HBR Case Study-The Best of Intentions
Cynthia Mitchell just stared at her boss, Peter Jones. She admired him a great deal, but she couldn’t believe what she had just heard.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “1 shouldn’t give Steve Ripley this assignment, even though he’s the most qualified candidate, because the clients won’t let him succeed?”
“It’s your decision—and Steve’s, if you decide to offer him the job. But I think it would be a big mistake,” Peter replied.
“Because he’s black,” Cynthia prompted. “And because we’re automatically assuming that the mostly white farmers in this district won’t trust their books to a black professional?”
Peter flushed. “We don’t assume it. We know it Just ask Betty Inez and Hugh Conley. They were every bit as good as Ripley. But we—okay, I was blind to the unpleasant reality that plenty of discrimination still exists out there, like it or not Because of my ignorance, they both failed miserably in districts that looked a lot like this one. It wasn’t their fault, but their careers with AgFunds got derailed anyway. I want to give Steve a fighting chance, and I want AgFunds to have a better record developing minority managers.”
Cynthia sighed. “This feels all wrong to me, Peter, but 1 know you wouldn’t raise the issue if it didn’t have any substance. Let me think about it”
Personal Experience
And think about it she did. Cynthia had flown to Houston earlier in the week for AgFunds’ regional district managers meeting and had been enjoying getting to know her colleagues over dinners at a variety of excellent restaurants—a welcome relief from her rural Arkansas district, where the culinary choices ran the gamut from barbecue to, well, barbecue. She was new at her job, and the other district managers—all white men—had made her feel welcome and offered her survival tips.

If you were cynthia would you offer the job to steve and if you were steve, would you accept the job if it was offered? Why or why not ? Do you think that these are easy decisions to make and that there is a right or wrong answer to each question ? please explain