RESPOND TO TWO CLASSMATES POSTS WITH AT LEAST 300 WORDS EACH, APA STYLE, 1 SCHOLARLY REFERENCE, NO PLAGIARISM

POST 1:

After reading each case study over again, the case commentary I am more inclined to follow to resolve the communication issue at Sambian Partners is the first case study by Anna Pringle. Although there were some valid points in the other three case studies, I found more advice that would pose useful in case study one, based on my experience and study in this degree so far. However, what each of these case studies all have in common is that when it comes to working on communication in the company, there should be an open-door policy and a sort for different ways and opportunities to communicate with employees–meetings, memos, emails, even IMs) about comments or complaints while reassuring them that their responses and feedbacks are needed to grow the company and will not be penalized but taken into consideration when making changes to processes in the company.

First of all, Anna mentions that Mary, the head of Human Resources, giving up to easy while asking questions when giving Tom his exit interview, is true. Someone in her position should’ve been trained to use finesse in asking questions that would not receive blasé answers and would cause the candidate to think critically. Tom seems like the kind of employee that performs so well at his job that the very notion of him feeling dissatisfied and wanting to leave would be few and far-fetched and go unnoticed by management. However, I somewhat disagree with the fact that Helen, the CEO, needs to be out there listening to employee complaints and concerns. As the CEO, she is busy dealing with the process of running the company, investors, the management committee etc. She should delegate leaders and managers that would develop dynamic relationships with the employees(like Mary) while she focuses on running the company and managing fellow executives. Unless Sambian Partners was a small company, she shouldn’t necessarily have to be the one to pander to employee issues all the time.

In the Case commentary, Anna said “Sambian should also try to engage people intellectually, emotionally and even through their physical environment” (Lawler, Pringle 2008, pp. 6). One of the reasons Tom left was he was not feeling intellectually and emotionally fulfilled. “The most important contributor to employee’s emotional commitment is a sense of connection to the firm’s mission” (Lawler, Martin, 2008, pp. 9). Somewhere down the line the company or Tom’s boss started focusing more on sales and cutting deals than providing the projects and resources his employees needed to succeed. With that feeling of deprivation, a valuable employee will surely seek fulfillment somewhere else and their subordinates may follow suite as Adrienne almost did. Taking Anna’s advice, “it’s important for Sambian to make leaders accountable for attracting and retaining key talents.” (Lawler, Pringle, 2008, pp.6) and the way to do that is by being an emotionally intelligent leader. While attending to other details, don’t forget your followers, making sure the company is providing them resources and letting them know their job is valuable to the growth of the company, thereby making them feel fulfilled and satisfied in their workplace.

The case study I would not use would be the commentary written by Jim Cornelius. There is a difference between an Executive and a Leader. An Executive deal with the process; coming up with tactical action plans, details and delegating leaders to supervise and sustain a dynamic relationship with the employees. A leader is about relationship with followers, communicating a vision and inspiring his followers; focus is on human capital. As CEO, it is not quite Helen’s job to attract and retain talent, that is what Mary, Head of HR, is there for. Moreover, regardless of the clarity of the company’s mission statement, if an employee’s manager or boss loses his commitment to his employees, they tend to leave as well. The advice for Helen (the CEO) to spend much more time with the KEY talents (Lawler, Cornelius, 2008, pp.8) also raises eyebrows as other talents may feel left out or there might be some favoritism going on which does not lead to a positive working environment. Cornelius did however end with encouraging communication tactics and writing memos that request feedback from employees.

In my organization, to ensure that effective lines of communications are open, I must consider the individuals that are my subordinates; their cultures, age groups, where they are globally; the demographic in general. Knowing that with millennials prefer a quick instant message conversation, middle age and older would prefer face to face or emails. “You need to use multiple media. It’s not necessarily just about clarity. It’s about making your presence felt” (Neely et al, 2011, pp.3). First figure out the easiest way of talking to employees, whether one on one, emails, memos or even a text. Get to know the employees, not only on a professional level but on certain personal level (with limits of course) as you want them to feel comfortable to tell the leader, anything, including weaknesses and mistakes while guaranteeing it is safe to do so without penalization to the employee. When such ideas, suggestions and complains come, take them into consideration. If it is something the company needs to change or add to the system, steps will be taken to do so. The employees just want to feel like they are being listened to and their suggestions are being considered. The higher the communication rate, the better employees perform, the better the company’s financial performance (Yates, 2006, pp26). This is how employees feel valued and talents are retained.

Manny

References:

Lawler, E., Pringle, A., Branham, F., Cornelius, J., & Martin, J. (2008). Why are we losing all our good people? Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 41-51.

Neeley, T., & Leonardi, P. (2011). Effective managers say the same thing twice (or more). Harvard Business Review, 89(5), 38-39.

Yates, K., & Beech, R. (2006). Six crucial steps to effective global communication. Strategic Communication Management, 10(5), 26–29.

POST 2:

Helen and Mary have a long way to go with their company’s employees and four individuals gave their take on how to help resolve their issues in this case study. After reading all four case study responses, I do not think of this as “whose advice would you follow and whose would you not follow.” All four responders had great ideas. Therefore, I believe I would follow most of the advice they gave.

Anna Pringle may have focused too much on Mary not doing her job in her analysis, but this discussion is not about analyses – it is about the advice and solutions. Anna gave some insight to Microsoft’s HR tools such as the weekly blog, bending the rules to meet the individual’s needs, and holding the leader’s accountable for retention and removal (if necessary). Though I was distracted by Anna’s analysis and her focus on Mary instead of Helen – her solutions are solid. The weekly blog allows for employees to give anonymous information about issues that concern them. F. Leigh Branham also brought up a similar solution with his “workout sessions” which allowed groups to form and have spokespeople for the groups bring the concerns up to the larger group. In our readings from last week, we learned of a similar idea through the app called Rypple. “As another example, a Toronto–based software company called Rypple uses a Twitter-like program to enable employees to post questions about their own performance so that other employees can give them anonymous feedback” (Colquitt, 2013). I liked this idea as I read about it and loved their example, as this type of setup has a quick turnaround time compared to end of year annual reviews. “Although it might be unpleasant to learn from your peers that a presentation you gave was boring, it’s much better than giving 50 boring presentations over the course of the year and then getting the news from your boss” (Colquitt, 2013). This same type of solution can be utilized to get feedback from employees about issues that concern them.

As stated above, F. Leigh Branham had a similar solution with his workout sessions. Along with this solution, he had other solutions I found to be solid, as well. He, too, brought up Mary, but not in a way where he placed blame on her as Anna did in her analysis. He pointed out that Mary was in the same boat as the rest of the employees that did not want to bring such conflicts and bad news to Helen’s attention. His solution was the use of an outside, third party to have a neutral stance in situations like exit interviews. “Hiring a third party to assist with surveys and exit interviews would help, because employees will tell a trusted outsider things they may not feel safe telling an insider like Mary” (Lawler, 2008). This does work and I can attest to its effectiveness. My company does 360 meetings where my boss’s bosses come down from corporate and talk to frontline staff about the directors and to the directors about the officers. This allows semi-anonymous feedback but keeps it within the company. I find out things to work on with my leadership abilities from these meetings, and I also tell them what I really think of our leadership. Sometimes it is good, but sometimes it is bad. Having these “middle man” or third party/neutral party meetings are great for situations such as the one Helen is in.

Jim’s suggestions are aimed at Mary and how she portrays herself as CEO. His solutions all consist of better communication throughout the company: simplify management structure to gain a direct understanding of each department, clarify the company’s mission, and compensate employees correctly (Lawler, 2008). Jim mentions holding many face-to-face meetings as a way of simplifying the management structure and truly understanding each department. I have found this to be much more effective the e-communication, myself. Employees and direct reports love face-to-face time, and I love face-to-face time with my boss, as well. Emails and text messages are done on a whim and can be answered when not focused, or forgotten all together. Face-to-face does not allow this and creates a stronger bond between the parties involved. Jim also mentions the same thing the first two case study responders mentioned: anonymous feedback. Jim’s solution is through CEO memos. As we can see, there is a trend of finding ways for the frontline to give anonymous feedback, as it is a method that has worked for quite some time. Even in my departments we have suggestion boxes for anonymous questions, concerns, comments, and ideas. Jim also mentions utilizing her background in architecture to bond with shining star employees. Many people, including myself, get promoted from the frontline into management and beyond because we are shining stars. I was groomed and mentored by the director before me who was also promoted to director. When you get promoted, you have the knowledge, wisdom, and experience from your time on the frontline of whatever your career is. This can be used as an immediate bridge between you and your employees and should be utilized often and effectively. Even if it is just to remind them where you came from and that you still know about the things they do, it is that bond that will help solidify their emotional attachment to their job.

Jean speaks of organizational culture and the company’s mission. As Jim stated, the mission statement is important. Jean takes it a little further and states “To better pick up on the warning signs of an emotional disconnect, Sambian needs first to communicate a clearer mission and the contribution individual employees will make to it” (Lawler, 2008). In my capstone for my bachelors, part of the class required me to come up with a mission statement and a vision. Though these statements are short, they hold a wealth of important information that both the public and the employees can draw from to understand our purpose and how we are going to reach our goals. Jean also touches on “culture audits” to understand what is going on within your organization’s culture (Lawler, 2008). I have never thought of such an audit until Hurricane Harvey hit us. I work in a hospital and we went on lockdown for six days and five nights. I stayed the entire time and did absolutely no director duties as my focus was ensuring patient safety and employee satisfaction. During this time, I was on our floors on the frontline more than I had been in a few years since I became a director. It was shocking to see how different the culture was now compared to then. It was better! I knew that when our new CEO and COO started (about two months before I was promoted) that we would see a change in our culture, but I did not know it would be this drastically better. Between the teamwork, communication, and patient satisfaction, I was in awe. In our meetings, we only see numbers. We see that patient satisfaction is up and we see that employee satisfaction is up, but it is different to see it in action. I can see why Jean would suggest such an idea considering Helen and Mary were waiting on surveys. Why wait on surveys when you can nonchalantly walk around and see if first hand. Even if you don’t hear the water cooler talk, you can tell if employees are happy.

In summation, I stand by the notion that all four of these case study responders had great ideas and solutions to Helen’s problems. Many of these solutions are proactive compared to reactive. I am over two hospitals with two bosses and I have found (in my own analysis of the leadership above me) that proactive leaders are much more successful than reactive leaders. These four leaders that answered this case study seem to be on the right track as far as deciding how to handle Helen’s problem. Knee jerk reactions like Adrienne’s instant promotion are not the best answers to managing people and promoting collaboration.

References

Colquitt, J. L. (2013). Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Lawler, E. E. (2008). Why Are We Losing All Our Good People? Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 41-51.

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