Scenario: Abbe Willsby and Randall Keene are co-leaders of a 15-employee team in a retail/fashion company. Soon after Randall separated from his wife, the two began an affair. Six months later, Abbe broke off the relationship after hearing rumors that Randall still has an intimate relationship with his wife. She sent an email to the manager, Bill Schule, with complaints of sexual harassment and insisted something be done. Abbe contended that her former boyfriend and co-leader was flirtatious, inappropriate, and constantly discussing past intimate encounters they’d shared while they worked together. Prompted by the email sent by Abbe, Randall met with Bill to ask for help with the situation.
Profile:
Bill Schule has been working in a managerial capacity for over 22 years at various companies. Presently, Bill is a Senior Sales Executive at HypeTec, managing a sales force of 40 people. He has 15 teams, each led by a pair of highly experienced sales people.
Randall Keene has worked for HypeTec for 6 years and has been one of Bill’s team leaders for the past 3 years. Together, he and Abbe Willsby have excelled within the department.
Back History: Unknown to Schule, Willsby and Keene had been engaged in a serious office romance for the past 6 months. Their romance had little effect on the office environment – the pair had gone from productive team leaders to productive team leaders in love without any disruption…until the affair ended. A week of hostility and anger permeated the Willsby-Keene team, with a huge drop in productivity reported at the end of a two-week period. Willsby had broken off the affair because Keene was still involved with the wife from whom he had supposedly separated.
Willsby was adamant that the breakup was not the problem. She was a professional woman, and any woes of heartbreak or betrayal were not going to interrupt her performance in any way. The problem was that Keene was harassing her throughout the workday with lots of sexual innuendo, reference to their past intimacies, sexually charged emails, and veiled threats that if she didn’t “go back to him,” he would toss her out of their department.
Willsby sent an email to Keene, with a copy to Schule, that annotated and listed the instances of harassment, excerpts from emails, etc. She insisted that Keene relocate to another team or she will be filing a sexual harassment suit against Keene and a hostile environment suit agains
Paper instructions below
Is this situation an example of programmed or non-programmed decision making? Why?
What would be an example of a satisfying decision in this scenario? What consequences/benefits would this approach have?
Assume you are Bill and you decide to use an analytical (or rational) decision making strategy to handle this situation. The analytical decision making approach involves the following steps:
Recognize the need for a decision.
Define the problem.
Generate alternatives.
Evaluate the alternatives.
Implement a solution.
Get feedback.
Describe, in detail, the specific actions you would take for each step. Be sure to address the following questions in your answer:
Who would you talk to?
Where would go for more information?
What policies, procedures, or laws are relevant?
