Political Sciences

The Perils and Pitfalls of Leading Change:
A Young Manager’s Turnaround Journey
Daniel Oliveira felt like he was on top of the world and was having a great night at the 2006
Clothes & Accessories’ Annual Retreat party celebrating store manager promotions. The air
crackled with excitement: twenty new store managers had been promoted that day, company sales
were soaring, and future prospects were bright.
Just one year ago, Oliveira had been in his final year of business school in São Paulo, looking
for the perfect job after graduation. His top choice was a position in an extremely selective
management-training program at leading fashion retail company Clothes & Accessories. After a
grueling selection process, he was awarded one of twenty positions out of 10,000 applicants.
As part of the highly respected training program, Oliveira was assigned to a city in the
northeast of Brazil called Recife. The Recife store was one of Clothes & Accessories’ largest
stores in terms of both size and revenue, with more than 350 employees, a healthy culture, and an
effective manager. Over the next year, Oliveira gained experience in all aspects of the business:
he unloaded trucks, served as a cashier, led small departments, and acted as a store supervisor. He
even assumed a temporary store manager role when the full-time manager took a month-long
vacation. By working through each role and working side-by-side with the employees, he had
earned both the respect and the friendship of employees of all ranks in the store.
Because of his successful performance as a trainee, Oliveira was promoted to full-time store
manager and given a new assignment: leading and managing the turnaround of a store that had
been experiencing declining performance. He was excited and honored to be given such a
challenge.
At the Annual Retreat just before starting his new job, Oliveira grabbed a caipirinha1
from
one of the open bars and decided to meet his future manager, Francisco Prado. Oliveira found
Prado after a quick scan of the room and walked over to introduce himself and express gratitude
for being given such a wonderful opportunity. Quick-witted and very direct, Prado did not care
for small talk. Without wasting any words, Prado advised Oliveira to speak with one of the
former store managers he had led some years ago, Douglas Fischer.