Who Is Leslie Brinkman At Versutia Capital?
Case Analysis – Leslie Brinkman at Versutia Capital
Ying – Chen Lee
Hawaii Pacific University
04.08.2013
Case Summary
Leslie Brinkman is a CEO and founding partner of the hedge fund, Versutia Capital. She spent late 2002 and early 2003 assembling her team and launched the fund in early 2003. When it came to 2003 and 2004, the firm performed well. She and her team were receiving congratulation from the fund’s investors regarding Versutia’s 21% gain in 2004 versus the S&P 500 stocks index gain of 11%. However, in early April 2005, the fund had just finished its first “down” quarter, having lost 6% of its value while the S&P 5000 index had lost only 2%. Leslie thought back over each significant fund investment that had declined substantially during the first quarter. She wondered whether the firm’s performance was indicative of broader issues relating to flawed investment processes, personnel inadequacies, deficiencies in organizational design or shortcomings in her management style. Before …show more content…
Leslie Brinkman started her business, she experienced three different types of company cultures. These experiences taught her that personal connections are important to a company. She created her own way of the process of designing the firm and the resulting team dynamics. In this case, Leslie must decide whether to re-design the firm and/or change her management style in order to address the performance issues that Versutia Capital is facing.
Analysis of the Case
Evaluation of the Processes
In “the leadership challenge,” James Kouzes and Barry Posner demonstrated what is expected of leaders, what abilities leaders should or should not have and the status and influence bestowed on leaders as a result of the culture forces in which leaders function. In this case, Leslie Brinkman was affected by her own experience and essentially built her own religion; however, her experience was not sufficient to create a complete structure of a company culture as it seemed. As a result, we probably can say that Leslie, her personal culture, and her personality had an influence on her company’s performance. Even if we have a perfect system, it does not a well-found culture or that the company will performance well.
Leslie Brinkman
To be performing a project and adapting rules, we need to choose an efficient way for reducing consumption. By this idea, we can evaluate Leslie Brinkman and she had a great performance. Leslie had a strong personality and she arranged the company on her own. She had a clear idea of what a company should be. Before she started her business, she experienced three different types of company cultures. This experience really helped her to build the company and affected her choice. She also did a good job to set people in the right places, selecting people based on specific qualifications, personality types, and aspirations. In addition, Leslie displaced strong characteristics of aggression, positivity and obstinance. These characteristics push performance well overall.
According to the level 5 hierarchy leadership, Leslie Brinkman is about level 3, competent leader, by which she organized people and resource toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives. She selected and interviewed workers and put them in the correct place, but she apparently failed to accommodate and consider her employees. As a partially autocratic manager, her workers did not have a pleasant place. Under the pressure from Leslie, they dreamt Leslie Brinkman ‘s dream instead of their own dream of company.
In addition, Leslie made great amounts of Versutia Capital maxims which also meant that she made constraints that implied to these maxims. In other words, it is a frame of thinking. Also, how to execute this relies on a leader’s personality and quality of leadership. As previously mentioned, personalities do affect leadership. Leslie tried to do everything well and every decision was made by her practically.
In this case, we can find clues to that how Leslie Brinkman made her decision to develope Versutia Capital. At first, she geot the idea from what she saw and learned. She saw that most successful people had partnership mindsets and a team orientation. Since then she decided to create a different team orientation. Through her previous working experience and knowledge, Leslie believed that people do better when they are happy. People enjoy coming to work, having freedom and dreaming about companies in nice cultures where there are pleasant atmospheres. She also focused on people’s personalities in order to have a long term colleague, who is capable of learning, ambitious and has good work ethic instead of experience. For Leslie, it seems that she was looking for a person just like “mini Leslie.” Applicants who she wanted to hire also needed to be open minded, flexible, willing to think outside the box and willing to work long hours.
Versutia Capital
Technically, Versutia Capital is an effective company which we can see from its successful start in 2003. By the end of 2004, a 21% gain was provided to Versutia’s investors which was 10% more that the S&P 500 index performance. It is obvious that the company has an effective way to perform and accomplish works and get feedback in a short time period overall. As previously mentioned, Leslie selected employees deliberately and created a collectivistic atmosphere. Furthermore, the company personnel were working 70 hours a week. Professionals and the CEO of the company travelled a lot and always brought new information to the table. During this time, the company had concentrative and high quality human resources operating at high efficiency. Even though the company faced loss in first quarter of 2005, the way they were working was efficient. The company lost 6% on its operations while S&P 500 had only 2 % of losses. The hedge fund industry has a potential risk, even though their job is to avoid risk and to hedge the portfolio. We cannot ignore the effect of marketing risks, as it seems to be the reason for loss. For the internal part, the working atmosphere can change and strengthen.
Vesutia Capital had a strong structure of culture but it was stressful and inflexible.
Leslie built a complete idea of culture, she ruled almost everything from the workers project to their personal ideas. Undoubtedly, this is an enclosure and it made people feel stressed. In this case, it was mentioned that the atmosphere at Versutia was frantic and exciting. The working space was relatively cramped. “Phones were constantly ringing. Research analysts frequently went into Leslie’s office to review a model or new stock idea. There were ongoing interactions between Leslie and the trading desk”. One of the research analysts remembered, “You could always hear the trader yelling out stuff to Leslie and Leslie yelling out to the trader asking questions about stick movements or shouting orders” Another analyst described the work environment as it was a very stressful job. (Leslie Brinkman at Versutia
Capital,2007,p.3)
In Versutia Capital, Leslie also created a “buddy system” in which whenever possible either Wilson or Leslie would attend key company meetings along with one of the industry analysts. While teamwork was emphasized, practically analysts typically did not have much time to help each other because of the workload each had to handle. Another aspect was that it showed that Leslie held the credits. Staff members were particularly sensitive to Leslie’s view of their individual performance. They knew that, ultimately, Leslie had 100% responsibility for compensation decisions. In the situation, the staff did a good job for Leslie instead for themselves.
Evaluation of Courses of Action Taken in the Case By the harsh and stressful atmosphere, workers lose their ambition and initiative to do their work literally. A tense rope can be cut easily. Leslie got a message from her friend and co-owner, Jim Smith, “You are great, but you would be even better if you relaxed.” For external factors, Leslie can adjust the way that she got along with her employees. She connected with her workers by selecting in specific condition to engage them. But she forgot to build a bridge and then walk the bridge often. Leslie asked her employees work to longer hours and that added pressure on them, in which they had to think about the work even in their free time. Even the hedge fund industry has a potential risk; excessive pressure does not help to increase performance. In the company, Leslie got all the credits that she responsible for everything and decided everything. In contrast, employees will get more responsibilities and see the job as their own business if Leslie can release those credits. Leslie needs to listen to what she tells her workers because they are the people who help her be successful.
According to these ideas, Leslie needs to communicate with her followers, but not only for works firstly. Arranging the break time, employees can have completely break during this time. In other words, this breaking place and time are just like communicating space. Second, giving employee more credits. Employees can make their own decision by themselves, and Leslie will not intervene. By the specific requirement, we already know that employees Leslie hired are professional and skillful. In this situation, it is reliable that they can do work themselves. And Leslie can make bonus-penalty by results. Also, a personal attitude is what Leslie needs to adjust. Leslie is too stressful to control everything. Even she creates new policy and makes it more flexible, she still needs to adjust her own way to perform. Overall, Versutia Capital needs a more flexible atmosphere and Leslie needs to release stress from her and her workers.
Conclusion
In this case, it is obvious that learning how to perform and organize a team is a crucial process in a team culture. Leslie had a complete idea of a structure of culture, but she was still dejected by the setback of company performance. Even if we have a complete rule or other ideas for performance, this does not mean the result will be perfect. It depends on how you do and what do you choose to do your way. Similarly, people learn skills and knowledge in the same group, but they develop distinct ways to express themselves. People are always a crucial, but tough issue for management, we need to build a bridge and make connections. We also need to find our own way and adapt as a whole team. It is obvious that character a leader has is a crucial point to a leadership, it decides how a leadership is going to be. Cultures affect a person’s characters and then these characters affect the atmosphere of a group. All conditions make influence to leaderships. And how to make performance better is related to the satisfaction from workers. This is a reason why making followers feel comfortable in this place and motivating them by enlist others are so important.
References
Julie battilana & Rob Kaplan (2007). Leslie Brinkman at Versutia Capital. Harvard Business School.
(2010). HB R 'S 10 MUST READS - On Leadership. Harvard Business Review Press.
Ying – Chen Lee
Hawaii Pacific University
04.08.2013
Case Summary
Leslie Brinkman is a CEO and founding partner of the hedge fund, Versutia Capital. She spent late 2002 and early 2003 assembling her team and launched the fund in early 2003. When it came to 2003 and 2004, the firm performed well. She and her team were receiving congratulation from the fund’s investors regarding Versutia’s 21% gain in 2004 versus the S&P 500 stocks index gain of 11%. However, in early April 2005, the fund had just finished its first “down” quarter, having lost 6% of its value while the S&P 5000 index had lost only 2%. Leslie thought back over each significant fund investment that had declined substantially during the first quarter. She wondered whether the firm’s performance was indicative of broader issues relating to flawed investment processes, personnel inadequacies, deficiencies in organizational design or shortcomings in her management style. Before …show more content…
Leslie Brinkman started her business, she experienced three different types of company cultures. These experiences taught her that personal connections are important to a company. She created her own way of the process of designing the firm and the resulting team dynamics. In this case, Leslie must decide whether to re-design the firm and/or change her management style in order to address the performance issues that Versutia Capital is facing.
Analysis of the Case
Evaluation of the Processes
In “the leadership challenge,” James Kouzes and Barry Posner demonstrated what is expected of leaders, what abilities leaders should or should not have and the status and influence bestowed on leaders as a result of the culture forces in which leaders function. In this case, Leslie Brinkman was affected by her own experience and essentially built her own religion; however, her experience was not sufficient to create a complete structure of a company culture as it seemed. As a result, we probably can say that Leslie, her personal culture, and her personality had an influence on her company’s performance. Even if we have a perfect system, it does not a well-found culture or that the company will performance well.
Leslie Brinkman
To be performing a project and adapting rules, we need to choose an efficient way for reducing consumption. By this idea, we can evaluate Leslie Brinkman and she had a great performance. Leslie had a strong personality and she arranged the company on her own. She had a clear idea of what a company should be. Before she started her business, she experienced three different types of company cultures. This experience really helped her to build the company and affected her choice. She also did a good job to set people in the right places, selecting people based on specific qualifications, personality types, and aspirations. In addition, Leslie displaced strong characteristics of aggression, positivity and obstinance. These characteristics push performance well overall.
According to the level 5 hierarchy leadership, Leslie Brinkman is about level 3, competent leader, by which she organized people and resource toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives. She selected and interviewed workers and put them in the correct place, but she apparently failed to accommodate and consider her employees. As a partially autocratic manager, her workers did not have a pleasant place. Under the pressure from Leslie, they dreamt Leslie Brinkman ‘s dream instead of their own dream of company.
In addition, Leslie made great amounts of Versutia Capital maxims which also meant that she made constraints that implied to these maxims. In other words, it is a frame of thinking. Also, how to execute this relies on a leader’s personality and quality of leadership. As previously mentioned, personalities do affect leadership. Leslie tried to do everything well and every decision was made by her practically.
In this case, we can find clues to that how Leslie Brinkman made her decision to develope Versutia Capital. At first, she geot the idea from what she saw and learned. She saw that most successful people had partnership mindsets and a team orientation. Since then she decided to create a different team orientation. Through her previous working experience and knowledge, Leslie believed that people do better when they are happy. People enjoy coming to work, having freedom and dreaming about companies in nice cultures where there are pleasant atmospheres. She also focused on people’s personalities in order to have a long term colleague, who is capable of learning, ambitious and has good work ethic instead of experience. For Leslie, it seems that she was looking for a person just like “mini Leslie.” Applicants who she wanted to hire also needed to be open minded, flexible, willing to think outside the box and willing to work long hours.
Versutia Capital
Technically, Versutia Capital is an effective company which we can see from its successful start in 2003. By the end of 2004, a 21% gain was provided to Versutia’s investors which was 10% more that the S&P 500 index performance. It is obvious that the company has an effective way to perform and accomplish works and get feedback in a short time period overall. As previously mentioned, Leslie selected employees deliberately and created a collectivistic atmosphere. Furthermore, the company personnel were working 70 hours a week. Professionals and the CEO of the company travelled a lot and always brought new information to the table. During this time, the company had concentrative and high quality human resources operating at high efficiency. Even though the company faced loss in first quarter of 2005, the way they were working was efficient. The company lost 6% on its operations while S&P 500 had only 2 % of losses. The hedge fund industry has a potential risk, even though their job is to avoid risk and to hedge the portfolio. We cannot ignore the effect of marketing risks, as it seems to be the reason for loss. For the internal part, the working atmosphere can change and strengthen.
Vesutia Capital had a strong structure of culture but it was stressful and inflexible.
Leslie built a complete idea of culture, she ruled almost everything from the workers project to their personal ideas. Undoubtedly, this is an enclosure and it made people feel stressed. In this case, it was mentioned that the atmosphere at Versutia was frantic and exciting. The working space was relatively cramped. “Phones were constantly ringing. Research analysts frequently went into Leslie’s office to review a model or new stock idea. There were ongoing interactions between Leslie and the trading desk”. One of the research analysts remembered, “You could always hear the trader yelling out stuff to Leslie and Leslie yelling out to the trader asking questions about stick movements or shouting orders” Another analyst described the work environment as it was a very stressful job. (Leslie Brinkman at Versutia
Capital,2007,p.3)
In Versutia Capital, Leslie also created a “buddy system” in which whenever possible either Wilson or Leslie would attend key company meetings along with one of the industry analysts. While teamwork was emphasized, practically analysts typically did not have much time to help each other because of the workload each had to handle. Another aspect was that it showed that Leslie held the credits. Staff members were particularly sensitive to Leslie’s view of their individual performance. They knew that, ultimately, Leslie had 100% responsibility for compensation decisions. In the situation, the staff did a good job for Leslie instead for themselves.
Evaluation of Courses of Action Taken in the Case By the harsh and stressful atmosphere, workers lose their ambition and initiative to do their work literally. A tense rope can be cut easily. Leslie got a message from her friend and co-owner, Jim Smith, “You are great, but you would be even better if you relaxed.” For external factors, Leslie can adjust the way that she got along with her employees. She connected with her workers by selecting in specific condition to engage them. But she forgot to build a bridge and then walk the bridge often. Leslie asked her employees work to longer hours and that added pressure on them, in which they had to think about the work even in their free time. Even the hedge fund industry has a potential risk; excessive pressure does not help to increase performance. In the company, Leslie got all the credits that she responsible for everything and decided everything. In contrast, employees will get more responsibilities and see the job as their own business if Leslie can release those credits. Leslie needs to listen to what she tells her workers because they are the people who help her be successful.
According to these ideas, Leslie needs to communicate with her followers, but not only for works firstly. Arranging the break time, employees can have completely break during this time. In other words, this breaking place and time are just like communicating space. Second, giving employee more credits. Employees can make their own decision by themselves, and Leslie will not intervene. By the specific requirement, we already know that employees Leslie hired are professional and skillful. In this situation, it is reliable that they can do work themselves. And Leslie can make bonus-penalty by results. Also, a personal attitude is what Leslie needs to adjust. Leslie is too stressful to control everything. Even she creates new policy and makes it more flexible, she still needs to adjust her own way to perform. Overall, Versutia Capital needs a more flexible atmosphere and Leslie needs to release stress from her and her workers.
Conclusion
In this case, it is obvious that learning how to perform and organize a team is a crucial process in a team culture. Leslie had a complete idea of a structure of culture, but she was still dejected by the setback of company performance. Even if we have a complete rule or other ideas for performance, this does not mean the result will be perfect. It depends on how you do and what do you choose to do your way. Similarly, people learn skills and knowledge in the same group, but they develop distinct ways to express themselves. People are always a crucial, but tough issue for management, we need to build a bridge and make connections. We also need to find our own way and adapt as a whole team. It is obvious that character a leader has is a crucial point to a leadership, it decides how a leadership is going to be. Cultures affect a person’s characters and then these characters affect the atmosphere of a group. All conditions make influence to leaderships. And how to make performance better is related to the satisfaction from workers. This is a reason why making followers feel comfortable in this place and motivating them by enlist others are so important.
References
Julie battilana & Rob Kaplan (2007). Leslie Brinkman at Versutia Capital. Harvard Business School.
(2010). HB R 'S 10 MUST READS - On Leadership. Harvard Business Review Press.