Case Analysis – Wolfgang Keller (A)

Within teams, diversity of demographics and difference of personal styles often are

sources of conflicts.1 In Wolfgang’s case, the conflicts that reside between Keller and

Brodsky are due to their differences in ages and in management styles, as well as their

perceptions over each other. Keller sees Brodsky as incompetent in directing sales and

Brodsky thinks Keller is intrusive in other departments’ activities. The first time I read the

case, before I was introduced to the concept of perception and performance management, I

thought firing Brodsky was the right choice. Brodsky appeared to be lacking and passive at

work, he didn’t fit in with the team, and he was incapable of doing his job. Now, with all the

concepts I have learned, I re-evaluated each choice and decided that firing Brodsky or

splitting Brodsky’s department would only address the short-term conflicts between Keller

and Brodsky. In order to properly solve the issue, Keller should coach Brodsky and help

him to improve his performance.

The first option of firing Brodsky sounds like an easy outlet. However, this option

ignores the fact that Keller is also responsible for the current situation with Brodsky. In the

case, Keller exhibited tremendous strengths as a strategic planner, a hands-on manager, a

go-getter, and a fast track A player. He also exhibited weaknesses such as poor

interpersonal and leadership skills. Keller’s lack of emotional intelligence, which according

to the article “What Makes a Leader” by Daniel Goleman, is the sine qua non of leadership.

“Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind,

and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.”2 This speaks

the truth of Wolfgang Keller. This article introduced five components of emotional

intelligence at work: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

self-awareness, motivation, and empathy.

Self-awareness means having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths,

weaknesses, needs and drives, as well as their effects on the others.2 Keller is well aware of

his own strengths and drives, but from his response to his performance review by Haussler,

Keller didn’t seem to acknowledge his weakness in teamwork. Another piece of evidence is

the new organization chart that represented how his team perceived him. The fact that he

proudly hung it in his office showed his ignorance on how his emotion and behavior might

have affected his team members. If Keller was aware of his impatience when dealing with

problems, he should have set up progressive timelines when Brodsky was performing his

first task in redesigning the sales force organization. In this way, Brodsky would be able to

perform self-checking and make adjustments to his implementation plan, so that Keller

wouldn’t feel that Brodsky is lacking in actions and a deadline seemed impossible.

Keller is self-motivated, but he lacks the skill of motivating the others. Implications

for motivating employees should include setting specific challenging goals, making sure

employees believe they can achieve those goals, and rewarding goal achievement.1 In

various occasions, Keller got annoyed at Brodsky on not reaching the challenging goals, but

he failed in setting up the specific goals, instructions, and deadlines in the first place. He

also failed in communicating with Brodsky in terms of the feasibility in achieving the goals.

Take the annual distributors’ meeting as an example, when Keller delegated this task to

Brodsky, he should have communicated with Brodsky that the goal is to obtain a certain

percentage of attendance from the distributors, such as 80% or 90%. Keller should have

also checked with Brodsky on whether he is able to reach such percentage of attendance
and provide him with some guidance if Brodsky found the goal challenging. Instead of

properly delegating the assignments, Keller decided to step in and fix the situation, which

to Brodsky, is perceived as a micromanagement. That lowered Brodsky’s self-confidence. In

Bandura’s Self-Efficacy theory, a greater confidence will result in higher self-set goal, which

leads to a higher performance. The other way around, lower confidence will result in lower

self-set goal and lower performance. That is what happened to Brodsky over time. Keller, in

this case, did not contribute much effort in motivating Brodsky.

Empathy is the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and the

skill in treating people according to their emotion reactions.2 Keller needs to be able to

view problems of his employees from their standpoints instead of only looking at the issue

from his own perspective. Keller believes that Brodsky’s formal style hurts his effectiveness

as the commercial director. He also thinks that building rules and hierarchies are not

beneficial to the organization. Before he made the above conclusion, he should have taken

the time listen to his employee: why Brodsky prefers formal style, why Brodsky thinks

building a hierarchy is essential for the development of the organization, what frustrates

him, what motivates him, and what suggestions he might have to improve team

performance.

The second option is to split Brodsky’s department in two, making Zelenko the sales

director and Brodsky the marketing director. On the surface, it sounds like a brilliant idea,

as it’ll be a better fit for each person’s strengths and styles. However, based on the

background provided within the case, Brodsky already resented Keller’s relationship with

Zelento and accused Keller of paying favorites. That is, per Leader Member Exchange

Theory, Zelento is identified as Keller’s In-Group and Brodsky is placed in the Out-Group.
Keller and Zelenko had worked together prior to Konigsbrau. They have developed a social

relationship that persisted after Zelenko joined the firm. Zelenko was perceived as a strong

performer and he was given more responsibilities. In order to keep his status as an In-

Group member, Zelenko was willing to do more work in both sales and marketing. In

contrast, Keller’s relationship with Brodsky was trapped in the set-up-to-fail syndrome.3 It

was triggered by some minor and surreptitious events, which were perceived by Keller as

weak performance. Keller then started to increase his supervision on Brodsky. He stepped

into the situation immediately, which appeared to be intrusive in Brodsky’s eyes. Brodsky

responded to Keller’s micromanagement by withdrawing from his work. That made Keller

even more convinced of Brodsky’s incompetence, which led to further frustration for both

parties. Splitting Brodsky’s department will intensify the conflict between Brodsky and

Keller, and eventually lead to Brodsky’s departure, which has the same effect as option one.

The third option of coaching Brodsky will not only serve the purpose in solving the

conflicts, it will also help Keller improving his leadership and teamwork skills. However, it

is not easy to carry out the plan. It requires tremendous amount of effort from both parties.

Before Keller starts coaching Brodsky, he should first re-evaluate his perception over Keller

and clear some potential errors and bias he might have used in judging Keller’s ability.

It was mentioned in several occasions within the case that Keller thought Brodsky

could have done a better job on various tasks had he spent more time or chosen to do so.

That is a Fundamental Attribution Error – Other’s negative behavior is driven by internal

factors, which are internal causes that are under that person’s control.1 Keller should check

whether Brodsky’s negative behavior was solely due to his personality or some external

factors. Maybe Brodsky needs some training in negotiation skills or perhaps Brodsky’s
negative behavior was led by Keller’s interference - “if someone is going to correct my work

regardless, why do I bother to do it correctly the first time?”

Besides eliminating perception biases, Keller should grant some instrumental and

affective trust to his team, learn to be an effective leader and good team player.

In evaluating the effectiveness of Konigsbrau’s performance appraisal system, the

below criteria were used:

“Fit with strategy” – by definition, it means a performance management system

should aim at achieving employee behavior and attitudes that support the organization’s

strategy, goals, and culture.4 In Konigsbrau’s case, the strategy of its Ukrainian subsidiary

was to consolidate and strengthen the relationship between the company’s sales force and

distributors. Konigsbrau’s appraisal system focused on the performance of tasks but failed

to capture employee behaviors and attitudes that contribute to supporting the company’s

strategy.

“Validity” – by definition, it is the extent to which a measurement tool actually

measures what it is intended to measure.4 Konigsbrau’s appraisal system is task driven. It

does measures the effectiveness in obtaining results but it is missing the objectives to

evaluate each task. The assessment over each responsibility seems to be vague and

nonspecific.

“Reliability” – generally, it describes the consistency of the results that the

performance measure will deliver.4 Konigsbrau’s appraisal system seems to be reliable as it

is consistent and it measures whether the executive’s performance has improved, declined

or remained constant.
 “Acceptability” – theoretically, it measures if practical standard of being acceptable

to the people who use it.4 There is no comment mentioned within the case that such

executive review form is difficult to use. The form itself appears to be self-explanatory.

“Specific feedback” – theoretically, a performance measure should specifically tell

employees what is expected of them and how they can meet those expectations.4

Konigsbrau’s appraisal system did provide areas for reviewer to fill out developmental

suggestions but it failed to deliver specific expectations within the goal settings, which

should be the main component of the review system.

Overall, I think Konigsbrau’s appraisal system needs modifications.

On top of measuring the effectiveness of results, Konigsbrau should also consider

adopting the Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS). By definition, the BARS method

uses performance-focused, specific and behavioral examples to describe different level of

performance.1 In Keller’s case, he could add what specific behaviors are expected from

Brodsky, such as the effort in meeting deadlines (never late, rarely late, always late,

deadline is impossible); the extent of interaction with distributors (every week, twice a

month, once a month, never); attendance in team building events (100%, 80%, 50%,

never). By adding those behavior rating scales, Brodsky is clear on what Keller is looking

for in rating his performance, he can take actions throughout the year to build those skills

that he is lacking and maybe communicate with Keller on some expectations that are

difficult to achieve. In this way, there will be no surprises and heated arguments at the

annual performance review.

In addition, since Keller addressed concerns about Brodsky’s ability to maintain a

good relationship with distributors and with other members of the management
committee, as well as Brodsky’s leadership skills, Konigsbrau should consider adopting a

360 review that involves Keller as supervisor, management committee members as peers,

distributors as customers, and employees under the commercial department as

subordinates.

In conclusion, the conflict between Keller and Brodsky is an accumulative effect of

unsolved issues over a course of two years. Both of them exhibited strengths and weakness.

To certain extent, one person’s strengths could well compensate the other person’s

weaknesses. In order to turn the situation around, they need to have open communications

on a regular basis; Keller needs to empower Brodsky by providing him proper tools such as

attainable goals, specific instructions, and progressive timelines. Keller should also provide

guidance and coaching on Brodsky’s weaknesses, such as negotiation skills. They should

perform a reality check on a monthly or quarterly basis to have a better judgment in terms

of the feasibility of reaching the set goals. Brodsky, on the other side, should recognize his

own weaknesses, such as lack of interpersonal and social skills. He should also learn to

maintain positive attitude when issue arises. The process will not be easy. It requires time,

effort and commitment. But in a long run, the benefit on both individuals and the

organization outweighs the efforts.