When been an employee or inter at a company or firm, major of the time you got to have
skills and albitites that makes you stand out from others. Been able to solve problems and
brainstorm daily in many ways no matter the situation while been flexible is great traits to
have. In chapter one it talked about the contingency approach where it calls for people to
use the OB concepts and tools that best suit the situation. For example, the chapter stated
what worked with one employee may not work with another. I agree with the OB concepts
everyday at the law firm we treat ever case with respect no matter the situation but just
because someone have the same kind of case doesn’t mean they will get the same outcome.
Sometimes we must take different approaches when it comes to certain situation. That
mean using the tools that best fits the situation. You must also know how to understand
others and the ethics just like the organizational behavior theory stated in the chapter. The
chapter also stated that employers want hard and soft skills I agree because ever day you
got to know how to react to people at work in the best manner possible while still taking the
job/task serious.
I am a manger at my work place and I had a situation where a staff was not running clients
plans appropriately(I had been working with this staff member for months to help her to
understand the importance of running plans). It wasn’t till a few months had gone by I
ended up with a staff member that wanted immediate action which many times is not the
best route. The staff that saw the issue we’ll say staff B after I spoke to staff B because I was
already home when the situation happened I told him his 3 options the one I recommended
was to wait to speak to Staff A (the person out of compliance) till I could be their to mediate.
Staff B could of done an incident report resulting in an investigation of the situation or Talk
to staff A in that exact moment. Staff B chose to talk to staff A in the moment. The result of a
staff speaking to another staff without mediation was a grievance through the union for
harassment, this gave me two situations to solve.
The immediate problem I then had to address was the grievance and making sure
harassment was not happening between staff A and staff B. The cause of this issue was staff
B’s communication style and not having enough training in having these types of
conversations. The solution make sure training was given in how to have a crucial
conversation to staff B. I spoke with staff B asked that they bring any issues to me and I will
have the conversation until training could happen. I spoke to staff B about keeping to facts,
keeping emotion out of the conversation, I asked that if staff B needs to have a conversation,
then to be empathetic hear the other person, then dive into the problem slowly and with
ease and problem solve, do not get into any power struggle sometimes you have to step
back from an issue in order to find a solution because just because you see the solution the
other person may not see it as a solution. I also discussed with staff B about how being in a
supervisor roll, the people supervised are not friends always treat people at the work place
like it is nothing but a professional relationship even if you have a relationship outside of
work this way lines don’t get crossed. This was just the start of a long journey of teaching
how to communicate.
My boss found the solution for staff A not following the plan and that was to find a better fit
and see where her strengths could really be utilized and help clientele thrive
