Posted: March 20th, 2017

M3A1

 
Scenario
You are the chief prosecutor heading an office with a number of  assistant prosecutors, support staff, including paralegals and interns.  Your paralegals are well-trained in legal research and in building  databases for trials. You have to compile data on cases relating to the  death penalty as part of a new tracking program that has been  implemented by the state’s attorney general’s office. This is an  unfunded mandate that does not provide any additional funds or resources  to your office to establish a database. The project requires that you  analyze cases prosecuted by your office over the previous 50 years,  focusing on issues of racial and economic disparity.
Your assistant prosecutors seem to feel that data collection is  mechanical work, fit only for fresh interns. However, you view it as an  activity that is too important to delegate to your part-time interns or  your paralegals without strong supervision.
Therefore, you decide to assign this duty to two of your senior  prosecutors. They will have to devote 50 percent of their time to  building the new database and performing the required analysis. You have  chosen two prosecutors with the most experience prosecuting capital  cases, knowing that they will be most familiar with the data. However,  neither prosecutor has a strong background in data collection or  computer-based statistical analysis. Both have expressed reservations  about overseeing the project.

Which strategies do you think are most effective for influencing  employees to undertake new tasks? Why? Assess the advantages and  disadvantages of these strategies in the context of this scenario.
Should you use rational persuasion or the tactic of exchange  strategy to influence the attorneys you selected for creating and  maintaining the new database? Why? Explain how you might combine both,  if necessary, to achieve the desired objective.
What are the inspirational appeals you could make to the attorneys?  Explain. Will inspirational appeals work better than pressure tactics?  Why?
As a leader, was it appropriate for you to select the two attorneys  who would be assigned to this project? Would it have been better to  request volunteers? Do you think this would lessen the need to persuade  employees to take on this additional responsibility? Would the use of  the paralegals change the dynamic as well as the work assignments?
How much credence should leaders give to employees’ expressions of  concern over assigned tasks? Under what circumstances might it be  inappropriate for a leader to continue to apply persuasion tactics with  employees who appear resistant to performing certain tasks?
Which combination of the various proactive influence tactics would be most successful in influencing the staff? Why?

Support your responses with adequate research and supporting data.

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