newly created because the bank believed change was needed in how customer services were provided. Upon beginning his job, Arif did a 4-month analysis of the direct and indirect costs of operational and customer services. His findings supported the perceptions of his administrators that operations were inefficient and costly. As a result, Arif completely reorganized the department, designed a new scheduling procedure, and redefined the expected standards of performance. Arif says that when he started out in his new job he was all task, like a drill sergeant who didnt seek any input from his subordinates. From Arifs point of view, the bank environment did not leave much room for errors, so he needed to be strict about getting employees to do a good job within the constraints of the bank environment. As time went along, Arif relaxed his style and was less demanding. He delegated some responsibilities to two crew leaders who reported to him, but he always stayed in close touch with each of the employees. On a weekly basis, Arif was known to take small groups of workers to the local sports bar for burgers on the house. He loved to banter with the employees and could take it as well as dish it out. Arif is proud of his department. He says he always wanted to be a coach, and thats how he feels about running his department. He enjoys working with people; in particular, He says he likes to see the glint in their eyes when they realize that theyve done a good job and they have done it on their own.

Because of Arifs leadership, the operations department has improved substantially and is now seen by workers in other departments as the most productive department in bank maintenance. Operation services received a customer rating of 92% which is the highest of any service in the bank.

Prashanth HN is the operations manager of the company reporting to Arif . The companys operation consists of three areas: Banking, life insurance and general insurance. For each of the areas, there is a single manager. Gopal GK 55 years old heads the banking crew. He is a seasoned banker and the oldest employee in the company. Gopal was hired because of his banking ability and experience. Before joining the company, Gopal worked for 20 years as a banker for a nationalized bank. His coworkers perceive his as a very competent, and interested in the company. Gopal has been spending most of his time in recent weeks on developing a long-range plan for the company. His goal is to develop a creative model for making decision about the future expenditures for materials, equipment, branch development and personnel. Gopal feels good about the way upper management has reacted to the first draft of the plans.

Karishma SN heads the life insurance sales force, which is the smallest unit in the company. Karishma is the most recent hire in the company and has 15 years of sales experience in a different product area. Beths peers see her as highly motivated but not too knowledgeable about the companys products. Beths goal is to increase the companys annual sales by 30%. However, the first quarter sales figures indicate the rate of growth to be only 2%. Although Karishma has been upbeat since the day she arrived, in recent weeks there have been problems in her department. Her sales staff talks about how little she knows about the plastics industry. In discussions about new products, Karishma often is confused. In addition, she has difficulty describing the companys capabilities to customers because she does not understand fully how private insurance company of this type functions. Steve Louis is the manager of general insurance and has been with the company since its inception. Steve started out with the company just after graduating, working on the line, and moved up in the company as a result of his hard work. His goal to streamline marketing and decrease costs by 10%. He knows business development backward and forward but is a bit apprehensive about his new role as General Insurance manager. In fact, Steve is afraid he might fail as manager. He does not know whether he is ready to have others depend on him when he has always been the one depending on others. The operations manager, Prashanth , has great faith in Steve and has had several meetings with him to clarify his role and reassure him that he can do the work. He is certain that Steve will be an outstanding General Insurance manager.

Prashanth meets weekly with each of his managers to talk about how their groups are fitting in with the overall company goals. In his upcoming weekly conference, he wants to discuss with them what new procedures they could implement within their departments to improve their longterm performance. Prashanth is wondering how he should approach each of his managers.

Krishna S is another regional manager reporting to Suma from a with more than 20 years of experience. He came up through the ranks and obtained his MBA degree 10 years ago. His approach to supervising is to layout in the most direct and simple terms what he sees as an issue or a problem. He always seeks to get the best answer he can and is willing to delay a decision if there appears to be a need for it. Raghu KP is a recent transfer into the group Krishna manages. He is an extremely competent person in his speciality , one that is crucial to the operation of the group. He came into the group with high evaluations from his previous manager, who is a somewhat authoritarian person. Raghu is used to being told what the problem is, what to do, when it is to be completed, and in some cases, how to work out a solution. He was comfortable with that kind of situation because it allowed him to apply his skills directly to many fascinating problems.

Since he joined the group, Raghus reactions to Krishna s way of managing have been unpredictable. His most common response is to argue with Krishna about how she has defined the problem or even whether it really represents a problem. Raghu does not seem to enjoy this kind of confrontation but appears to be unable to react differently except on a few occasions. In those situations, Raghu becomes very obedient and asks Krishna for more direction. That bothers Krishna , who feels he does not have the time to mentor Raghu.

Executive Director (Suma Latha)

Director Sales ( Proposed Role) Elina,Ram,Thomas (choices)

Regional Head (Krishna)

Regional Head( Arif Ahmad)

Raghu KP

Operational Head (Prashanth HN)

Operations Manager Banking (Gopal)

Operationa Manager Life insurance (Karshima)

Operations ManagerGeneral Insuarnce (Steve)