Human Relations in Organizations: Applications and Skill Building 8th Edition by Robert Lussier

Exercise 34

Wendy's International: Does This Taste Right to You?
Wendy's competes in the burger wars against its arch rivals McDonald's and Burger King through its 6,600 restaurants. However, Wendy's wasn't doing as well as some investors would like. In fact, there was talk about it being sold.
Two major shareholders, Nelson Peltz and Peter May, asked to meet with the CEO within 48 hours to discuss their value creation plan. They did not see the firm as doing well at all and said that if their plan would be agreed to they would possibly maintain their ownership at just below 5 percent. This request for an immediate meeting was interpreted by Wendy's as an ultimatum, and John Barker (a Wendy's senior vice president) replied to Peltz and May that the CEO was too busy "managing the brand" to meet with them. He also added that similar ideas that Peltz and May had proposed had been considered in the past and rejected.
Peltz and May were outraged at the response. They were major stockholders and deserved, in their opinion, far better treatment than this. Wendy's claimed to be accessible and responsive to its individual investors. Peltz's and May's reaction to Wendy's response? Quite simple. They filed a letter of complaint with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) characterizing communications with the company, or their lack thereof, as quite poor.
Peltz and May did not stop with a letter to the SEC. They helped to get the CEO canned, and they were involved in the merger of Wendy's with Triarc (the owners of Arby's) in 2008. The merger created the third largest fast-food chain, with more than 10,000 restaurants.
How might you have handled the situation differently to produce perceptual congruence if you were the CEO, the vice president, and/or Peltz and May?