Saira is a young Canadian woman of Indian descent who works in the marketing department for a major urban fashion brand. Her job focuses on building advertising and social media campaigns, which she genuinely enjoys because the people on her team are fun and she loves socializing and teamwork. She is extremely imaginative – she designs some of her own clothes! – so she in particular takes to the creative practice of advertising. She is independent, responsible, and highly-rated in her performance although she has been told that her analytical skills are average and could boost them to become a well-rounded business person. She sees herself someday leading a fun, dynamic team such as the one she is on now.

Jeff is the Vice-President of the Market Research department, which is a comparatively small team of focused, independent workers in the same company. This team is considered the ‘brains’ of the marketing department because of all the information and insight they generate for many company departments, especially marketing. As Jeff is accomplished himself and has the ‘mind of a computer’, he and his department are highly respected at all levels. Jeff has noticed Saira and is aware of her positive reputation. Having flagged her as being a high-potential employee, he negotiates with the company President behind the scenes to have Saira transferred into his department. There, she will conduct market research and generate reports to help with strategy for all departments.

While Saira has worked with much research data in the past, she is unfamiliar with the overall process of conducting the research itself and producing reports. She approaches the new job with hesitancy, unsure if this job is right for her. She reports directly to Jeff, but he’s very busy in management meetings throughout most days, so she is left with many questions unanswered. Six months go by and Saira has become frustrated because she is not learning or accomplishing much; some days she comes in to work and is completely unsure what to do next. She fears her career is becoming derailed. She has yet to have a performance discussion with Jeff.

The next day in the cafeteria she runs into Anna, Vice-President of New Product Marketing. This department conducts all new design launches and is the center of company and marketing innovation. Through conversation, Anna notices that Saira does not seem excited about her new role and says to Saira that she doesn’t feel the job is a great match for her. She informs Saira that there is a perfect role for her that is available on Anna’s team, and invites her to apply for the job. Anna ends the conversation with a wink, saying “and since I make the hiring decision, I can tell you your chances are good – and I’ll make sure you do very well on my team!”.

Just before the end of the day Jeff calls Saira into his office. He tells her he’s aware she had a long conversation with Anna in the cafeteria and he knows of Anna’s common tactics of recruiting star performers away from other teams. He warns Saira not to ‘jump ship’ and join her team and then adds, “…even though this is pretty much what I would expect from your kind of people”. He goes on to say that moving to another department without his endorsement would mean she would lose him as an advocate among the management group when promotion and other decisions are being made. He asks her to reveal her plans to him before the end of the next day.