1. How did Turner get himself into this particular predicament?
Solution: The following reasons form the root cause of Turner being so indecisive about his position at MLI towards the end of the case:
Firstly, Jamie Turner earlier worked at Wolf River, where departments such as control, budgeting, planning and similar tasks were well supported. When he was allowed autonomy and was all on his own, he could not get enough time to prepare himself for all the challenges that were posed for his position and he ended making hasty decisions based on his prior experience.
Secondly, his differences with Cardullo regarding their views on the cash flow problem, pricing halogen bulbs below the break-even point with reduced margins, and their other arguments left Turner in distaste and anger. Turner’s strategy of reducing production cost and lesser margins did not go well with Cardullo who wanted higher margins for his products.
Moreover, Turner was initially indecisive about joining MLI given the financial situation of the company and other complexities that a merger had created. Also, he was not really keen to go into industrial marketing. He did not weigh the positives and negatives completely before accepting the offer at MLI and started repenting his decision after just a few months into the company.
All these things along with the problem of dealing with Julie Chin, lead to this particular predicament.
2. What did Pat Cardullo and Jamie Turner each initially bring to the situation at MLI that should seem to ensure success? Failure?
Solution: Jamie Turner initially met a lot of people, learnt about the business and tried settling into his new responsibilities. This was essential given the huge responsibility he had taken up. Turner’s efforts to hold off Tim Kelly’s firing was crucial as he had correctly recognized the worth of a veteran in the company at a time when the sales were declining. While Kelly’s presence made Turner comfortable with the fact that he had somebody to bank upon, which helped him making a strong foothold initially.
Pat Cardullo believed in Turner’s ability and always took out time to discuss Turner’s ideas which would have given Turner even more confidence. Although, his decision to give Turner full autonomy over pricing turned out to be an erroneous one later as neither Turner was competent enough as yet to handle such an autonomy nor the initial job agreement mentioned that.
3. What were the key choice points where either of them could have done things differently?
Jamie Turner: Turner approving a large sale of excess inventory halogen bulbs at below the break-even point did not go too well with Cardullo who was constantly looking for higher margins. Although Turner had autonomy over the decision, he should have discussed with Cardullo once before approving such an order and they could have arrived over a combined decision once one would have convinced the other regarding his view.
Pat Cardullo: As was the initial agreement, Pat Cardullo should have kept price autonomy with himself for some more time until Turner had spent some time in the company understanding his role properly. He could have taken some suggestions of pricing from Turner but could have kept the decision making power with himself, avoiding all the disagreements they had later.
In case that the autonomy was given to Turner, Cardullo should have persisted with the cost-cutting ideas that Turner had to improve the sales. Being patient could have resulted in an improvement in the sales in the long term, which was likely as sales had improved after Turner had joined, in spite of an increase in the oil prices.

4. How, if at all, should Turner approach Cardullo at the end of the case?
Turner should make a complete report of how his cost cutting strategy will be profitable in the long run and present it to Cardullo and ask for a timeline to implement those strategies and produce results at the end of the timeline to support his predictions.
He should ask for pricing to be a result of a joint decision involving Cardullo, Turner and Kelly as it would allow them to share their ideas and come up with a mutual decision.
Knowing that Cardullo is a little rational sometimes in his behavior, Turner should talk at a time when Cardullo is in a good mood and would be willing to listen to him.