Overheard at the Office

Abstract

Note: This case contains language that some people may find offensive. It is left exactly as it was spoken in the real situation portrayed precisely because it is pertinent to how the situation affected those involved.“Overheard at the Office,” based on a true story, presents the case of an African-American woman who works as an accountant for the league office of the team owners of one of the four major US professional sports. One day, she is yelled at offensively by a team owner, who mistook her for a players' union employee, perhaps because the players and their union staff are predominantly African-American, in contrast to the majority white team owners and their staff. She has to decide whether and how to respond.The case is designed to surface students' instinctive decision-making tendencies. Thus, it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses.The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, ethics, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, implicit bias, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education. Excerpt UVA-OB-1212 May 10, 2018 Overheard at the Office Laura Cooper, an African-American woman in her twenties and a recent graduate of an elite MBA program, worked in the league office for the team owners in one of the four major US professional sports. Her role was accounting-focused—for example, she helped to comprehend the financial position of each team, and of the association as a whole, in order to do things like establish team salary caps (as a percentage of total revenue). In this role, she traveled around the United States to the different team headquarters with the players' association auditor, Noah Jarrold (who was also African-American), while he checked the accounting books of each team. Thus, while Cooper and Jarrold visited teams' headquarters together, they were employed by different parties representing different interests in the audit. The players' association functioned as a union for all players, collectively bargaining for pay and benefits. Its staff was predominantly African-American, as were most of the players, in contrast to the majority white team owners and their staffs. Jarrold worked to ensure that the team owners were not hiding revenue or otherwise manipulating the calculations in ways that would hold down the players' salary caps. Cooper's role, on the other hand, was to make sure both sides adhered to the collective bargaining agreement and to protect the integrity of the business as a whole. As an observer of the audit, she ensured, for example, that Jarrold was not counting inappropriate revenue toward the salary cap. She was also there to raise any red flags back at headquarters, if necessary, about the audits. . . .