CASE STUDY: New starter at Supreme Life Insurance
案例研究： Supreme Life Insurance 的新人

Jamie Andrews had recently completed a business studies degree and was now employed as a management trainee in Supreme Life Insurance, a major insurance company which specialized in over-the-phone and online selling of insurance policies for contents, home, holiday, and motor insurance. Jamie was sure that he would soon be on his career path to senior management. He had graduated with a first-class honours degree at a prestigious university and had prided himself in always being able to devise novel solutions to problems which others found perplexing. The personality test which he had taken as part of the selection process for the trainee manager’s position had noted that he was ‘conscientious, does not suffer fools gladly, results-driven but could be impatient, highly intelligent in abstract concepts, could be outspoken’.
杰米·安德鲁斯 (Jamie Andrews) 最近完成了商业研究学位，现在受雇于 Supreme Life Insurance 担任管理培训生，这是一家专门从事通过电话和在线销售财产保险、家庭保险、假期保险和汽车保险的大型保险公司。 。杰米确信他很快就会走上高级管理层的职业道路。他毕业于一所著名大学，获得一等荣誉学位，并为自己总是能够为其他人感到困惑的问题设计出新颖的解决方案而感到自豪。作为实习经理职位选拔过程的一部分，他进行的性格测试表明，他“认真负责，不乐意受愚弄，以结果为导向，但可能缺乏耐心，在抽象概念上非常聪明，可以直言不讳” 。

He had a high-ranking company mentor—Peter White (a senior manager in the Human Resource Development department)—who was in overall charge of his development. Peter had devised a schedule of developmental activities which involved Jamie spending three months working with various departments, a system which he had devised as a ‘graduate fast-track’ approach for ‘high fliers’. At the end of this time, Jamie would begin his managerial career as a team leader in one of the customer adviser departments, where he would be in charge of eight staff dealing with incoming telephone calls from the general public.
他有一位公司高级导师彼得·怀特（Peter White）（人力资源开发部的高级经理），全面负责他的发展。彼得制定了一份发展活动时间表，其中杰米花了三个月的时间与各个部门合作，这是他为“高材生”设计的“毕业生快速通道”方法。在此期间结束时，杰米将开始他的管理生涯，担任客户顾问部门之一的团队领导，负责管理八名员工处理公众来电。

For his first month’s experience, Jamie had been working as a customer adviser in the largest team of the company’s central call centre environment, taking phone calls from the general public. His performance as a customer adviser was measured against these standards, and each week he had a meeting with his team leader (Jill Bradley, an enthusiastic individual who took her role in developing staff seriously) to discuss his progress. A typical shift was six to eight hours, with a short break for lunch.
在第一个月的经历中，杰米一直在公司中央呼叫中心环境的最大团队中担任客户顾问，接听公众的电话。他作为客户顾问的表现是根据这些标准来衡量的，每周他都会与他的团队领导（吉尔·布拉德利，一个热情的人，认真对待自己在发展员工方面的作用）开会讨论他的进展。典型的轮班时间为六到八小时，中间有短暂的午餐休息时间。

His next month had been spent working in the corporate accounts section. This involved some data inputting. However, to expand his knowledge of the company’s activities, a significant amount of his time was spent contacting existing account holders of large organizations, and he was gradually allowed some amount of discretion (within given boundaries set by the section’s line manager, Roger Knowles) for negotiation with clients. As part of the corporate accounts team, he was asked to prioritize a number of corporate accounts in terms of present sales value and projected growth for the next two years. He was then asked to present his findings back to the team at one of their weekly meetings. Some of the data-input officers in the team who were permanent members thought that this was something which only they should do, as they had far more experience of the clients and their needs. Also, they had been used to a fairly basic form of presentation and statistics, but they noted with concern that Jamie was using much more advanced techniques than they normally used in their presentations. Jamie soon sensed that he might have to ‘dumb down’ his presentations.
接下来的一个月他一直在公司会计部门工作。这涉及到一些数据输入。然而，为了扩展他对公司活动的了解，他花费了大量时间与大型组织的现有帐户持有人联系，并且逐渐允许他有一定的自由裁量权（在该部门的直线经理罗杰·诺尔斯设定的给定范围内）用于与客户洽谈。作为企业客户团队的一员，他被要求根据当前销售价值和未来两年的预计增长来优先考虑一些企业客户。然后，他被要求在一次每周会议上向团队展示他的发现。团队中一些长期成员的数据输入官员认为，这是只有他们应该做的事情，因为他们对客户及其需求有更多的经验。此外，他们已经习惯了相当基本的演示和统计形式，但他们关切地注意到，杰米使用的技术比他们通常在演示中使用的技术要先进得多。杰米很快意识到他可能不得不“简化”他的演讲。

During his third month, he was invited to accompany Roger Knowles to several meetings with clients. Some of these were fairly casual discussions which gave both parties a chance to catch up with any gossip and developments, while reviewing ongoing contracts. Some of this work was conducted in the office, but quite a lot of time was spent in business lunches. Upon completion of these three months, Jamie was to take up his new role as team leader.
在他任职的第三个月，他受邀陪同罗杰·诺尔斯参加了几次与客户的会议。其中一些是相当随意的讨论，这让双方都有机会了解任何八卦和事态发展，同时审查正在进行的合同。其中一些工作是在办公室进行的，但相当多的时间花在了商务午餐上。这三个月结束后，杰米将担任团队领导的新角色。

Task and questions for discussion:
讨论的任务和问题：

Re-read the section in the case where Jamie ‘was asked to prioritize a number of corporate accounts in terms of present sales value and projected growth for the next two years. He was then asked to present his findings back to the team at one of their weekly meetings.’ Make suggestions as to why the data-input officers resented Jamie doing this task.
重新阅读案例中的部分，其中杰米“被要求根据当前销售价值和未来两年的预计增长来优先考虑一些公司客户”。然后他被要求在一次每周会议上向团队展示他的发现。就数据输入官员为何讨厌杰米执行这项任务提出建议。

Analyse Jamie’s attitudes, abilities, and personality from what the case study tells you (bear in mind that this in only a case study with limited information—state any assumptions you make). Using these as a guide, what do you regard as possible aspects of Jamie’s attitudes, abilities, and personality that might have helped or hindered him in this particular situation?
根据案例研究告诉您的内容来分析杰米的态度、能力和个性（请记住，这只是一个信息有限的案例研究，请说明您所做的任何假设）。以这些为指导，你认为杰米的态度、能力和个性的哪些方面可能在这种特殊情况下帮助或阻碍了他？

Finally, what do you think of his idea to ‘dumb down’ the presentation?
最后，您如何看待他“简化”演示的想法？

Source: Gallagher, K. (2022) Essential Study and Employment Skills for Business and Management Students. 4^th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
资料来源：Gallagher, K. (2022)商业和管理学生的基本学习和就业技能。第四版。^​牛津：牛津大学出版社。