Monthly Archives: February 2017

This week’s assignment included reading the case study, “American Financial Corporation”.  The following are the questions and responses to the case study:

1. What did Betty do wrong prior to the meeting, and what could have been done too avoid missing the deadline?

RESPONSE:  Since Betty was going away for a week and this report was very critical, she should have been more clear about her expectations with Don.  Quite frankly, since Don had missed deadlines in the past, Betty should have considered delegating this important task to someone in addition to Don.  Don could have been tasked with putting together the information and someone else, more deadline focused, could have been tasked with making sure that it was delivered to the VP by the deadline.  Additionally, Betty should have called during the week to make sure that the project was running smoothly and would be completed on time.  If she had done this, she would have identified earlier that there were issues and she could have found resources to assist.

2. What did Betty do wrong in the meeting itself, and what could have been done to make the meeting more effective?

RESPONSE:  When Don initially responded to Betty, she immediately interrupted him and began to continue to speak without letting him respond.  This, I believe, set the tone for the meeting…Don was not going to be heard, and this was intended for Betty to scold Don.  Betty could have listened to Don’s response and then lay out the difference between her expectation and his performance.  She should have kept it focused on the behaviors, rather than making it personal at time…”You have the messiest office in the company.”  To make this more motivating, she could have acknowledged that his attention to details are very important and valuable, however, in this case, meeting the deadline was critical and he failed to do that.

3. What could Don have done to be more effective?

RESPONSE:  I think that Don should have asked for more clarification to make sure that he understood Betty’s expectations.  I also believe that he could have been more vocal earlier in the week when he initially had concerns about the ability to meet the deadline.  If Betty wasn’t able to respond to him, he could have sought someone else in order to get the project back on track.

For this week’s lesson, I read the article, “Understanding the JoHari Window Model”.  I had never heard about this model before, and although it initially seemed very complicated, I began to understand the core principle behind it.  It reminds me very much of the self awareness and development that occurs as a result of a 360 degree assessment.  Although I have never gone through this exercise myself, I have sent many of our leaders to Executive Coaching programs where these types of tools are used and I’ve talked with them about their learnings.  Understanding the “known by others, but unknown by you” behaviors is really intimidating, but can be very powerful, IF you are open to hearing this type of feedback.  I think that the strongest leaders are those who become comfortable being vulnerable to that feedback.  The quote from the article that I feel define this is, “…simply helping people to understand is the most effective way to optimise the value to people.  When people really understand it in their own terms, it empowers them to use the thinking in their own way, and to incorporate the underlying principles into their future thinking and behavior”

One thing that occurred to me as I was reading this is that there are other ways to solicit feedback in order to discover things that are “unknown to me”.  One of these ways is by looking for opportunities to ask others what they feel are my strengths and areas of opportunity.