“Jensen Shoes”
Case Analysis What was Brooks' perception of Kravitz's abilities, attitudes and motivations? Lyndon Brooks’ perception of Jane Kravitz’s abilities was initially good. Prior to being assigned to her team, Brooks knew of Jane from other work, and she had made a good first impression. Although somewhat dismayed by what seemed to be a demotion to Brooks, he was excited for the opportunity to begin anew and prove himself, and working for Kravitz was fine with him. However, beginning in Kravitz’s first staff meeting, Brooks felt as though he had been stereotyped as a minority. Seeing that his first assignment at Jensen Shoes was working on the African American and Latino lines, even though he had no professional …show more content…

Jane also felt that he lacked motivation and needed constant motivation/recognition in order to complete the assignments.
What did Brooks do wrong during the progression of the case? Brooks did many things wrong throughout the case, but those errors stem from communication failures and, in the end, an inability to properly perceive his boss’ situation, which he would have been able to do better had he communicated with her. Brooks failed to communicate throughout the case: he failed to communicate with his first boss, Chuck, about his strategic objectives; he failed to communicate when he felt that he was under-resourced, again, under Chuck; he failed to communicate with Chuck regarding his feedback about his strategic objectives; he failed to properly communicate with his new boss, Jane, regarding his concerns over his new strategic objectives; he failed to communicate with his management, both Jane and Chuck, about the priority of his special project from the executive VP; and the list truly goes on and on regarding communication. In the end, he failed to learn from his first communication mistakes with Chuck and make the same mistakes again with Jane. Had he properly communicated with Jane, I believe he would have been better situated to perceive the urgency of the project he was working on for Jane. By the time he was able to realize how much pressure Jane was under,