Office Romance – Groping for Answers
The case deals with how Bill, sales manager makes a decision by identifying and choosing a solution that leads to increase in productivity of the overall team unaffected by negativity and tension arising between sales team leaders, Randall and Abbe because of their personal issues regarding their relationships. Bill chose to hear Randall out as a part of his information gathering process and give him a chance to argue about his side of story. When Randall hands Bill couple e-mail exchanges between Abbe and him, Bill stated the company’s policy on e-mail usage and said that company e-mails should be used only for work-related mails and not for personal use. Bill thought both of them have misused company property and cautioned Randall that this could lead to their reassignment and/or termination of job at this juncture. Bill wanted to avoid harassment suit for the company as he thought by separating Randall and Abbe the rest of the team could work more productively and this could be done with minimal damage to morale.
Although Bill would meet with Abbe to hear her side of the story, he should call HR first and solicit their advice which could be detrimental in the long run. Bill should actively listen to the issue and respond appropriately by evaluating the issue. Bills’ decision should be satisficing and judgment oriented. Bill should keep the information he received from both Abbe and Randall confidential and report to HR only. His intuition for making this decision is to focus on productivity issues and stayed out of the issues regarding their relationship. Bill believed it is appropriate to mention reassignment and termination at this juncture because they are natural outcomes of this type of situation.
Bill was pissed off by Randall because he used company email ID discussing private affairs. He considers this is a sign of irresponsibility and distraction. By the same time, Bill’s choice to let Randall finish his...