Behavior in Organizations
Case Study Proposal
Paras Bhola – WMP15036
How Success May Lead to Subsequent Failures
Background
It was the month of July, which meant monsoons in the city. It was raining intermittently since
last night and as a result, the roads were all flooded with water. One could see all sorts of litter
floating upon the makeshift river that had been created because of the rain. Insects of all kinds,
big and small, resurfaced and floated upon the sewage water as if they were on a vacation.
Peter left his home for office a bit early that day as he anticipated a bit of a traffic. After
struggling in the traffic for almost 2 hours, he reached his office at last. After seeing a wave of
people waiting for the lift to arrive, he instead took the stairs to his office which was located on
the eighth floor of a twenty seven floor building.
Peter had just completed ten years in this firm, a bulge bracket investment bank that catered to
the investing banking needs of clients ranging from family-run business to Fortune-500
companies. He had joined this company as an analyst after graduating from a premier
management institute of the country and had slowly risen the ranks to head a small team of
eight people who were all providing Mergers & Acquisitions advisory services to its clients.
Greeting warmly everyone he met on the way to his desk, Peter was a quintessential employee
whose life revolved around his family and his work with not too many other distractions to
account for. Peter had high appetite for hard work and low tolerance for laid-back attitude.
While he was not known as someone who micromanaged his team and his tasks, he did prefer
to rule with an iron hand. He made sure everyone on his team, including himself, was
accountable to the job-at-hand and to the clients of the firm. He preferred to give it his all to
the job when he was at it, but was also a family man and made sure he spent enough time with
his growing kids and his wife.
A Day at the Office
Investment banking is considered a brutal industry, with work hours sometimes extending
twenty hours a day or eighty hours a week. Slogging for twelve hours at the desk, building out
financial models and making time to meet the clients personally or addressing their queries on
the call or the mail is a routine affair. Employees could be working individually on a project for a
client, where theirs’ would be the sole responsibility to meet all the deadlines and deliver
quality deliverables independently. And then there would be times when they would be
required to help out a colleague on their project if they didn’t have much work on their own
projects or didn’t have any client calls or meetings. While these days were not witnessed very
often, they did indeed occur once or twice every quarter for almost each of the eight team
members on Peter’s team.
However, irrespective of the workflow, an employee is expected to contribute efficiently
towards the goals of the organization. In lean periods, an employee is expected to assist or
collaborate with another colleague to manage the spill overs, if any.
Lashed with rain and with Work
It was still raining heavily outside while inside the office, Karen, a diligent member of Peter’s
team was working away at a model for a retail client. Karen had been with the firm for the last-
two years now. She had joined as a consultant and was promoted to a senior consultant level
just a month back. At the same time as Karen, Nathan had also joined the firm as a consultant
and was also promoted to a senior consultant along with Karen. Both Karen and Nathan had
worked really hard to get this promotion but there was a stark difference in their attitudes post
the promotion.
Karen, a single mother of two kids, made extra efforts after the promotion to justify her being
promoted. She was usually the first in the morning and the last one to leave. Even if the time
allowed, she never left early but instead mentored young analysts in the team or helped out a
team member in one of their projects. Nathan’s attitude, on the other hand, was the polar
opposite of Karen’s. After the promotion, he had started coming late to the office with all sorts
of excuses and left earlier than most on most days. Whenever he had spare time on his hands,
he preferred to chit-chat with other employees or flirt with one of the female analysts. .
While Karen was working away at the model for her client, Nathan was not having any work as
his client had gone away on a 4th of July vacation. However, all of the other members in the
team were busy with their respective projects.
Nathan was busy playing an excel-based game on his laptop when Karen approached her. She
was swamped with work and wanted Nathan to help her out on her project.
“Nathan, would you have a couple of hours to help me out on the revenue drivers for the retail
industry. It’s for X-Mart, Inc. that I am currently working on.” asked Karen in her usual
respectful tone. “It is 4PM right now, and I think we can get this done by 6PM if you help me
out. Otherwise I might have to stay-in a little longer and will have to ask my elder kid to pick-up
my 3-year old from the crèche.” said Karen. “Sure, happy to help.” replied Nathan in a
nonchalantly.
Nathan started working on the industry drivers for the revenue model at 4PM. He took a few
coffee breaks as usual, chatted a couple of analysts, and got the work done by 5:30PM. Karen
was surprised and a little skeptical as to how quickly Nathan had done the job, but was also
relieved as she would get to pick her kid up on time from the crèche. The rain would have made
difficult for her elder kid to get the younger one back home.
Karen consolidated the revenue drivers in her model, did a couple of sanity checks, and after
she felt satisfied with the work done, attached the model in an email and sent it across to the
client for review by their corporate finance department. She then rushed back home to pick her
kid.
Hearing back from the Client
A couple of days went by and both Karen and Nathan were busy doing their respective projects.
Karen had a call with X-Mart, Inc. that afternoon on which she would be discussing the revenue
model with the CFO of the firm. Karen had her lunch and prepared for the call that followed.
“This is not what we expected.” said the CFO of X-Mart, Inc. in a stern voice as soon as he got
on the call. “We pay large amount of money to investment banks like yours because we know
you guys would do the correct analysis and get us the best deal out there, but what you have
delivered in the revenue model is just unacceptable. The assumptions that you have taken to
come to the revenue forecast are just downright absurd. I am afraid we would have to flag this
to Peter so that he’s aware what is going on with the project.” the CFO said dejectedly.
The Escalation
As soon as he would have gotten off the call, the CFO must have called in Peter to discuss the
goof-up because Karen was summoned in Peter’s office within minutes. Karen entered the
room quite apprehensively because she knew what was in store for her.
“I just got a call from the CFO of X-Mart, Inc. and he’s not happy with what you have delivered.
Unhappy is just understatement, he threatened to take away the job from us and give it to the
investment bank down the street.” said Peter dejectedly. Peter wanted answers from Karen.
Karen told her how she was swamped with work and that she had asked Nathan to work on the
revenue drivers the other day. Karen knew that she was dealt a bad hand by Nathan, but she
also knew that the onus of responsibility lied with her. After all, she had reviewed Nathan’s
work and found it to her satisfaction to be sent to the client. In order to come clean, Karen told
Peter that she was in a rush to pick-up her kid that day and that she made an error in checking
the numbers provided by Nathan.
Fixing Responsibility and Making Things Right Again
Peter called in Nathan to his office and asked him about the goof-up. “We’ve got a stinker from
the client and things do not look good for us.” Peter told Nathan. “I’ve been getting reports
about your behavior lately and we need to set things straight here.” said Peter, almost fuming.
“The fact that you shirked away from your responsibilities just because this was not your
project and that you were not directly accountable speaks of your recent attitude problems.
Seems like you’ve started taking things for granted after your promotion and you don’t have
any motivation to do your tasks effectively and efficiently.” Saying this, Peter called in the HR
director of the department and asked her to put Nathan on performance development
program. Nathan would be observed for three months after which his employment would be
terminated if he doesn’t perform as per the expectations. Karen, on the other hand, was given
a strict warning as to not repeat this sort of a mistake, falling which he would be put on a
performance development program too.
Conclusion
Peter showed the right leadership skills to stem the flow of negative attitude problems right at
the start. Nathan improved his behavior while on the performance development program and
started to put in more efforts and stopped taking things for granted. Karen learned the valuable
lesson of double checking the work before sending it across to the client. They were able to
retain X-Mart, Inc.
