Mike Miller Case

Mike Miller Summary

The case study of Mike Miller, a Harvard MBA student, details the situations that Mike Miller went through working for Frontier Finance Corporation. Mike decided to work there after contemplating some of the things he decided he needed to facilitate his life. He needed a job that would be close to his family and could help him pay off his loans. He also wanted a company that would provide vast advancement. After working there for a while he noticed some disturbing things happening within the office. He noticed that the so-called "leader" was someone who made ran things instead of giving people a chance. After being involved in an incident with Texas operation systems, Mike realized that upper level management didn't care about the well being of its employees. Once promoted to a new management position Mike realized that he was having problems with the company. His colleagues were not on the same page as him, he didn't have trust with most, and he couldn't rely on many.

The primary issue discussed in the overall case was that Mike, although he had just graduated from Harvard Business School, and thought he was a well-trained educated employee, could not adapt to the aggressive and somewhat competitive work environment he was put into. Also he couldn't deal well with the management undermining employee's wants and needs and not being able to be a part of the organizations procedures. The main cause of the issue was the upper lever managers and "leaders" of Frontier.

The actions taken by the company to fix the issues at hand were to get rid of the wrong people and to "buy" the right ones. They had to find new leaders who they thought wouldn't create problems with the employees and lead better change within the company. What should have been done before this should have been what is called a "fair process". Everyone should have came together to talk about the main issues and see if a change could have been developed between all of them. The company was not able to develop a good "systems thinking" approach that could have been applied to the company. Many were following the "I am my position" learning disability, especially the managers, were not doing the right job in leading. Instead they were being who they thought they had to be, aggressive and unfair bosses who wouldn't listen to the wants and needs of their employees.