Criminal justice system case study analysis

Leadership Applications

Key Issues

The key issue of this case is that Justin is attempting to motivate his managers but not getting the reception he desires. This is happening for a couple of reasons. One of the main reasons is that he is not providing managers with rewards that matter to them. When a person wants to reward someone for behavior in a management capacity, he or she has to provide those individuals with something that matters to them or that they need, want, or value (Carver & Scheier, 2001). People all have different personalities, and they are at different places in their lives (Cervone, et al., 2006).

Root Causes

The most likely contributory factors in this case are Justin's lack of understanding of what his managers really want in the way of rewards, and his managers' lack of desire (or ability) to properly motivate others in order to earn incentives. By finding what matters to them and working to provide them with the proper incentives and reward, managers will be more likely to respond in a favorable manner. Another contributing factor in this case is the fact that Justin is attempting to motivate the managers with incentives, when it is the behavior of the cashiers and order takers that he really wants to see changed. The entire set-up of the incentive program is working against him.

Possible Solutions

One possible solution is to find incentives that the managers are really interested in working for, so they will put in more effort. Another solution would be to offer incentives directly to the cashiers and order takers, bypassing the managers and appealing to those whose behavior needs to change.

Advantages & Disadvantages

The advantage of changing incentives is that managers may work harder to earn them. The disadvantage is that it may not be possible for Justin to find incentives that appeal to the majority of managers, so they may not work much harder to get them. There is also an advantage to going straight to the cashiers and order takers, in that it cuts out the middle man and gives incentives to the people whose behavior Justin wants to change. The disadvantage to that is that managers have no desire to help the cashiers or order takers change and earn incentives, since they get nothing in return.

Final Recommendations

I recommend that Justin offer the store managers other forms of recognition that may be more appealing to them, and that he set up a program that rewards them and the cashiers and order takers who help meet goals. That keeps everyone working together as a team in order to make the business better.

Questions From the Book

1. Justin needs to do more research on what motivates people, and who he really should be trying to motivate in this case. What he is doing is not working, and it would not make sense to keep moving forward with it.