Joline Godfrey Case

Joline Godfrey Case

In the case of Joline Godfrey and the Polaroid Corporation, Joline relied on several key leaders to help her become successful at Polaroid. In her early career at Polaroid she learned how to gain "political access" (Greiner & Schein, 1989, p. 31). The way Joline was able to work the organizations political system was by establishing credibility with Rebelsky and Sudbey by working "in a variety of projects that exposed to her to upper-level management" ( Hill, Conrad, & Kamprath, 1992, p. 1). With her actions and power strategy she was able to work her way towards the top of the organization with a "professional credibility" (Greiner & Schein, 1989, p. 31). However, as Joline continued her career at the Polaroid organization, I noticed that she lacked a power strategy because she relied on key leaders to help her make decisions. With Joline's dependability on these key leaders she enabled herself from learning how to manage projects, lead co-workers or make decisions. With her lack of a power strategy and lack of knowledge on managing she was facing a dilemma in making her project successful. Then as Joline focused on her project he did not take in consideration Polaroid's business strategy because she got used to having Sudbey supporting her visions and helping her to make important decisions. Therefore, Joline should have realized she cannot rely on others to make help her make most of her decisions she should have took that knowledge and built on top of it. Also, she should have followed the organizations business strategy instead of working the political system to get ahead.

References:

Greiner, L.E., Schein, V. E. (1989). Power and Organizational Development: Mobilizing power to implement change. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Hill, L.A., Conrad, M.B., & Kamprath, N. (March, 1992). Joline Godfrey and the Polaroid Corp. (A). Harvard Business Review, 15.