Ignoring what her superiors considered a pretty clear directive, Sheila Cosgrove, a marketing staffer at Denver’s Pomeroy Group, re-invented the wheel last Thursday.
“We were asking that she conduct a simple ramifications update,” says Cosgrove’s boss, VP/Strategies Tamara Lansing. “We reminded her five times that it was a a pro-forma update and that there was no need to re-invent the wheel.”
Cosgrove ignored the directive, says Lansing, and re-invented it anyhow.
“Now the company must determine what to do with the wheel,” Lansing says. “We did not plan on having to deal with a reinvented wheel, since it is not in alignment with the mission or the vision of the Pomeroy Group.”
Says Cosgrove, who has temporarily been relieved of duty pending an investigation: “It’s true I was told there was no need, but I wasn’t expressly told not to do it.” Further, Cosgrove claims, the company is continually encouraging employees to take risks, step out of their comfort zones, and explode the perimeters (the latter a cliché that has not yet spread beyond Denver).
Lansing acknowledges this, but says that any intelligent employee should understand that “there’s no need” is the same as “don’t do it.”
“If I told you there’s no need to bite my head off” she says, “you should not take that to mean you might still consider it.” The biting off of heads, she says, is also an action not in alignment with the company’s mission or vision.
The three-person committee investigating the incident is expected to report back next week. A 12-person committee appointed to look into what to do with the re-invented wheel says will need at least two years.
