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Case Study: Jamie Turner Manas Mankuzhi Sudha Fairleigh Dickenson University Aries Sutantoputra

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Case Study: Jamie Turner This case study covers the hurdles faced by Jamie Turner, an upcoming VP of marketing and sales at MLI. He started his career at Globalbank after which he did his MBA from one of the top universities in the USA. After graduation he joined Wolf River Paper where he had a successful career for five years but was unhappy with the monotony of the job and the rigid hierarchy. He then joined Lambowland.com a start up internet based company as the VP of planning and marketing. He had a successful stint over there as it gave him the autonomy he desired, but after eighteen months the company faced serious cash flow issues which forced him to search for a new job. This led him to MLI, a family run business which had been recently taken over by a billion dollar conglomerate, Specialty Support Services. The President of MLI, Pat Cardullo was looking for a person who could take over the operations at MLI as soon as possible. He appeared welcoming of Turners ideas in the beginning but soon their working relationship started to deteriorate and couldnt meet eye to eye on most decisions. Though both Cardullo and Turner were competent managers, they had completely different styles of working and their assumptions and expectations were not consistent with each other. Cardullo believed that each department worked independently of each other and with minimal interactions. While Turner was of the opinion, all departments should support each other and function with more interdependence. The key problems that were faced by Turner at MLI were communication hindrances and underdeveloped relationships with peers and superiors in the early stages of taking over key responsibilities.

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As Turner was given too much responsibility too soon, it worked against him a lot. Cardullo didnt give Turner enough time to bond with his co workers which made it hard for him to get employee feedback on his decisions before implementing them. Turner was also a bit nave in assuming that Cardullos expectations and goals were transparent. Another issue was that he decided to work with his subordinates through Tim Kelly which might have made them feel he was not accessible to them. Cardullos method of working through Garcia and Chin was also not helping as he was not completely aware of the situation in MLI and Chin made sure he only got the information he wanted to hear and nothing more. On the whole, deteriorating work relations; miscommunication between departments; unaligned expectations and assumptions all affected the sales performance of the company. Conflicts among superiors and subordinates are quite common in any work place. So is among managers of different departments. Resolution of these conflicts or coming up with a constructive result from these conflicts is most difficult. But if an organization succeeds in doing so then they are able to grow in leaps and bounds. In this scenario, conflict of ideas between Turner and Cardullo had to be resolved. Also conflicts between department heads, that is, Julie Chin and Jamie Turner had to be resolved. Communication of business ideas and operation strategies were also affected because of misplaced assumptions of expectations. One way of resolving this issue is to have a staff meeting between the department heads with the President of the company. In such a meeting everyone is to openly state their issues and also expectations they have of the other departments. This could help resolve the conflicts between departments as well as that between the President and the VP of sales to an extent. Unfortunately this doesnt seem to be a viable option as the Controller seemed to have vested interests and wouldnt be forthcoming in such a meeting.

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Another way by which this can be resolved is for Turner to oblige by Cardullos operation decisions and hence avoid the power struggle that is building between them. Or another alternative would be for Turner and Cardullo to have a formal discussion and come to a compromise where both of them align their expectations for the common good of the company. Jamie Turner has just changed two jobs in the last two years and he is in a situation where a head on confrontation with the President might not be what he wants right now. Also he is new to the company and is only starting to build his career over there. Another factor to consider is that the Controller and the President share an excellent rapport. Taking these factors into consideration the best way to handle this situation would be for Turner to oblige by Cardullos rules and avoid further confrontations. Cardullo is a person who relishes his power, so it might be best for Turner to show his genuine concern over failing sales to Cardullo. Ask Cardullo for a mentor like advice and score points with him. Start over with Julie Chin by maintaining cordial relationship with her. Run pricing and inventory management as per Cardullos direction. Once Cardullo realizes Turner is the person to trust, he could slowly but surely run operations as per his discretion and ensure that the company rises from losses to gains.

References . John, J.G. & Coleen, K. (2011). Jamie Turner at MLI, Inc. Harvard Business Publishing, 4254, 1-11.