CASE STUDY: 14

Communicating with Colleagues

You are a member of a working group that is closely tied to the technical area for which you are responsible. You arrive, on time, for a special working group meeting (not the regularly scheduled meeting). The purpose of this meeting was to deal with a time-sensitive matter, and you rearranged your schedule to attend.

The facilitator, another manager at your level, was responsible for organizing this important meeting, but only half of the team members are there. The facilitator does a terrible job facilitating:

• She talks too much,
• Forgets to ask others for their opinions (when you remind her, she asks, but does not really listen or take their ideas into consideration), and
• Makes jokes about another team member who is not present.

After the meeting, she rushes out, saying that she has to join a conference call.

Questions (15M)

1. What is the communication scenario about and what are the communication elements in it? (2 marks)
2. What is the source of the barrier? (2 marks)
3. Why it is a challenge? (2 mark)
4. How could you handle the challenge and what are the appropriate steps that you could take to deal with the problem. (2 Marks)
5. How the Emotional Intelligence competencies of the involved people affected the communication? (2 marks).
6. What is the negative impact of this issue on the organization or the individuals? (2 marks)
7. What are the specific steps you could do to solve the issue? (3 marks)