1.From Van den Bosch’s point of view, what was his intention insending the email? 2.What was the effect of editing the email to “stick to thefacts”? 3.How do you think Menendez will react to the...

IMD091 I N T E R N A T I O N A L v. 26.01.2009 JOHANNES VAN DEN BOSCH SENDS AN EMAIL Professor Joe DiStefano After having had several email exchanges with his Mexican prepared this mini-case as a counterpart over several weeks without getting the expected basis for class discussion actions and results, Johannes van den Bosch was getting a rather than to illustrate either tongue-lashing from his British MNC client, who was furious at effective or ineffective handling the lack of progress. Van den Bosch, in the Rotterdam office of of a business situation. BigFourFirm, and his colleague in the Mexico City office, Pablo Menendez, were both seasoned veterans, and van den Bosch The mini-case reports events as couldn’t understand the lack of responsiveness. they occurred. The email exchanges in both cases are A week earlier, the client, Malcolm Smythe-Jones, had visited reported verbatim, except for his office to express his mounting frustration. But this morning the names and dates, which he had called with a stream of verbal abuse. His patience was have been changed. Professor exhausted. DiStefano acknowledges with thanks the cooperation of Feeling angry himself, van den Bosch composed a strongly “Johannes van den Bosch” in worded message to Menendez, and then decided to cool off. A half hour later, he edited it to “stick to the facts” while still providing this information and his generous permission to use communicating the appropriate level of urgency. As he clicked the material for executive to send the message, he hoped that it would finally provoke development. some action to assuage his client with the reports he had been waiting for. He reread the email, and as he saved it to the mounting record in Smythe-Jones’s file, he thought, “I’m going to be happy when this project is over for another year!” Copyright © 2000 by IMD - International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland. Not to be used or reproduced without...