Jensen Shoes

The purpose of this report is to analyze the problem between Lyndon Twitchell, Jane Kravitz, and Jensen Shoes. To alleviate employee disenchantment Jensen Shoes should:

- Address first what the problem is

- Analyze the causes to the problem, and

- Formulate actions for solving this problem.

Facts: Twitchell and Kravitz entered into their working relationship with optimistic expectations but personal desires quickly impair the work.

Twitchell feels that he has been overwhelmed with two huge assignments with an unrealistic deadline, pigeonholed into a stereotypical role as an ethnic-culture by trends analyst, and given few options for advancement within Jensen Shoes. When he took up this job he joined a company committed to the development of its employees, a company who encouraged coloured people to promote in their careers.

When Twitchell joined Jensen Shooes he was looking for a job where he could excel and quickly move up the ladder He had his first disappointment shortly after he joined Jensen. He was placed into what he felt was a stereotypical job being the only African American and being placed into ethnic promotions. He had no professional experience in this field and he raised his concerns if he would be able to even complete the task assigned. He was also assigned a team of inexperienced staff, which he had to train. Further more six months down the line he found out his budget was cut the deepest. He felt he was let down by Chuck, his direct Manager at the time, because he didn’t seem to take his concerns seriously and even if no one else completed their s.o.’s he was the only one who “lost” his position in the company.

During his conversation with Chuck after he delivers with success the environmental project, he realizes that Jane’s feedback and Chuck’s feedback are totally different. He knows he delivered a good job and wants Superior Management to acknowledge it. He feels betrayed when Jane doesn’t take his side.

Now, Twitchell feels that Management doesn’t listen to him and he feels he is losing his self-esteem. He knows most of the times he is doing a good job but wants Management to acknowledge that.

On top of everything, Twitchell is very conscious that he is black and feels the Management gives him some assignments just because he is black. He doesn’t miss any opportunity to say to himself “Here we go again. The black man…” has to do this.

Kravitz problem is that she feels pressure from Chuck Taylor to complete the project, lost focus with regards to her initial expectations of how the work would be completed, and overreacted and challenged the credibility of her co-worker. She sees the Jensen Shoes as a great place to work but “sometimes the company style can be a headache for managers.” She feels she is under a lot of pressure from Chuck. When he reorganized the group he assigned her a team of three. He had good things to say in regards to two of them but was less enthusiastic in regards to Twitchell. Every time when Twitchell’s name comes up in front of him he is being negative and sees him as a bad employee. He even makes racist jokes in front of Kravitz: “the brothers are never happy”.

There are three specific incidents; the initial meeting, the first meeting after the environmental project’s completion, and the final meeting, which have lead to this situation.

a) At the first meeting, Kravitz and Twitchell expressed their expectations to one another. Kravitz assigned Twitchell the African-American and Latino buying trends study and wanted the project completed in four months so she can present the proposal to Taylor and Briggs in five months. Twitchell stated that it might be unrealistic to complete that project and his environmental buying trends research study assigned to him from upper-management. He also mentioned his ambition to return to the management level as soon as possible. Kravitz told him to complete his environmental study and then move on to the strategic performance objective because she felt that the two studies would overlap.

b) Two months later after the completion of the environmental study, Kravitz met with Twitchell to see how his strategic performance objective was going. She expected a proposal from Twitchell