Vincent Deshaies
David Reeves case analysis
Problem identification:
After only 4 weeks in his new job, the young professional David Reeves got a promotion for a job with more important responsabilities.

Root causes:
~ David previous background
Considered as a good prospect considering his young age, he got hired by the managers who were impressed by his prestance and his frankness (concept of persuasion). However, his first steps in the company as a market development specialist were quite short because he got promoted quite rapidly to the advanced market development specialist. In fact, he convinced the vice-president Conrad to promote him because he considered himself better than the others who were doing this job for many years already and were older than him. Probably, his lack of experience in the workplace had not been really helpful same if he received a long training with Brad and continuous feedbacks. Then, his stubbornness was the result of a new young employee who thinks he’s perfect and cannot make errors. Finally, David was too busy with his personal life that drained a lot of his energy mixed with his new job that requires a good concentration due to the fact that everything you do is new. As a result, he was not mentally and physically in shape to well conjugate his personal and professional at the same time.

~ Communication between David and Brad
With new duties such as managing employees, David was not able to reach the objectives fixed by his boss Brad. Although, despite the fact that he received a one-month long training with Brad, David made a lot of bad steps. During the first month when he was alone, Brad gave him many advices concerning his belief with his employees, the clients and the way he accomplished his tasks. Specifically, David adopted a negative attitude towards its boss and perceived his help as oppression and threat for his job so he continued to do his job the way he thought it was the best (opposite of active learning). For example, after one month alone, David had a performance appraisal meeting in order to correct his work because he didn’t do what Brad asked him. This proves the lack of communication caused by David precisely. In this particular case, the possibility to exchange information and knowledge (encoding and decoding concepts) is clearly not possible because of David’s stubbornness. Following the meeting that David had with Brad, he was completely shocked by Brad’s memorandum and does not seem really receptive to its feedbacks.

~ Organization deficiencies
The promotion system is not normalized and consequently, it causes serious impacts on the hierarchy experience pattern. Usually, it is not normal that a young employee with a little of experience can reach a job with high responsibilities. In this case, David was not enough experimented to get a promotion really early in his career. Then, old employees cannot transmit their tacit knowledge acquired from various previous experiences to younger employees. Moreover, it is really important for a new employee to be enough involved and aware of the organization values in order to be fully integrated to the company and work for the same goals and philosophy.

Solutions:
David got hired despite the fact that he was really young and not really experimented. In fact, maybe he had the potential to be a superstar in the company BUT professionally speaking, it is mandatory for him to do not skip steps in the advancement of his career. Then, within the years, he will acquire competencies by facing many different situations with the clients, the reality of the market and for sure, by working in teams with his colleagues. He will now be ready to face new challenges and become a good advanced market development specialist. Then, the best scenario for David was to wait to gain more experience in the company, know the company better and not work for them but WITH them…and then, accept the promotion and not forced it. Finally, he has to manage better its personal life within its professional life in order to be fully involved in his work and future more important responsibilities!