Question

Alan Smith was the senior manager of a marketing and sales team at a medical devices company. Since his team was all together at a large off-site company event for three days (something rare given their travel schedules), he had pulled them together to discuss an important hire. The team needed to choose someone for a key management role with core responsibilities, such as attracting new business and promoting overall revenue growth.
After sorting through a large pool of applicants, he and several others on the team had narrowed down the field to two well-qualified internal candidates. Smith was now meeting with this team and with his own boss present to decide which of the two to hire. Even though Smith was not the most senior person there, he was clearly the one authorized to make the decision. He had decided at the outset to be in “listening” mode so as not to potentially bias the team toward his viewpoint, but rather to let them speak freely.
The first candidate was Mita Anand, who had excellent performance metrics. She was known to be a broad thinker, very outgoing, and willing to speak her mind.
The second candidate was John Merriweather. He was also a consistently strong performer, and he had a good reputation throughout the company. Culturally, he would be an easy fit with the rest of the team as well, having a similar temperament, interests, and points of view on most matters.
For the first few minutes of the discussion, various team members spoke about their experiences with, and opinions of, one or both candidates. Because both were unambiguously strong performers on the metrics used in their current roles, the discussion was so far confirming the choice of these two as the finalists, but wasn’t moving the needle clearly in the direction of either Anand or Merriweather. Until, that is, Elliott Bowers (a team manager who would be at an equivalent level with the candidate eventually chosen) spoke up.
“I’m surprised no one has mentioned what happened last night, since I know many of you noticed it,” Bowers began. “At the party last night, Mita did that wild group karaoke on stage. I heard she stayed out all night. I just don’t think it’s appropriate for a manager in our industry—let alone a mother—to behave like that.”
“Yes, it was pretty noticeable,” agreed another team member, who then asked, “But there weren’t any clients in the room, were there?”
“No, but I just don’t know if I can really trust her decision-making if that is how she behaves,” Bowers replied.A few others nodded their head in apparent agreement, but no one picked up on Bowers’s thread directly. Instead, the next comment moved back to a question about whose specific background experiences might be more valuable in the managerial role. Although Smith didn’t ask for a straw vote to see where people were at, he sensed that the group had begun to lean toward Merriweather.
After a few more minutes of discussion where nothing particularly differentiating was said, Smith sensed the conversation had reached a point of diminishing return, and thus brought the meeting to a close. He thanked everyone for their contribution, and said he would let them know his decision soon.

Question 2 :
What is your opinion on the value of behaviors that are a bit outside the form as stated in the case (focus on existing team culture and Smiths behavior)?

Answer 1

In my opinion, the team focussed more on cultural integrity, common interests, and similar points of view rather than focusing on the suitability of skillsets and experience required for the job. In my opinion, Mita being someone who had excellent performance metrics, a broad thinker, very outgoing, and willing to speak her mind, she posed a threat to Bowers since she could overshadow his performance, hence Bowers acted in a manner so as to highlight the negatives of Mita which was noticed and accorded by the team members as well and the team got influenced by Bowers' analogy and unanimously decided to pick Merriweather for the job. However Smith's behaviour was rational and his demeanor was more about listening rather than speaking on the matter so as to get everyone's opinion.