1.0 Introduction
This paper examines the power and politics inside an organization and how they function and impact on individuals. The analysis is on the basis of the performance of Tomas Green, the senior market specialist of Dynamic Displays, a capable and intelligent young man, who could have a promising future but was trapped with bad relationship with his boss, Davis. It critically discusses the concept of power and politics and their impacts with references to relevant academic papers and researches and makes recommendations for developing a productive relationship with bosses.
2.0 Body Paragraphs
2.1 What are the different work styles, personalities, and expectations of Frank Davis and Thomas Green?
Frank Davis prefers to work discreetly and work step by step. He asks followers to follow him and respect him. Thomas Green is a creative and ambitious young man with precious talents, he prefers to arrange his work independently according to his judgement and understanding on the market and customers.
Based on this case, Frank Davis is a serious and proud man that does not like the others to doubt his intention publicly. Thomas Green is an extroversion, self-control, yet self-conceit person who does not like constraints. Sometimes, he regards the necessary report to the superior as encumbrance.
The expectation of Frank Davis is that the others could abide by his requirements, in regardless of the effectiveness of his command or arrangement. Thomas Green expects a leader that would consider his suggestion and provide adequate room for him to develop his own plans. He believes that data and the market situation are in his head and expects leaders to not ask him to incorporate the information into graphs or charts.
2.2 Provide an analysis of Green’s actions and job performance to date. What could he have done to change how he is evaluated?
As a young and ambitious employee, Green continues his excellent performance in terms of his work performance solely. His partners are willing to work with him as he is a charismatic and quick-thinking man with a special talent to generate strategies. He has tremendous passion on his work, but he is self-conceit in dealing with his relationship with his superior and clients.
In his relationship with his superior, Frank Davis, he does not show his respect but does what he believes appropriate and desirable. He failed to inform Davis his routine, refused to answer Davis Phone, and ignored Davis repeatedly ask for information or charts because of he believed these were unnecessary. In this case, he did not understand the legitimate power of Davis over him, neither did he realized the significance of office politics(Robbins, 2019). In order to change Davis evaluation on him, he might show more respect to him.
In his relationship with clients, although his is a good seller and have a gifted talent on communicating with customers, he failed to take into consideration what clients really need. This resulted in the awkward situation as he cannot provide hard data to his clients when clients ask for relevant information. Communication is a vital skill for senior market specialist like Tomas, instead of ignoring other forms of data expect for his oral presentation as useless, he might consider making use of hard data to assist his analysis.
2.3 What are some possible underlying agendas for Davis and McDonald?
Davis sent McDonald an e-mail about his evaluation on Green and told her that he was truly disappointed with Green’s performance, although he recognized that Green was a capable and talented young man. This might imply that Davis has been extremely unsatisfied with Green’s work. However, he did not dismiss or demote Green directly but sent an e-mail to McDonald, this indicates that he might hope that McDonald could offer some suggestion to Green and give the capable young man another chance.
McDonald discussed with Davis face to face on Green’s issue, and then she sent an e-mail to Davis asking for his opinion. This indicates that McDonald might help Green to some extent, providing him some recommendations on how to deal with his relationship with Davis, informing him with knowledge of organizational politics. However, McDonald would not persuade Davis to accept and understand Green’s working style, as Davis has legitimate and coercive power over her. Recognizing the significance of office politicson individual’s future development, McDonald is likely to help Davis with suggestions rather than offend Davis.
2.4 What should Thomas Green do to help his situation?
The conflicts between Davis and Green are mainly relationship conflicts, and these conflicts have severely impacted Green’s work performance and psychological status (Jehn, 1997). To help his situation, Thomas should show respect to Davis with his actions and apologize for his poor attitudes and performance.
On the one hand, he should fully realize the legitimate power and coercive power that Davis has over him. Therefore, he should respect Davis and manage to meet with his requirement, answering his phone call, sending the information he needs to him timely, communicating with Davis about his schedule and plans, and respect his opinion in public. On the other hand, he should recognize the importance of office politicson one’s development. As Cramton (2012) suggested, Americans ranked organizational politics the most significant element in determining whether employees can get ahead in their organizations. Hence, he should not be self-conceit and ignore others’ suggestions and opinions, especially suggestions and opinions from Davis. Furthermore, Thomas should recognize the effectiveness of David’s working style. For instance, providing hard data and chart to clients would be a strong and intuitionistic assistant when dealing business with clients.
3.0 Conclusion
Power and office politicsare significant elements that might impact on employees’ performance and their future development. Green was trapped into relationship conflicts with his Boss Davis, as he ignored the power Davis had over him and was senseless to the organizational politics. This resulted in his diffcult situation in the company. In order to cultivate a good relationship with his boos, he is recommended to respect Davis with actions and manage to meet his requirements and needs as possible.