MGMT610 Recommendations for Hybara Casino Project Discussion 3 To prepare for this Discussion, review the case study “Is the Rookie Ready?” (Green, Schrage

MGMT610 Recommendations for Hybara Casino Project Discussion 3 To prepare for this Discussion, review the case study “Is the Rookie Ready?” (Green, Schrage, Walker, & Muller 2009) in this Week’s Learning Resources. In this scenario, a manager, Tim O’Connell, has some difficult choices to make. A valuable project has come in and Tim is not sure if a younger and inexperienced manager is ready for the project, nor is Tim confident in how to support his young manager and her team. Imagine that you are a colleague of Tim O’Connell and he has e-mailed you and shared his concerns with you about accepting the Hybara Casinos opportunity. He has reached out to you for advice on how to handle this situation. With these thoughts in mind: Prepare your recommendation for how Tim should proceed with Hybara Casino opportunity in the form of a business e-mail. In your e-mail, analyze the relations among commitment, job satisfaction, and performance of his team. Explain to Tim what he needs to do so that his team will be motivated to put forth their best effort, even during the difficult circumstances presented by the Hybara opportunity. www.hbr.org
HBR CASE STUDY AND COMMENTARY
Should Tim take a
chance on his
rookie?
Three commentators offer
expert advice.
Is the Rookie Ready?
by Sarah Green
•
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It’s crunch time, and your star has quit. Whom should you turn to?
HBR CASE STUDY
Is the Rookie Ready?
COPYRIGHT © 2009 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
by Sarah Green
Buy gift wrap—lots.
New Year’s Day reservations—
Café Paris? (Too much $$?)
Tim O’Connell paused, pen hovering above his
Driscoll Software notepad, to watch the snow
swirling outside his window. Then, decisively,
the ballpoint descended: More stamps.
The phone rang, and he reached for it,
his mind still on his to-do list. What am I forgetting? “This is Tim O’Connell,” he said. The
conversation that followed drove all holiday
thoughts from his mind.
Twenty minutes later he put the handset
back in its cradle.
The Client That Stole Christmas
Chewing a large bite of turkey sandwich, Kristen Hammersmith pressed her palms together
behind her back, relishing the series of cracks
and pops between her shoulders. It had been
a long year, and she’d spent too much of it
hunched over this desk. She believed that
Driscoll did important work—building reliable,
if expensive, software for businesses whose
systems couldn’t afford to fail—but it could be
stressful. Sometimes she had nightmares about
a bug in the Driscoll system that operated
airplane landing gear.
The past few months had seen more turmoil
than usual. Kristen’s boss, Alessandra Sandoval,
had decamped to set up her own business as a
technical consultant. The move had come as
a relief, because Alessandra and Tim, the unit
head, didn’t exactly mesh. Tim was a classic
software geek—methodical, khaki-clad, and,
unless you were cracking jokes about binary
code, fairly reserved. He had been visibly
uncomfortable with Alessandra’s almost hackeresque persona: her sarcastic sense of humor,
visible tattoos, and odd hours. Her Vespa was
more likely to be in the company lot at 9:00 PM
HBR’s cases, which are ?ctional, present common managerial dilemmas
and offer concrete solutions from experts.
harvard business review • decemeber 2009
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Is the Rookie Ready? •• •HBR C ASE S TUDY
Sarah Green (sgreen@harvardbusiness
.org) is an assistant editor for Harvard
Business Review Group.
than at 9:00 AM. She could ?nd bugs faster
than anyone else in the company, but a reorg
had left her reporting to Tim, and six months
later she had announced she was leaving.
Tim had responded by promoting his nextbest programmer—Kristen—to ?ll the position. And although Kristen was excited by
the opportunity to be a manager, things had
not gone as smoothly as she’d hoped. Alessandra’s chartreuse cowboy boots had turned out
to be very tough to ?ll.
Kristen was looking forward to a week
off between Christmas and New Year’s—
with her mother doing all the cooking—as
a much-needed chance to unwind. Most of
her team was taking time off, too. So not a
creature will be BlackBerrying, she thought
with quiet glee. She took another bite of
sandwich just as Tim poked his head around
her cubicle wall.
“Kristen, I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch,”
he said, “but I need a quick word with you.”
“Mmkay.” She grabbed her notebook, hastily
swallowed, and followed him back to his of?ce.
Tim closed the door. “Remember Hybara
Casinos?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “One of our biggest
customers, until they decided last year that our
software was too expensive.”
“Well, they’d like to come back. Effective
immediately.”
This should have been good news, but Tim
didn’t sound pleased. “What’s the catch?”
Kristen said.
Tim leaned back against his desk and folded
his arms across his chest. “Their new cheapo
setup has been crashing, and the lost revenue
is more than what they would have paid
Driscoll for a system that doesn’t fail. When
it goes down, the slot machines don’t work,
the staff can’t make or access any hotel
reservations—everything basically comes to a
standstill. Even the bartenders rely on the
system to keep track of the high rollers’
favorite cocktails. Hybara is understandably
upset, and wants the problem ?xed in time to
make a clean start in the new year.”
He paused, and Kristen ?nished the thought
for him: “Which is only two weeks away.”
“You’ve seen our numbers this year,” he
said baldly. “People have a hard time investing in expensive systems in this economic
climate. Driscoll needs this revenue.” Tim
usually displayed all the emotion of a mouse
harvard business review • decemeber 2009
pad; Kristen was startled by his intensity now.
“And I’m assuming they want the bells
and whistles they’re accustomed to?” she said.
“Meaning someone has to show up in person
at their Barcelona headquarters?”
She’d meant it as a question, but Tim merely
put on a grateful smile and moved to open his
of?ce door. “Thanks, Kristen. I knew you’d see
the urgency.”
“Wait a minute, Tim,” Kristen said. “You told
them yes? This type of project would normally
take us six weeks! You told them we could do it
in two?”
“Kristen,” he replied gravely, “Hybara is crucial to us. I’m counting on you and your team
to deliver. I’m sorry about the timing, but it
is what it is. I know it’s asking a lot, but without this revenue we may be looking at staff
reductions next year.”
Kristen tried to keep her voice even. “Given
the timing, someone will have to be in Spain
over the holidays—in all likelihood, on Christmas Day. Plus, most of my team—including
me—has vacation plans. What do I tell them?”
“This is going to be one of your ?rst big
challenges as the new team manager. Be
clear, and be ?rm. Tell them that company
policy is always that vacations are subject to
business needs. I have faith in you, Kristen—
that’s why I promoted you. Please get back to
me by the end of the day.”
He opened the door, and Kristen knew
the discussion was over. She returned to
her cube and her now-soggy sandwich, her
appetite gone.
Pro and Con
Tim sat down slowly at his desk. Although
he’d told Kristen he had faith in her, he
was deeply concerned about handing a project
of this magnitude over to a rookie—especially
a rookie who hadn’t yet shown any ability to
effectively lead her team.
He hated to admit it, but this was just the
sort of situation he’d worried about when
Alessandra decided to leave. Her programming style was infuriating—no safeguards,
no process, just her “intuition”—and her ego
was grating, but the team had responded to
Alessandra’s rebel-with-a-laptop style. As far
as he could tell, they hadn’t yet responded
to Kristen’s.
He gazed thoughtfully at the phone, seriously
tempted to call Alessandra. He had no doubt
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Is the Rookie Ready? •• •HBR C ASE S TUDY
Getting a six-week
project done in two
weeks? Insane.
that her consulting fees were astronomical,
and bringing her in would mean swallowing
his pride—not to mention losing face in front
of his superiors at Driscoll. Still, Alessandra
knew Hybara’s team and systems better than
anyone still with the company. And she was
?uent in Spanish. Having someone parachute
in who literally spoke the client’s language
would probably go a long way.
But his turning to Alessandra might threaten
Kristen’s chances of ever gaining her team’s
respect. She’d been in the role only about two
months, and even if her management skills
had so far failed to materialize, he still considered her a high potential. In August, for instance, when the software that ran the Buenos
Aires stock exchange had crashed, Kristen had
gotten it back up and running, though she’d
had to cut short her vacation to do it. She
was still very young—she’d joined Driscoll
right out of college, four years before—and
had consistently excelled.
Heaving a sigh, he decided it was something to think about over lunch. With the
kind of day he’d been having so far, it would
have to be something hot and greasy.
The Bearer of Bad News
Kristen sat cross-legged in her desk chair,
resisting the urge to spring into frantic action.
The snow seemed to fall upward toward
the white sky as it blew in eddies against the
window. She allowed herself a few moments
to gaze at it and wallow. This wasn’t the ?rst
time something like this had happened—her
stint in Buenos Aires leaped to mind. But
then she’d been content to help. Alessandra
had a gift for getting people on board. She’d
made Kristen feel that she was pitching in on
a project that mattered not just to Driscoll’s
balance sheet but to the wider world. Somehow, rescuing a stock exchange seemed more
urgent than rescuing a chain of casinos that
couldn’t get their slots working—especially
if Christmas had to be canceled to do it.
She pulled up Hybara’s ?le. Getting a sixweek project done in two weeks—without
sacri?cing quality? Insane.
A few minutes later, Kristen closed her
laptop and stood up. Tim had told her to
strong-arm her team members about their
vacations, but she felt she should keep her
word. She’d given them permission to take
the time off. She had become friends with
harvard business review • decemeber 2009
Grahame and Veronica in the days when the
three of them were together in the programming trenches, and Grahame had been talking about his trip to New Zealand for months.
Veronica’s in-laws were super-demanding.
Kristen couldn’t just parrot some company
line about the vacation policy.
She peeked over the gray cubicle divider.
Her team members were all sitting at their
desks. “Guys?” she said. All six of them looked
up. “Let’s go into 102 and chat.”
They ?led into the conference room, a couple
of them comparing their futile attempts to get
this year’s hot holiday toy: a video game that
let you play Led Zeppelin songs as different
members of the band.
“My eight-year-old just asked me what a
‘stairway to heaven’ is,” Veronica was saying,
“and wants to know if Santa will bring her
one for Christmas.”
“And you said?” Grahame replied with a
smile.
“I said that song is about the escalators
at the Hopedale Mall, because there’s a
Cinnabon right at the top of them, which is
her idea of heaven.”
The team laughed, but Kristen cleared her
throat. “So, we’re in a bit of a pickle,” she began. She took a deep breath. “Hybara Casinos
wants to return to the fold, so to speak, and
Driscoll has agreed to get them set up with a
new system by the end of the year.”
She tried to drive the point home with eye
contact, but glanced away quickly as the incredulous faces turned to her. “I know that’s
only two weeks away,” she continued. “But I
think we can do it if we all pull together. I’ve
already cut two weeks out of the project plan
by eliminating the time we usually bake in for
scoping. We know Hybara’s needs pretty well,
so this should be just an upgrade. Fingers
crossed. I’m hoping you guys can suggest more
ways to tighten up the timeline. I’ll need those
suggestions by the close of business today.”
Six grave faces stared back at her. No one
spoke.
“Now, I know you guys have holiday plans
already in the works, including a couple of
you who have made vacation requests.”
Grahame interrupted. “Requests that you
approved.”
“Yes…that’s right,” Kristen said, looking
down at the table. “I’m hoping that when you
get back to me with your suggestions, you
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Is the Rookie Ready? •• •HBR C ASE S TUDY
can let me know what your constraints are.
We’ll try to work around them, but—I’m really
sorry—I can’t make any promises. I know
we’re asking a lot, but this is very important to
the company. Thanks, guys.”
As they left the room, Kristen saw Grahame
and Veronica exchange a signi?cant look.
What’s that supposed to mean? she thought.
Tim said be clear and ?rm, and I was clear and
?rm! On the way back to her desk she found
herself, not for the ?rst time, wishing she
could just work on software.
Who You Gonna Call?
Alessandra’s services
would cost $400 an
hour—far more than
Tim had imagined.
It was 7:00 PM, and Tim’s windows looked out
into darkness. The snow had stopped a couple
of hours earlier. Half of a cold meatball sub sat
on his desk, and the other half was playing
havoc with his insides. He still hadn’t heard
from Kristen—but he had talked brie?y with
Alessandra. It had been awkward, but she’d
given him a quote. Her services would cost
$400 an hour—far more than he’d imagined.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d jacked her
price up just for him. But she was willing to ?y
to Barcelona, and she sounded con?dent that
she could ram the project through. He’d said
he would think it over and call her back. “Well,
think fast,” she’d replied, and he could almost
hear her triumphant smile through the phone.
“My schedule ?lls up quickly.”
Just then his computer pinged, and he
turned to see a message from Kristen titled
“Hybara situation”:
Tim, sorry not to get back to you sooner.
I’ve spoken with my team about Hybara—
was de?nitely ?rm, and clear!—but we seem
to be at an impasse. Grahame Binkle had
some great suggestions about how to trim
the project timeline down further, but he
has nonrefundable tickets to New Zealand
and says he can’t change them. Veronica
Matthews also pointed out some good
harvard business review • decemeber 2009
ways to tighten the schedule, but her entire
extended family is descending on Christmas
Eve, and she won’t be able to come in either.
The other four are willing to work, but I’m
not sure we can meet the deadline without
all six people chipping in.
I’m heading out now, but was wondering—
do you think Hybara would take the upgrade
any later?
Tim stepped out of his of?ce, pulling on his
gloves, in time to see Kristen wrapping a thick
plaid scarf around her neck.
“Walking to the subway?” he inquired. When
she nodded, he said, “Me, too. Let’s walk
and talk.”
He waited until they were outside the building and shuf?ing through the ankle-deep snow
before asking her how the meeting had gone.
“Good,” she replied. “I think. It’s just too bad
about the timing. Do you think Hybara would
give us three weeks instead of two?”
“Kristen,” he said, ignoring her question,
“do you think your team members still consider you as, you know, one of them? Or are
they starting to see you as someone they need
to listen to?”
She thought about Veronica and Grahame,
and the look they’d exchanged after the
meeting—not to mention their refusal to
help over the holidays. How would Alessandra have handled that? Would she have gotten them to pitch in, vacation plans or no?
Kristen hadn’t the faintest idea. But she didn’t
want to admit that to Tim. Instead, she said,
“Tim, let me answer your question with a
question. Why do you ask?”
Tim knew it was time for him to make a
decision. He just didn’t know how to choose.
Should Tim take a chance on his rookie?
• Three commentators offer expert advice.
See Case Commentary
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Is the Rookie Ready? • HBR C ASE S TUDY
Case Commentary
by Michael Schrage
Should Tim take a chance on his rookie?
Tim is a manager who
doesn’t lead and a leader
who doesn’t manage.
Let’s begin at the end: Tim should hire
Alessandra—immediately. Period.
Kristen is in completely over her head.
Accomplishing the designated task, while not
impossible, is thoroughly unrealistic given the
constraints. Neither Kristen nor her team is
being set up for success.
By contrast, this challenge plays directly to
Alessandra’s strengths and ?exibility. She’ll be
paid a lot of money to do what she does best.
Ideally, a couple of Kristen’s team members
will be assigned to her, so that they can learn
both the guts of the Hybara system and how
best to pull off a high-stress systems development. Alessandra has a decent shot at delivering; Kristen has barely a Christmas prayer.
Answering this question is so easy that it
raises a larger, far more important one: Why
on earth is Tim O’Connell a senior manager?
Almost everything we know about him and
his choices reveals a manager who doesn’t
lead and a leader who doesn’t manage. His
presumptuousness is horrible and—worse
yet—unprofessional.
But before detailing how Tim and his
bosses have shockingly mismanaged themselves and their circumstances, I must confess
to some sympathy for and identi?cation with
Tim. Like him, I am not a “people person.” My
natural inclination—like (apparently) Tim’s—
is to focus on the task at hand rather than on
people’s feelings and fears.
However, that is precisely why I know that
I must make a special effort to demonstrate
my personal and professional respect for
others, and that I should also have the good
grace and self-awareness to lead by example.
Successful leaders know that their actions
speak louder than their words.
What are Tim’s actions? The most awful
element in this scenario is not that this illconceived, poorly de?ned development effort
will ruin everyone’s holidays. It’s that Tim has
neither said nor done anything to show that he
is prepared to lead by example. What standard
of professionalism is he setting for Kristen
harvard business review • decemeber 2009
and her team? As best I can tell, the man isn’t
rolling up his sleeves and pitching in; he’s
maneuvering like a trapped rat to delegate
the very problem he himself volunteered
to solve. I had a boss like that once. He didn’t
last a year. He wasn’t ?red; the company
bumped him back to his core competence—
writing code. As surely as great salespeople
aren’t necessarily good sales managers, talented
programmers frequently make horrid managerial mentors and motivators.
Frankly, I’m shocked that the company’s
alarm bells didn’t ring loud and clear the
minute Alessandra gave notice. If talented
people leave because they have genuinely
better opportunities elsewhere, that’s one
thing. If they leave because they can’t get
along with the boss, only to turn around
and bail him out, what does that say about
the boss?
For the record, Tim was also unprofessionally disrespectful in accepting the Hybara plea
without consulting his people or his superiors. If I were Tim’s boss—and he’s lucky I’m
not—I’d be appalled not only by the commitment he made to a big client but by his
Hobson’s choice: an untested rookie and her
unhappy team or an expensive, talented
employee who got fed up working on staff
for us. That I didn’t know how Tim himself
was going to participate in reaching a solution would also upset me.
Kristen may have terri?c potential as a
manager, or she may be a gutless wuss who
is afraid of playing Scrooge to her team
members—that’s not the core concern her…
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