Victor Kiani
Editorial illustration of a stone staircase and supporting handrail, representing career development.

March 2026

A System, Not a People Problem

Leadership wanted mentoring to solve retention. Victor Kiani’s analysis identified a wider problem: development opportunities lacked consistent support. He then used Gemini to refine how he presented that diagnosis, preserving the recommendation while making its criticism constructive for a potentially resistant leadership audience.

The scenario

Global Growers, a midsize creative agency in the teaching case, wanted to improve retention through mentoring. The case supplied feedback from leadership, current employees, and former employees. Kiani compared those accounts to understand why existing development opportunities were not translating into growth employees could rely on.

Leadership offered cross-functional projects and self-paced learning, but internal promotion outcomes remained weak. Current employees described inconsistent career conversations, siloed work, and paying their own conference costs. Former employees reported limited growth, managers prioritizing tasks over development, and frequent weekend work contributing to burnout.

The diagnosis

The feedback pointed beyond the absence of a mentoring program. Development opportunities existed, but their coordination and support were inconsistent. Kiani's original recommendation made that distinction explicit: mentoring needed wider organizational support. Drawing on Bauer and Erdogan's organizational-behavior framework, he connected the problem to how work and development were organized and proposed three changes:

The support around the program

  1. What the case revealed

    Development in silos

    Opportunities existed, but employees could not rely on a consistent path.

    What the recommendation changes

    Formalize mentoring

    Clear expectations, regular meetings, and matches across teams.

  2. What the case revealed

    Tasks before careers

    Career conversations depended on the manager, rather than a shared expectation.

    What the recommendation changes

    Make managers responsible

    Career conversations become a regular management responsibility.

  3. What the case revealed

    Growth at a personal cost

    Weekend work and self-funded conferences undermined the development offer.

    What the recommendation changes

    Make room for growth

    Examine workload expectations and strengthen support for development.

The case feedback, connected to the three changes in Kiani’s original recommendation. A proposed structure, not a measured retention outcome.

A difficult message for leadership

The analysis was written before the AI revision. Kiani's next task was communication: preserve the recommendation while making its criticism constructive for leaders who might become defensive. He gave Gemini his draft, the audience, the core concerns, and a requirement to preserve the case evidence and textbook citations.

He used two prompts. These are abridged summaries of their instructions:

  • First prompt — refine the tone. Identify harsh or accusatory wording and make the recommendation professional, constructive, and persuasive without weakening its substance.
  • Second prompt — retain the specifics. Keep the concerns about inconsistent development, silos, weak internal advancement, and burnout. Preserve the direct quotations and APA-style citations, and keep the recommendation concise.

One argument, three drafts

  1. Original

    “Global Growers’ proposed mentoring program could improve retention, but it will not succeed if leadership treats mentoring as a stand-alone solution.”

    The condition is explicit.

  2. AI revision

    “we have an opportunity to integrate mentoring into a more cohesive, high-performance development framework.”

    Gemini response 1 shifts to opportunity.

  3. Final submission

    “Global Growers’ proposed mentoring program could improve retention, but its impact will be limited unless it is supported by a more coordinated employee development strategy.”

    The condition returns, with a different tone.

Original analysis, first Gemini draft, and final submission · coursework completed March 9, 2026.

What the final revision kept

The final submitted document differed from both raw Gemini responses. Its opening replaced a prediction of failure with a conditional statement about impact. It acknowledged leadership's existing efforts, then named the same development gaps and retained formal mentoring, manager-led career conversations, and stronger support for employees.

Editorial illustration of draft pages and a red proofreading pencil; not a reproduction of the submitted coursework.

Source fidelity mattered as much as tone. In its second response, Gemini changed the case's wording inside quotation marks, including the statement about missing opportunities for growth. The final submission used the original employee quotations and retained the textbook citations. A smoother draft still needed to be checked against the evidence it claimed to preserve.

Why it matters

  • The audience shapes the delivery. The final recommendation acknowledged leadership's intent while keeping the structural diagnosis visible.
  • Revision requires evidence checks. A request to preserve quotations does not establish that the generated draft has preserved them.
  • The analysis gives the revision its purpose. The original diagnosis and recommendations provided the standard for judging the AI drafts. The completed work was a written recommendation; its value lies in the reasoning and communication it demonstrates.

Completed March 9, 2026, for Organizational Behavior at New York University. Based on the original analysis, the two-prompt Gemini exchange, and the final document submitted as Revised with Gemini. The coursework cites Bauer and Erdogan (2024), Chapter 14.

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