CASE 2 – 4.2
PG. 541
‘The Road to Hell’’
1. John Baker, the 45 years old Chief Engineer of the Caribbean Bauxite Company of
Barracania in the West Indies, failed to communicate his ideas in an effective manner when
approaching young Barracanian Matthew Rennalls, the one who was about to become his
successor. He tried to apply the ‘plus and minus technique’ during their last vital interview
but was not successful when doing it. Even though he started off right by recognizing
Rennalls’ excellent job by saying that he was quite impressed with his ability to put his
theoretical knowledge into practice, he failed when communicating the negative
points/suggestions he had for Rennalls to improve. He shouldn’t have addressed cultural
history from his culture (European) with the intention of praising himself because even
though he didn’t mean to be rude, the way in which he addressed the topic made it seem as
if he was downgrading the Barracanian culture, and touched Rennalls’ sensibility.
Baker didn’t realize it at the beginning, as he was already concerned with the fact that
Rennalls didn’t felt confortable with what he had suggested about him being rude/racist
with coworkers, and was trying to address his cultural understanding in a way that might
explain his position and make Rennalls understand it better. He also thought that by
‘complementing’ Rennalls by saying that he ‘congratulated’ people like him for
overcoming the gap between Barracanians only having 60 years in the commercial
environment and Europeans having 300 years.