- Assume that you are about to ask your supervisor for a raise. Which communication medium or channel would you use? What steps would you take to decrease the amount of noise that can decrease the effectiveness of your message?
A manager’s work cannot flow without the presence of a supervisor as he ensures that everything is running smooth and according to program. Supervisors move from one place to the other correcting and identifying problems in the same organization. When managers require the supervisors for a raise, they need to have a good communication medium that will ensure the supervisor gets the massage in time and without any interruptions.
The best medium in this context will be verbal communication where telephone call will be the best choice. This telephone however connects to a loudspeaker so that everybody will be in a position to hear the manager call the supervisor for a raise. There are several steps that managers or anyone using the medium follow for the purposes of reducing noise that would decrease the effectiveness of the message.
First will be calling for attention from everybody so that there can be no interruptions form noise coming from workers and customers. The second step is ensuring that the message used is the same as that of the audience who in this case is the supervisor. This will reduce asking questions that waste time and decrease the effectiveness of the message. The next step will be using the right words and pronunciations so that from wherever he is, the supervisor will know and get the message directly and in time. This will have something to do with speech, volume, inflection and pace. The last step is probably saying thank you for the purposes of public etiquette.
- Assume you are about to meet and negotiate with an individual from a low-context culture. Do you think the person will know a great deal about you before you meet with him/her? Explain.
In business and commerce, a low context culture is using electronic methods like emails to communicate. Before that happens, there will be necessary preparation put in place and the person will have known a great deal about the one meeting and negotiating with him. It has happened earlier where talking with a stranger causes problems and therefore there is exchange of personal information while changing contacts for the purposes of familiarity. Rarely will one negotiate and meet someone with out prior arrangements and appointments. For instance, people ignore emails from strangers and at this time, engaging in a talk and most of them all negotiating is hard and almost impossible. The receiver party knowing a great deal about the other party is important because he or she will compose him or herself and give the correct information. Mostly a low context culture comes in handy between different companies and in other cases different countries. Meeting new people is sometimes hard for both parties and time used for introduction and familiarizing with one another wastes more time.
- Think of a time when you held fast to a decision even after learning that it was probably a wrong or faulty decision. How long did you persist with your original (faulty) decision? Looking back now, when should you have modified your decision? What could have convinced you to do so? Describe.
A manager has the authority to say something and the employees just follow regardless of it being right or not. This is a situation that most managers get into and later wish they did not make the decisions just like I was a few years ago. Mine was quite tricky because I authorized the employees to keep off the offices until they get their pay. This was the worst decision I ever made in many years being a manager. I persisted on the faulty decision for almost a week because I did not want to change the perception people had on me. I thought that the employees wanted me on their side but I was wrong, they feared losing their jobs therefore when summoning time came, they all said that I was the one telling them to refrain from work and being under me they had no option.
I wish that I had modified my decision when I was defining the problem because at that time I had a chance to change everything and all that I had. The fact that there was no one else supporting me apart from the workers who definitely wanted more pay could have convinced me to change me to modify my decision. I was too blind to wrongly identify and define the problem, which led to my wrong decision.
- When looking at the decision-making process do you feel any one-step is more important than the others are? If so why?
I feel there is one important step when making decisions and this is the first step mostly realizing why and when there is need for making decisions. What does this mean? This means that if one misses this step, the decision made is always wrong and regrets come thereafter especially knowing that there was a better way to handle the problem and make a better decision. Having gone through many mistakes has taught me many lessons and if I was to give advice to potential managers, I would advice people to make use of the first step and make the right possible decisions a manger could possibly make.
5. Why is diagnosis so vital in organizational change programs?
Diagnosis of present and potential problems has to do with collecting information that gives a reflection of organization’s level of effectiveness. There must be gathering and analysis of data that measure state of production, satisfaction, efficiency and addictiveness as well as development. Diagnosis data also gives an establishment of the problem base for the purposes of the organizational development effort’s evaluation additional to serving as the problem basis for the purposes of identifying the problem.
6. Might some managers attempt to implement a particular intervention, such as TQM, without first diagnosing whether the intervention would be appropriate for their organization's problems
Some managers do attempt to implement total quality management without making sure that their interventions would be appropriate for solving the problems that challenge them in their workplace. It is for this reason that no level and step of decision-making is less important to managers and organizations.
7. Why is it important for managers to reduce the resistance to change openly displayed or covertly practiced by employees?
Employees too are stakeholders of an organization because the function of a leader in leadership involves working closely with those in management to ensure that the company is going to the right direction. It also involves looking and examining at the trends and data to ensure it remains competitive. Effective leadership involves management since managing people is all about understanding individuals’ weaknesses and strengths within a working team. Management and leadership of people only depend on the role assigned within an organization. The mock therapy would act as platform for me to have more insight and awareness into therapeutic growth that I have today. Therapeutic growth includes confidence and maturity in terms of culture as well as what the employees want.
References
Hardy, J. (2010). leadership. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2006) Management, 12thed. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Roberto B. (2009). The Embraer Case, Privatization and Management Change from
Technological Imperative to Market Focus. New York: New York Times.
James E. (2010). Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica S.A. Teaching Note. New York: New York Times.
