Wrong Moves

HBR CASE STUDY
|Into the Fray |

|Contents |
|The Rumors |
|The Competitor |
|The Family |
|The Opportunity |
|The Dilemma |
|Michael is in a wonderful |
|bargaining position |
|If Michael's going to |
|continue to move up at this |
|company, he's probably going |
|to need to go overseas |
|Smart managers know that a |
|network of connections is |
|critical to their success |
|The dynamic that Michael |
|considers "politics" is |
|merely a normal state of |
|affairs and not necessarily |
|an unhealthy aspect of |
|organizational life |

Rumors are flying and knives are out at Lafleur SA after a key executive resigns. Michael just wants to work hard and get ahead -- does he have to play politics, too?
HBR's cases, which are fictional, present common managerial dilemmas and offer concrete solutions from experts.
"PSST, PSST, PSST." That's all Michael Feldstein heard as he walked down the hall toward his office. "Psst, psst, psst." "What did people talk about before last week?" he asked himself. "What more can we possibly say about it?”
"It" was the sudden and mysterious resignation of Lucien Beaumont, Lafleur SA's president of U.S. operations. Everyone was imagining the worst. Financial misdeeds? Illness? An illicit affair? The rumors were flying fast and furious, each more lurid than the next. Less entertaining, though even more distracting, was the speculation about who would get Lucien's job -- and what would happen to everybody else, once that question was settled. Everyone wanted to back the right horse.
It wasn't a simple race. Lafleur was a major international beverage company that had grown rapidly through acquisitions. Michael, the global category