Mini Case Study

Mini Case Study

Consider this situation:

Jared Watts is a manager at Global Enterprises Inc. Watts has been recently assigned the account that deals with relations with Euro International Inc., their European partner, an account previously run by a colleague who has since left the business. He knows that his colleague kept in contact with this partner very frequently, mainly via email, so Watts emails them to inform them of the account manager change and introduce himself. Since they have been such long-time partners, the managers at the EII wants to meet with Watts for a lunch at the European offices to get acquainted with his new team. Watts is unaware of what to expect, so he asks another colleague who simply tells him that the European partner holds relaxed meetings and not to worry. Because of this, Watts decides to dress casually, and go with the flow of information as it comes about in the meeting so that he doesn’t seem to rehearsed on what he wants to say. He doesn’t know much about the company and its operations, but figures that he will get all the information he needs from this meeting. When he arrives at the meeting, he is unsure of why everyone tried to kiss him when they shook hands, and feels horribly underdressed for the occasion.

What did Watts do wrong?

How could he have avoided these mistakes?