Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting
Presentation of the Facts Surrounding the Case
The case examines a dispute between Meg Cooke, DSS’s COO and Chris Peterson, newly appointed Southwest Region’s team leader. Cooke appointed Peterson a leadership role for one of the newly structured cross-functional teams designated to create a new integrated budget and planning system. The cross functional teams were tasked with building relationships with existing school districts in their regions and provide them a full range of DSS services and to develop new consulting offerings in response to the district’s needs. (Case 2010) Theses goals were created to facilitate a transition to servicing larger districts rather than the smaller districts, which
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Peterson’s behavior and management style influenced her team’s performance, while Cooke’s absence of communication and guidance lead to wasted time and resources on a system that did not meet DSS goals.
Listing Alternative Courses of Action That Could Be Taken
Better communication needs to be created between mid and upper management. Proper communication will lead to a better understanding of the goals desired. Feedback is provided by upward communication, which makes employees feel involved and can help managers to get employees to understand their concerns (Thrilwall, 2012). Cooke and Peterson communicated scarcely and poorly. No regular meeting were scheduled. When the two did communicate there was no clear and actionable dialogue. Communication is only successful when both the sender and receiver understand the same information as a result of communication ( MindTools, n.d.) Both Cooke and Peterson should establish regular structured communication. This can be accomplished by setting periodic meetings, written updates via e-mail or memos. These meeting will provide downward communication that will allow information to be dispensed to the team working on the projects in question. These meeting will make Peterson and her team feel more involved in the direction of the project and it will also keep Cooke abreast of the attitudes and values of her employees. Cooke can defuse any potential problems
The symptoms of the communication are they never empowered their employee. Every decision that employees made must be wait SMART has given its approval. That makes all the employees become lazy and satisfy with their personal situation. Kate even cannot contact with Jeff when she has a situation need to handle in. I think that Kate is very
Interpersonal communication can be defined a number of ways, but it is usually described as communication between or among connected persons, or those in a close relationship. Over the past few weeks, I have really been able to examine my own interpersonal communication between and among the people I am connected to or have close relationships with. Prior to this course, I felt my interpersonal communication skills were above average and very effective. However, I have discovered there are many ways I can improve my interpersonal communications and relationships with others. Through the exercises conducted during this course I have realized that I need to work on my effective listening, perception of others and how my nonverbal cues can cause
This case shows how hard it is for two people to work together for a common goal and vision when they are not on the same page; if Scott trusted and had confidence in Peterson they could succeed as a team
The organization that I chose is DeVry Inc. Specifically, I chose DeVry’s online student finance department because I am currently employed in this department. I started here as a Student Finance Consultant in July of 2012 and this is my first full time job after college. In my role, we assist student’s enrolling in courses and help plan how to fund their education. This job can be very satisfying yet frustrating at the same time. I feel that it is a great learning environment and overall, employee satisfaction is high. I feel that my
At the beginning he was told to report to Jenkins, however, once he got to the site he was assigned to Jeff Hardy. After the company reorganization, he found himself wondering whether he should report to Knight or Hardy. However, despite the confusion, he never brought up this question to Hardy, Jenkins or Knight. He perhaps then fell into the trap of a “bosssubordinate relationship” and went with the structure he felt was assigned without truly understanding its reasoning. ii. He didn’t take enough time to understand HQ’s perspective on various issues a. Replacing the chief engineer, rejecting frequency reuse patterns, or failing to get sign off on agreements for GMCT cell sites indicate failures in managing upward management relationships. Problem #2: Employee Dynamics Strengths 1. Peterson was committed to building an empowering environment for employees. i. Peterson called weekly construction meetings, which invited all to report on the company’s weekly progress and issues. Shortcomings 2. He failed to consider alterations in team dynamics when making hiring and salary decisions. i. He hired Trevor at a higher salary rate to the resentment of other employees, causing significant damage to the trust and respect between employee and manager.
Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe, Mark V. Redmond ,Terri M. Geerinck . Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others, Pearson Education Canada; 5 edition (Feb. 15 2010)
Any kind of change in an organization may be challenging as it may demoralize employees and minimize performance. Therefore, main concern for DSS was how to ensure the employees maintain the same level of commitment, for it to achieve its strategic goals. There was a lack of clear concise during the communication of the new organizational strategy to all levels in the organization. The management failed to provide a detailed implementation plan that was to be followed in order to achieve the desired results. The employees themselves also did not receive the communicated information in a favorable manner. Both Meg and Chris did also not communicate effectively during the organizational change. As a result, Chris did not fully grasp what was expected of her as a leader and her team. The management should aim at ensuring the communication within the organization is successful. Successful communication is achieved when both the sender and the receiver have a common understanding of the communicated information. Both Meg and Chris should set up regular structured information. For instance, through the use of memos, emails, written updates, or setting up periodic meetings.
Place a checkmark next to those skills that you feel you need to work on.
Having better communication skills can help us obtain our needs in life, even though it is often hard for us to observe our own communication skills; however, It's important to develop communication skills because without communication, we have nothing. “Interpersonal communication is by far the most used and most important form of communication that we use on a day to day basis” (Trenholm, 2010.) Developing this communication becomes idea because it
"The power of vision is the starting point. Once you have established your goal, you need to develop your communication skills so that you can share your vision with the rest of the world and create something unique," Tips on starting your own winning business. (2011, March 9). This statement is true. I consider my communication skill good to excellent. As the daughter of two school teachers I have an excellent command of the English language and they taught me how to present myself in such a way to adapt to my audience and have a confidence in my words. These traits have allowed me to be successful in a number of various professions, but I find my ability to communicate with
Communication is one of the most important and valuable skills we have developed as human beings. It is the basis for how we connect with each other globally and shape the people we are today. Without effective communication, we would not be able to build productive relationships, express our cultural values, or most importantly, voice our thoughts. As we grow, we learn and develop our unique form of communication. Whether we are strong public speakers or prefer an interpersonal approach, it is important to find what type of communication is best suited for us, so we can appropriately and effectively use communication to our advantage. There are several different aspects that make us effective communicators, and knowing our strengths and weaknesses in theses categories will give us a comparative advantage on how to properly communicate on an interpersonal level. In this paper, I will discover the type of communicator I am, what I am good at, and what I can work on, to become an excellent interpersonal communicator.
Interpersonal Communication Competence is defined as constantly communicating in a way that is effective, appropriate, and ethical (McCornack, 2016). When a person is communicating competently, they are following social norms, are able to accomplish their goals, and treating persons in an unbiased manner. In my paper I will be discussing my own interpersonal communication competence and the evaluations that I, and my close companions, have made about my ability to communicate proficiently. I will begin my essay by explaining what effective and appropriate communication consists of, and follow up with my argument on how effective and appropriate I am in my interpersonal relationships. As I continue I will examine my empathy and why I am strong in this aspect of communication, followed by my deliberation of my conversation management and why I am weak in this category and how I could possibly improve. As I near the conclusion of my paper I will focus on my interpersonal communication motivation, knowledge, and skills. After reporting my scores in each category I will reflect on my skills, my lowest score, and explore why I am poorest at this quality and how I can grow in my capabilities. Overall I am a competent communicator, but enhancements can be made in my conversation management, effectiveness and skills in order to build up my competence.
Our ability to communicate well with others is important to personal and professional success. The interpersonal communications course is planned to help us in being familiar with the system of effective, and to assess our own interpersonal ability to sharpen our critical understanding of the communication, also to improve the interpersonal skills. Mainly assess our interpersonal skills and to put in goals for improving our communications ability. To development of self-concept and identity are examined as basics for understanding personal communication. We explore our own communication behaviors and to identify areas of personal strengths and
According to Paauwe & Williams (2001), sharing information and communicating have been considered the life blood of middle management. They are the pins linking the top management with the rest of the company and guiding the information flow through the organization. Furthermore, to successfully achieve organization goals or objectives, management has to establish effective communication channels through all management levels (Whetten & Cameron, 2005). In contrast, in this case there was inefficient communication between the middle manager (Beth Campbell) and the first-line manager (Richardson) in the Phoenix office, and the middle manager did not give the first-line manager clear instructions and guidelines about her new job. Even more, Richardson had not been introduced to her team officially and had not been given proper instruction about her paperwork and reports. As a result, Richardson failed to convey the organizations goals to her team and complete her sales reports on time. In addition, Richardson did not arrange for her first meeting in a professional manner, because she did not send out invitations in advance and she gave a short speech without identifying her roles and responsibilities (Booth & Cates,
The managerial grid, a basic model describing various managerial styles, is used as the foundation for grid OD. The managerial grid is based on the premise that various managerial styles can be described by means of two primary attitudes of the manager: concern for people and concern for production.