Blog Post 3

Within my internship over the summer, there had been a manager who had been let go due to something that had gone wrong within some of the marketing campaigns that had been delivered to potential leads. The job of the manager had been to set up and overview the logistics of the marketing campaign and confirm that everything had been set up so when it comes time to go live the process is fluid and the only worry thing to worry about the content. This needs to be done consistently because the only way to know whether or not the performance indicators can be compared to each other is if all factors other than content in the delivery are equal. What had gone wrong within multiple campaigns had been that the campaigns would be sent out to the wrong lead lists as well as the leads were not pre-emptively set up to be uploaded to the customer relationship management software, meaning once someone had found that out the leads received in the campaign would have to be manually entered significantly decreasing efficiency. The blame had been initially put onto the manager since they had the final say in how the campaigns had been sent out. In actuality however, the fault of these mishaps had been the employee who had given the wrong lead lists to the manager as well as had not made sure that the leads collected from the campaign would be automatically uploaded. After one of these campaigns there had been an emergency meeting for the entire team to meet with higher level executives, this is where the manager had been let go with no warning and had to pack up and leave directly after the meeting. There had not even been a two weeks notice. The issue had not been due to the managers lack of attention, since they would check back with the employee after seeing things incorrect the first time and the employee would affirm its correctness (though it was not). The manager had not acted opportunistically by telling the truth of the situation and having the employee be let go instead of him. I did not have too deep of an understanding of the relationship between the two so I can only speculate reasons why the manager was not motivated to act opportunistically. From what I had seen, they had seemed like good friends. If they had a strong personal relationship this may be what had lead the manager to act in a non-opportunistic manner, being that the manager may not have wanted someone he valued personally to lose their job. If my understanding from what I had seen was not clear, and they did not have a strong personal relationship, then perhaps there could have been something the employee had known that the manager did not want revealed. That is purely speculation since what I had seen had no evidence of that. The difference between these motivations for the manager not acting opportunistically amount to two different things. One reason is that they wanted to keep a friend from losing their job, which would leave them with the satisfaction of feeling like they had been doing good for someone close to them. The other is that they knew the other employee had something over them, which would cause the manager to leave with feelings of resentment. Both possibilities display the manager not acting in a way that would make the employee at fault lose their job, however the reasons behind them are what make the difference. Overall, this is the most blatant example I have witnessed of a person choosing not to act opportunistically even though it seemed like they very well had the chance to. 

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanSeptember 20, 2019 at 9:55 AM

    In future posts please chunk your essay into several paragraphs and then put a line space between each paragraph. It is visually harder to read a big blob of text. Including more white space, in which the text is presented, is helpful to the reader.

    As to the story you told, there are several bits of it I didn't understand and it would have been helpful for this to be included in the story. First, for how long had this been going on? Related to this is how long the manager and the particular employee had been at the company before the episode emerged. Had they previously had several successful marketing campaigns prior to this episode or was this the initial effort by both the manager and the employee. Such background would be very helpful to have.

    Second, you seem to have concluded that the manager could have saved his own job by throwing the employee under the bus. But isn't the manager responsible for the output of his shop even if the manager himself didn't create the misdeed? Wouldn't the manager's bosses claim that greater oversight would have eliminated the problem from the get go? If so, then the manager wasn't choosing between opportunism or not. The manager would then know he was going to be fired in any event.

    It also would be useful to know what happened after the episode. Did the employee who made the mistakes improve after that? Maybe that information goes beyond the time of your internship, but you might speculate on it in that case. In other words, did letting go of the manager actually solve that the problem would not persist?

    As a general idea, taking responsibility for a failure is not being opportunistic. It is usually possible to cast the blame elsewhere. But in doing so, trust in the person is lost. In contrast, if the person does take the blame and the criticism that goes along with it, stressful as that may be, trust in the person is preserved.

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    1. Arnold Harberger Econ 490September 23, 2019 at 9:13 AM

      I do not know how long it had been going on, the issue had come up intermittently throughout my time there however it was only 8 weeks. Both the manager and the employee had been at the company for less than 2 years. Most of the campaigns had gone well, however even only a few being deployed incorrectly was not acceptable.

      It may be true that the manager would've been fired anyway, but based on the time I had been there the employee that repetitively messed up was already hanging on to the job by a thread. Making a case for why it was their fault rather than the managers would've been relatively easy and convincing. The manager had a better relationship with the higher ups than the employee as well. I believe they could've saved their own job by revealing the reason behind why the certain campaigns had mistakes.

      I did not work with that particular employee, I had simply been around when someone would bring up issues. I speculate that they may have improved, however it is more likely that they will continue their ways until they are caught and let go. I believe if the manager had been able to keep their job and the employee at fault had been the one let go the teams productivity and efficiency would improve.

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