Thomas Green | Power, office Politics and a Career in Crisis

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ANALYSIS: THOMAS’ SHORT COMINGS AND MISTAKES

Thomas Green holds a bachelors degree and does not have much managerial and strategic position experience under his belts. Green, comparatively, spent too much with executives and under-estimated the vitality of giving equal importance and respect to his immediate boss. Moreover, even after knowing that Frank wanted to bring someone else in that position, Thomas should have spent more time and effort in winning Franks vote of confidence and secure a place in his good books instead of spending first week in Boston. Apart from giving importance to Frank, Thomas also did not comply with or followed the “ways of” working in a strategic and managerial position, including keeping outlook calendar update, documenting all his work, negotiate and be thorough with hard data, learning the use of small modern managerial tools and having good interpersonal skills, and managing to have a good relationship with line managers.

Green’s next big mistake was speaking out against his supervisor’s forecasts at a meeting. While Green may have been correct in his thinking, a conversation between the two gentlemen should have occurred outside of the meeting if Green had any questions about the forecasts. It is often better to let your boss be found to be in the wrong then try to correct them publicly.

One more thing he did wrong during that whole period was to talk to people on the outside, people other than Frank. There he tried to justify his actions and wanted to prove everyone that Frank’s plans were too ambitious and unattainable, and taking recommendations from irrelevant people, instead he should have kept all that between himself and Frank, knowing that he has no good friends or allies in the organizations.

In the end, a combination of lack of experience, not adjusting to the job requirements and roles, not giving enough respect to the immediate boss and openly challenging him and talking bad about boss without making any good friends in organization brought a young and talented professional’s career at the brink of a disaster.