Patrick’s Problem: What Happens Here Stays Here
Teaching Note
By Professor Stacy Blake-Beard
Deloitte Chair of Women and Leadership
School of Business, Simmons University
Boston, MA, USA
Synopsis of the Case
Patrick Jackson is an Executive Director at Millennial; he is in the midst of their annual talent review.
Patrick is one of nine executives discussing junior associates whom they are considering for Director
positions. The promotion from Associate Director to Director represents a significant bump in pay and
increased responsibility. But even more important is the unspoken signal that the person moving into this
role is being singled out as someone with high potential, someone who the leadership at Millennial is
watching and supporting. Within the organizational hierarchy, the talent review process is under the
purview of the Learning and Development Department of Millennial. But it is well known that the
“closed door” meeting in which Patrick is participating is where the real decisions are made.
The discussion of Alicia Conrad is not as positive. While the conversation about Alicia has started on a
positive note, it is very quickly devolving into an assessment of her readiness for a Director role. The
sentiment around the table is that Alicia needs more time to be better prepared for the role, even though
she is performing at an exceptional level. What disturbs Patrick is that this conversation follows a
disturbing trend that he has observed. Women candidates for promotion and assignment of key projects
are evaluated using different criteria than those that are applied to men. For men, there is an assumption
that they have potential and will grow into their position. Women do not receive this same consideration.
Patrick is concerned that the conversation in this room, around this table, is going to determine who
receives the promotion rather than a rigorous review of their talents and work performance.
The concern for the advancement of women is actually recognized as an organizational shortcoming, or
an “area for development” as it is often described. To respond to this issue, the Talent and Development
Department created and launched a Male Ally Program (MAP). Male allies who are selected to participate
in the program commit to supporting and advocating for women with whom they are paired. Patrick
welcomes the opportunity to contribute to a positive response to Millennial’s problem with advancing
while the Male Ally Program has been created to promote change, it, unfortunately, represents just an
appearance of change.
Learning Objectives
1) Recognize sources of power that can be used to effectively lead and promote change.
2) Diagnose predisposition to using power to promote change.
3) Acknowledge the benefits and the challenges of using power to lead change.
4) Explore the different dimensions of power in relation to group dynamics.
5) Understand the influence of organizational culture on decision making.
Linkage to Concept and Theories
i
The Importance of Power
Power is essential to making things happen. Robbins, Langton, and Judge define power as the capacity to
Power as a Resource for Change Agents
In fact, the power to do things in organizations is critical to achieving change. Power is a crucial resource
used by change agents to influence the actions and reactions of others. The knowledgeable change agent
asks multiple power-related questions, such as: What power do I have and what are the sources of my
Sources of Power
Individual sources of power are classified into the following categories (see Table 6.1):
Positional Power
• Resides in the legitimate authority of the title and position; includes control and access to resources and the ability to
formally reward and punish organizational members. The formal right to make decisions is a major source of power.
• In today’s egalitarian world of flattened hierarchies and virtual organizations, this type of power is lessening in
effectiveness as people demand to know the “why” of things. This is most true in cultures where deference to positional
power is lower.
and to be perceived as more influential.
certification of expertise and increase one’s ability to influence.
● Information power is clout gained through the flow of facts and data: by creating, framing, redirecting, or distorting
information and by controlling who receives the information.
influences personal power.
Change Agents as “Organizational Politicians”
Change agents, like all managers, need to think of themselves as “politicians.” Defining oneself as an
organizational “politician” will suggest the need to negotiate, develop coalitions, build and use alliances,
deal with the personality of the decision maker, and using contacts and relationships to obtain vital
Table 6.2 Usage Frequency of Different Power Tactics
When Managers Influenced Superiors
When Managers Influenced Subordinates
Most Popular Tactic
Using and giving reasons
Developing coalitions
Friendliness
Bargaining
Using and giving reasons
Being assertive
Friendliness
Developing coalitions
Change Agents’ Ability to Classify Stakeholders
Understanding the positions of key players or stakeholders is essential if a change agent is to alter the
forces that resist change and strengthen those that promote change. Change agents can classify their
stakeholders along two important dimensions: readiness to change and predisposition to change.
Readiness for Change
One can think about moving each stakeholder on a change continuum from an awareness of the issues
to interest to a desire for action to taking action or supporting action on the change. One also wants to
guard against unnecessarily driving them to actively resist the change. Classifying stakeholders according
to this continuum is useful because it can guide what change tools you should use. For example, in the
Predisposition to Change
Stakeholders will vary not only in their readiness to change but also in their attitudes toward or
predisposition to change. Some individuals tend to be inherently keener about change and fall into the
Table 6.4 Individual Predispositions to Change
Individuals who seek change and want variety
Individuals who are receptive to change but are not first adopters
Research Methodology:
The author used two methods to gather information to write this teaching case. First, journal articles,
podcasts, newspaper stories, and other social media outlets were key reference sources. Information from
these sources that focused on talent reviews, power, and communication across differences were gathered
and read. Second, the author drew from her research experience on mentoring and her consulting
experience with organizations facing challenges in managing their talent review process to create a case
that is a composite of these sources.
Discussion Questions:
1. What are Patrick’s sources of power? What is his motivation for speaking up for Alicia?
• The first question to ask is what are Patrick’s sources of power. The instructor may ask class
participants to identify the various sources of power (Table 6.1). Class participants may then
apply that framework to identify Patrick’s sources of power. From the case material, it appears
that Patrick has Positional Power, but there is no conclusive evidence that he has any of the
remaining four sources.
2. What are the reasons that Patrick might choose not to advocate for Alicia?
• Patrick might choose not to advocate for Alicia because he sees that speaking up for her might
put him in danger of losing some of his power. Not Positional Power because it does not appear
that he is in danger of losing his role as an Executive Director. But, it does appear that his
Network Power and his Personality Power may be in danger of being affected. A challenge is that
we don’t know if Patrick has either Network or Personality power in his toolkit. Some of the
comments in the case suggest that he does not have very strong Network or Personality power. If
Patrick speaks up, he may squander the little Network power that he has. We don’t have enough
information to determine if Patrick has any Personality Power.
• Another reason Patrick might not speak up is because if the Male Ally Program is not really
valued by the organization, then it does not benefit him to champion Alicia’s promotion. Patrick
3. What does Patrick risk if he speaks out on her behalf?
• Patrick faces a couple of different risks. As noted in Question 2, he faces the risk that his Network
Power and Personality Power may be lessened by taking a stance that counters organizational
culture. More importantly, Patrick risks his Positional Power. If his colleagues really don’t like
his insistence on advocating for Alicia, they may move to lessen his position by negotiating a
demotion of some sort that gets him kicked out of their powerful group. This demotion may come
in many different formats. That demotion could be a transfer to a less influential position that
means that he no longer merits being in the group. The demotion could be symbolic in that he
4. What will happen if Patrick opts to say nothing?
• If Patrick opts to say nothing, Alicia is probably not going to get the promotion. There are a
number of possible outcomes from the decision to promote Alan (who probably will get the
promotion). The first is that Patrick may become disillusioned by what he sees, particularly
because he is aware of the behind-the-scene machinations. With this disillusion, Patrick may
either decide that he wants to leave and go to an organization that is a better match for his values.
Or he could decide to physically stay and mentally check out – to reduce his contributions to
5. What tensions has the launch of the Male Ally Program raised in Millennial?
• The launch of the program seems to be a begrudging response rather than a proactive strategy. It
also seems that the program is being used as an instrument to quell voices rather than a tool to
strengthen Millennial’s strategic stance. The Male Ally Program required that Millennial’s
leadership question and revises their processes of talent review and promotion. If this program is
really used, it may require that the leadership examine other systems – like the assignment of key
advancement opportunities that lead to promotions and even recruitment. The launch of the Male
Ally Program meant that a system and way of living that had been comfortable and reliable for
the leadership of Millennial was being called into question.
• Introduction of the Male Ally Program also offered a metric for interested parties to use to
determine the real commitment of Millennial to the advancement of women. If Millennial is
serious then there should be some results – more women moving up, more women feeling
supported, more women doing better in their current roles, higher degrees of satisfaction, etc.
6. How should Patrick go about advocating for Alicia?
• What is Patrick’s predisposition to change? The instructor can ask class participants to use Table
6.4 to answer this question. There is not much information to answer the question in the case;
class participants are going to need to use the data that they do have to hypothesize about where
Patrick stands in this regard. In fact, the determinants of which category Patrick falls into are
closely linked to the actions that we see him taking. The saying “Action is louder than words” is
apropos.
• After determining his motivation, Patrick should consider what his power sources to impact this
situation are. Patrick has to determine how he is going to act as an “organizational politician?”
Positional Power is not enough. If he does not have Personality Power, he won’t have time to
build it before the decision about Alicia’s promotion is determined. So, Patrick needs to utilize
that Millennial’s customer base has noticed the poor representation and there are some rumblings
of a boycott. Patrick needs to be able to make a case building on the use of Network Power.
Teaching suggestions:
The instructor may start by asking class participants for three key issues that they see operating in the
scenario. Starting with the three most salient or important issues will encourage the class to look at critical
issues and not get stuck focusing on minutiae (or minute issues) that may take the class off course. The
instructor may then gather those broad-level issues from class participants, writing them down so that
they may be fleshed out with data from the case and observations from class participants.
Power:
The instructor may ask class participants to share the sources of power with the class. To address this
question, class participants may reference the types of individual power in Table 6.1. The instructor may
then ask what sources of power does Patrick have? The case only gives enough information to explicitly
Male Ally Program:
The launch of the Male Ally program has raised a number of concerns and issues that are ripe for
discussion. The instructor can use Discussion Question 5 to guide this aspect of debriefing the case.
Millennial Culture:
The instructor can then move to Millennial’s culture to explore the impact of culture on decision-making
and adopting change. A question that instructors may use to lead into this part of the debrief is to ask class
Next Steps:
The concluding question(s) are “What should Patrick do to prepare for the upcoming meeting?” and
“What action do you think Patrick should take in the upcoming meeting?” The instructor may use either
or both of these questions to guide class participants to think about Patrick as a change agent. Discussion
6 provides some insight into how Patrick may act in his role as change agent. The instructor can ask
“What is Patrick’s predisposition to change?” Class participants will then determine the category into
which they believe that Patrick fits. In fact, it is going to be that Patrick’s actions are going to tell us
which category he is in.