Jensen_Shoes

To begin with, Twitchell thinks that Kravitz was being stereotypical based in her assignment about African American and Latino markets. He thought Kravitz assigned him these fields because of his status as an African American. Moreover, he believed Kravitz distributed the workload and treated him unfairly because he personally had to work on the company’s special project together with the two strategic objectives at the same time. Since he was “rewarded” more work when working with Kravitz and was assigned a project based on his ethnicity and background, he concluded that Kravitz was racist. As a result, Twitchell became resisted by going against Kravitz’s wish to work on the African American market. Instead, he chose to work on the Latino market in the end. Second, he assumed Kravitz as a bad listener. He raised the concerns about his incapability to work on the two strategic objectives and the special project at the same time. However, Kravitz did not take it into consideration and tried to avoid the problem. Moreover, she used an erroneous motivation to treat Twitchell. She rewarded him by accomplishing his environmental project and then suddenly altered his subject to her two strategic objectives. Twitchell was so excited about finishing the project with a small reward that he wished to continue working on that. However, Kravitz turned down his intentions by asking him to focus more on her team’s strategic objectives. She even threatened Twitchell by asking him to sign a proposal at the end to force him finish the only one subjective objective on time. Hence, Twitchell became demotivated in this project and did not put any efforts in this strategic objective anymore. On the other sides, Kravitz assumed Twitchell was a poor performer and a bad team member. He was sneaky when signing up for the San Diego trip to avoid the deadline while serving his own personal purpose while his work is not done. This suspicious trip really annoyed Kravitz because she had just rewarded him to complete a minor work but it turned out that Twitchell let her down by reluctant to work on the main projects. Their trend and relationship can be considered a honeymoon hangover effect because they really got along well at first but their conversation became more and more intense when the project’s deadline was close. Twitchell even left in the middle of their conversation regarding his trip to San Diego. Obviously, Twitchell was more wrong in this case but Kravitz still made some mistakes by not sensing the critically racial issue here. Specifically, Twitchell was the only colored employees in a cluster of majority employees and every sensitive argument or topic might hurt his feelings. As a result, Twitchell made some bad decisions by signing up to the San Diego trip when the due date was close. Last but not least, Kravitz thought Twitchell was too lazy to handle all the workload on time. At first, she recognized Twitchell as a diligent employee with special motivation treatment in order to excel in the company. However, she then realized that Twitchell really put his effort in his favorite subject while ignored the team project regardless of critical consequences later on. Thus, she blamed his internal attribution, such as laziness and reluctance to work, for his San Diego trip. As a result, she negotiated with him from two strategic objectives into one strategic objective. In brief, miscommunication and perceptual biases are major issues in this particular problem. In order to resolve this conflict, Kravitz should immediately hold a meeting with Twitchell and his coworkers to discuss about what they really wanted to do in this project. This late action will somehow alleviate Twitchell’s doubt about her racism in the team and willing to work on the African American project. Moreover, Kravitz should find another way to motivate Twitchell instead of threatening him for not completing his work on time. Since Twitchell was sent to Kravitz because of his poor performance with his previous supervisor Chuck, Kravitz should promise Twitchell to recover his position and reputation for his excellent work when working with him. Moreover, she should stand by his side when working with him by putting more trust and responsibilities in him rather than having prejudice about him from his previous supervisor. If so, Twitchell will be more motivated to work well on these two strategic objectives and even his special project. Honest and frank attitude in their further private communication is a must to reduce this tension. Kravitz should ask and be more sensitive to Twitchell’s opinion on the projects and feelings toward his job. Otherwise, Jensen shoes will lose a significant amount of human capital and diversity resources in a competitive market.