CASE 45 The Worst Part Was That She Often Was Right Background Information The Winston County Savings Bank was founded in 1928, shortly before the start of the Great Depression. The institution managed to survive and grow over the years by adapting to changing markets and taking advantage of improving technology. Currently, the Winston County (as it was called) was doing well: it remained solvent and profitable during the recent troubled period in the indus- try. As a recently promoted supervisor in charge of the Consumer Credit Serv- joes Department, Wanda Vaughn fell as if she was progressing along with Win- ston County Savings. Her department handled all aspects of consumer credit: analysis, account establishment, file maintenance, and payment processing. In- deed. she had moved into her current supervisory position just six months arc when ber boss. the former head of the department, was promoted to head the newly formed Investment Services Unit. Wanda wanted to show that she could take charge and make things run effectively, so she became a very "hands on' manager. She made decisions, look close control, and worked closely and often with the employees under her charge Al the time of ber promotion, Wands could not have been happier. Having worked as a senior representative in the department for almost three years, sho had been able to develop close working relationships with the other repre- selalives in the department. Curcandy, there were four representatives in the unit. Thece of the representatives were still relatively new, having been there less than one year on the average. The fourth employee. Beverly Beutell, had been in the department almost as long as Wanda, and they had a good working relationship. "Or so I thought" she mused to herself late one afternoon after the latest run-in with Beverly. Wanda was sitting at her desk, looking out the window at the emptying parking lot. She was still trying to recover from the staff meeting chat had just ended. Wanda thought back to how things had changed between her and Beverly since Wanda had become supervisor, Before Wanda moved into her supervisory position, she and Beverly had been very friendly, even close. Wanda always re- spected Beverly's ability. even though she was also wary of Beverly's habit of speaking her mind directly and quickly, Wanda could understand why othersFiny Case Studies for Management & Supervisory Training might think that Beverly was defensive and belligerent. Indeed, Beverly's quick tongue and fart manner easily put people off. When Wanda was promoted, Beverly became the most senior person in the department, However, when it came time for Wanda to pick an assistant to help run the department. she selected another employee who was junior to Beverly in years but easier to get along with and more liked by the other employees. Bev- erly reacted badly to this decision. believing that she should have been selected as the department assistant manager. Since then, Wanda had noticed that Hey- erly directed more and more of her argumentativeness at her, For example, it seemed that Beverly would drag out staff meetings to twice their necessary length simply by asking questions and voicing concerns. The only thing these tactics seemed to do was get her to the point where she would finally say. "I think we ought to do it this way.... As she looked out the window. Wanda thought back to the times when Bev- erly's actions had become a real point of friction. One instance really stood out. Shortly after taking charge of the unit, Wanda issued a change in the account processing procedures, This change was intended to remedy a long standing "glitch" in the system that required unnecessary work, Within minutes of receiving the memo. Beverly was in Wanda's office. "This will never work." she said, waving the memo. Wands was surprised. "What do you mean, it won't work?" she replied. "Sure it will. We'll be able to cut our work load on that task by 10 percent " "Yeah, but you forgot about the last audit and the regulation on consumer notification," Beverly said without missing a beat. "If you do this, we're going to have a worse audit next time. pins get in trouble with the customers we tum down." Wanda realized Beverly was onto something, even if she was overstating it a bit. After thinking about Beverly's remarks, Wanda realized she had to revise parts of the new procedures. This incident seemed to capture the nature of what their relationship had be- come. Even though Beverly did her job well. Wanda felt as if Beverly was all- ways challenging her. It appeared that for every decision Wanda made and every directive she issued, Beverly was there to question it. Wands thought Beverly was almost playing a game of "I'll get in the last word" with her, and she was becoming tired of it. Indeed, at one point Wanda had felt compelled to tell Beverly that her be- havior around Wanda might have to be taken into account during the perfumn- ance appraisal. After bearing Wanda's caution. Beverly had responded, "Well, if that's the way you feel, I'll just never say anthing else." Wanda told her, "That's not what I meant. I just want you to keep an open mind,' Beverly had seemed satisfied with that. Then, at today's staff meeting, it happened again. This time the problem centered on Winston County's new computer system. For over a year, the bank had been preparing for a large-scale conversion to an integrated system. Even though the conversion had little direct impact on Wanda's group, it did have anCasa 45: The Worst Part Was That She Often Was Pigie impact on other departments in big ways. As a result, Wanda wanted to make some important changes in their own processing deprations to anticipate and support the conversion. Today's meeting was devoted to explaining what the conversion would in- volve and what they would do differently. Wanda began the meeting by bring- ing everyone up to date on the status of the conversion project. After Wanda answered a few questions, she theo announced the changes she was going to in- stitute for various procedures. Wanda believed ber proposed changes would be right on target, and she had decided on these changes, in part, because they were just slight modifications to current practices. Almost as soon as she had finished, Beverly announced: "Those changes will never work. If we do that things will be chaos around here." Even the other employees who were used to Beverely's behavior were sur- prised and looked at her. "Sure," Beverly continued, "thing about it for a minute. If we start following those steps, here's what will happen." She spent the next three or four minutes reeling off a list of potential problems and difficulties. She concluded: "I think we just ought to continue doing things as we have been, Them, after the new system is operational, we can see whether we need to do anything differently." Wanda looked at the other employees, who seemed to be agreeing, Wanda realized that some of Beverly's ideas were in fact valid and that she did have a worthwhile point of view, Not wanting to let the meeting get too far out of hand, Wanda said something about it being late and that she appreciated every- one's reaction. She said she would get back to them with the final decision as soon as possible. She adjourned the meeting and went back to ber desk. As she watched the parking lot empty out, she wished all her problems would drive off too. CASE QUESTIONS 1. Does Wanda have a supervisory problem with Bey- erly? Explain your answer. 2. If there is a problem, what is it? 3. What steps could Wanda have taken in order to re- duce or avoid the problem after she was promoted to the supervisor's job? 4. What steps should Wanda take now to deal with the issues at hand? Recommend specific actions and steps. 45.1