Question

MINDING THE STORE
On January 1, Ruth Cummings was formally named branch manager for the Saks Fifth Avenue store in a suburb of Denver. Her boss, Ken Hoffman, gave her this assignment on her first day: “Ruth, I’m putting you in charge of this store. Your job will be to run it so that it becomes one of the best stores in the system. I have a lot of confidence in you, so don’t let me down.” One of the first things Ruth did was to hire an administrative assistant to handle inventories. Because this was such an
important part of the job, she agreed to pay her assistant slightly more than the top retail clerks were making. She felt
that having an administrative assistant would free her to handle marketing, sales, and personnel matters—areas she felt
were crucial if the store was to be a success.

Within the week, however, she received a call from Hoffman:“Say, Ruth, I heard that you hired an administrative assistant
to handle inventories. Don’t you think that is a bit risky? Besides, I think paying an assistant more than your top
salesclerk is damaging to morale in the store. I wish you had cleared this with me before you made the move. It sets a bad
precedent for the other stores, and it makes me look like I don’t know what is going on in the branches.”

Just before Easter, Ruth was approached in the store by one of the salesclerks. A customer had asked to charge approximately $3,000 worth of china as a gift for his wife. He had been a customer of the store for several years and Ruth had seen him on several occasions, but store rules indicated that no charge could be made for more than $1,000 for any reason. She told the customer that she was not authorized to okay a charge of that amount, but that if he would visit the main store in Denver, maybe arrangements could be made.

Three weeks later, Ruth appeared on a local noontime talk show to discuss new trends in fashion. She had worked hard to make contact with the hosts of the show, and she felt that public exposure like this would increase the visibility of her store.
Although the TV spot lasted only 10 minutes, she was pleased with her performance and with the chance to get public exposure. Later that night at home, she received another phone call from
Hoffman: “Don’t you know the policy of Saks? Any TV appearances made on behalf of the store are to be cleared through
the main office. Normally, we like to have representatives from the main store appear on these kinds of shows because they can do a better job of plugging our merchandise. It’s too bad that you didn’t notify someone of your intentions. This could be
very embarrassing for me.”

Later in the day, an irate Hoffman called again: “What in the world are you thinking about, Ruth? Today we had a customer
come into the main store and say that you wouldn’t make a sale to him because the charge was too much. Do you know how
long he has been a customer of ours? Do you know how much he spends in the store every year? I certainly hope we have not lost him as a customer because of your blunder. This makes me very upset. You’ve just got to learn to use your head.”

Ruth thought about the conversation for several days and finally decided that she needed to see Ken Hoffman. She called
his secretary to schedule an appointment for the following day.

1.Please describe what problems emerged in Saks Fifth Avenue store?
Give examples to support your answers.

.2What delegation skills Ken Hoffman might have violated so that the problems arose?

3. What should Ken Hoffman and Ruth Cummings discuss in their
meeting? Identify specific agenda items that should be raised?

4. If you were an outside consultant attending the meeting, what advice
would you give Ken Hoffman? What advice would you give Ruth
Cummings?

5.Do your group members have similar delegating problems in the real
work life? Please share with your classmates about the problems, and
how the problems were or were not solved eventually.

Answer 1

1. The problem is that of communication between ruth and her boss which is not clear. Also, Ruth does not seem to know the policies of the store and is prone to making important decisions without notifying anyone.

2.Ken Hoffman has delegated the skills of hiring the team to ruth which is not proper as the department head is always involved in the hiring process.

3. Ken Hoffman and ruth should clearly discuss the roles and responsibilities that are expected of ruth and how far she can take individual decisions. They should sit and define the limits of her managerial role and job responsibilities.

4. I would give ken Hoffman the advice to do all the hiring himself and tell ruth to inform him if there is any need for more people for work. There should be a proper justification to create new positions. To Ruth cummings, advice should be given to learn about policies and rules of the organization and to keep her superiors informed about decisions. Interactions between both is the key.

5.Yes, many times juniors are not informing seniors about the work done and justification for their actions. This often result in minor conflicts. It is solved by constantly engaging with each other and keep informed about the job done.