Discussions

Q1: What does “agree with the criticism” mean as a strategy for responding to criticism? What would it look like to use this strategy for the following scenario: A co-worker comes into your office and starts criticizing you. In an angerful voice, he says that he saw you on your cell-phone during this morning’s important team meeting with the client and that it was not respectful to the presenter, that it demonstrated poor customer service to the client and that you might have hurt client repeat business. For good measure, he adds, “And then you had to leave to take a call, so we had to answer one of the questions you should have handled. You’re always disruptive! You are not a team player!”
As it turns out, what really happened is that the Senior VP of the company, who is out on a critical sales call, sent you an urgent text message, which you felt compelled to answer. When you saw that it required a phone call, you slipped out of the meeting. You kept the phone call as short as possible and then returned to the meeting.
Back to the scene…
After dusting yourself off — Phew! — how could you respond to the person criticizing you, using the “Agree with the criticism” strategy?
What would the impact be of using this approach?

Q2: Describe at least two benefits of having diversity on a team or in an organization. Next, give an example of communication challenges (different language doesn’t count for this essay question) that you might face when working in a diverse workforce. How can you minimize these challenges or bridge the differences?

Q3: Page 26 of the textbook lists seven guidelines for judging ethical communication. Using at least two of these seven, explain how you would handle the following situation, and why. (Note that the bottom of page 26 gives you useful questions to ask as you decide on your course of action. Show how these affect your decision). Here is the situation:

A coworker tells you he’s about to buy an expensive car that will strain his budget to the maximum. You recently learned he is slated to be laid off at the end of the month but were told to keep this information in strictest confidence. What would you do and why?

Q4: In a team environment, what makes a “good” communicator good? Describe three or more specific aspects of a manager’s communication that lead to success. Explain why these three qualities are important. This can be from your experience, from the textbook, or from class discussions. Just be sure to support (explain the reasons for) your assertions.

Q5: You are faced with the following scenario:
You are faced with the following situation:
You are the manager of a six-person work team. One team member likes to dominate team conversations and expresses their opinion rather aggressively with an air of “I’m always right!” Another team member, who is smart and completes their tasks, nevertheless is very shy and rarely speaks up or offers an opinion. Another member of the team has “checked out,” and is failing to complete their assignments, leaving others to pick up the slack. The remaining members of your team are still invested but are losing energy and motivation as they feel weighed down by the conflicts and challenges of the team.

What might you say or do to get this team on track? Also describe the impact of your proposed actions.