Bonnie Minnick is a supervisor in the electronics department at King Appliances. The store specializes in appliance sales to retail and commercial customers. The company has a reputation for extensive involvement in community activities including working on Habitat for Humanity's building projects. The store is open from 8 to 8 every day of the week except on Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving.

King Appliances's annual Fourth of July picnic was always well attended. It was a well-planned and organized daylong family affair for all employees of the firm. The event gave everyone an opportunity to informally interact with others. The event concluded with an outstanding fireworks display. At the picnic, Bonnie had a long chat with her boss, James Staker, the general manager of the store.

They talked about many things, including some of the economic problems that the country was facing in the competitive nature of their industry.

Staker talked about the need for the company to find ways to cut costs and improve sales, and generally the need to strengthen the firm's finances. He told Minnick that he had received some text messages and written suggestions and plans from some of the supervisors on how to improve efficiencies. He highly praised the efforts of employees and found their efforts to be helpful.

Three weeks after the picnic, Bonnie received a text message from her boss asking her why her "report on ideas to improve sales and cut costs had not been received." At first, she wondered what James Staker was referring to, and then she remembered the conversation at the company picnic. She went through all of her e-mails and text messages and realized that was the only time James had discussed the issue with her. Bonnie pondered what she should do.

1. In this chapter, we talk about empowering employees for success. After reviewing the chapter and this you make the call, if you were James Staker what would you have done differently to get Bonnie on board, that is, help her to be the best employee possible?
2. What should Bonnie do now?