A Question of Appearances

Executive Summary

Ever since I can remember, I have been told about what is right and what is wrong. It simply started with my parents telling me to be nice and respectful to everyone and people will be nice in return. I did my best to follow these guidelines, but I soon realized that people are not always that nice in return. People have different values and beliefs that might not always be similar to that of your own. As I grew up, I started working and came across similar issues in the workplace. I realized that some people would do whatever it takes to better themselves in the company, whether it is giving misleading information or bettering themselves by using another person to get there. These types of situations are common to arise in almost every business these days. It comes down to, what is right and what is wrong. But making the decision between right and wrong isn't as simple as it seems. Lots of factors go into the situation and make it difficult to choose the best outcome. An example of a situation is in the article, "A Question of Appearances", where Maura, an HR director for a fast-growing information technology company, has to make a decision that could either benefit the company great financially, or cause a very valuable employee to quit.

Background

Techno Inc. is an up and coming company in the information technology industry. Jack Ridge is Techno's Vice President for sales and marketing. He has been working very hard to sell a major contract to a company called Apex Co. Sealing the deal would mean a multimillion-dollar contract with Apex Co. This would be huge financially for Techno Inc. and this is why Jack is going to do everything in his power to seal this deal he has been working on. Jack is fairly confident, but there is just one part of the deal he is uncertain about. "Apex executives impressed on him that the company is very proactive about the diversity of its workforce and likes its vendors to reflect the same commitment" ("A question of," 2002). Jack realized that his sales team does not reflect this diversity that Apex Co. is looking for. This is where James Tellis comes into the picture. James is a key player in Techno's research department. He knows the company and technology very well and has begun recent projects that he knows will prevent him from ever working on Apex's contract. So why James? James is an African American man. Jack believes that by having James present in the meeting, the contract with Apex would be guaranteed because diversity is present. James, on the other hand, knows that he would only be sitting in the meeting to show diversity because he is an African American. He knows that he will not be asked to work on the Apex project and therefore does not want to attend the meeting. If forced to attend, James would most likely quit. HR director Maura is in the middle