Joan responded to Rita's performance problem by giving her an ultimatum, directing her to take extremely difficult action (rejecting requests from her district manager, Mr. Kimbrough), and then firing her. She did not stop to diagnose the cause of Rita's poor performance, assuming that it was caused by poor motivation or ability. As a result, the organization lost an excellent employee, who was put into an impossible position of trying to decide which manager to please. In addition, other employees like Liz have been demotivated.