Monthly Archives: March 2018

From your own experience, describe a situation in which a hidden agenda was encountered. What was the effect on the group?

I assumed I understood the definition of “hidden agenda”, however, I wanted to compare it to the definition offered in the readings.  A hidden agenda is “private goals that members may be pursuing which they feel would not be accepted if made public”.

One recent meeting that I attended comes to mind when I think about hidden agendas.  I was called into an impromptu meeting with a Vice President in our HR department to discuss some equity adjustments that needed to be made to a handful of associates.   He indicated that these adjustments would be a positive message to deliver to the associates, since they were going to be making more money.  He further indicated that although he would love to deliver the message himself, he thought it would be best coming from me and my team because it was more of an “HR responsibility” and my team was better equipped to deliver “good news”.

It was apparent to me that regardless of how much sugar he was coating around this information, there was the possibility that this communication would not be received so positively by the associates.  I knew that it was likely that associates would have a lot of questions around this decision, particularly, “why now?”  and mostly, “does this mean you have been under-paying me?”

This, of course, was not addressed by the VP as something that my team should anticipate, and it was very clear to me that by making it seem like a great thing to deliver, we should be so lucky to have  this responsibility.

Clearly, there was a hidden agenda to the purpose of his meeting.

My team did deliver this information, however, we made sure to script out the communication to include an appropriate response to questions or concerns that may have been raised by the associates.    Because of our preparation, the meetings went well.

From your own experience, describe a situation in which you used face work.

One recent example of this was related to a confrontation that I had with an Officer in my organization.  The Officer was three levels higher than me in the organization and I had limited interactions with her in the past, mostly pleasantries in meeting environments.

An associate in her department had scheduled a meeting with me related to concerns that she had with her manager.  During the course of the discussion, the associate indicated that some of her concerns related to the Officer’s neglect to address this manager despite multiple complaints of his “explosive behavior” towards his direct reports.  As part of my investigation, I needed to meet with the Officer to determine if she was aware of this manager’s behavior and how, if at all, she had addressed it in the past.

Meeting with this Officer was a little tricky for me.  I was required to ask questions put the Officer “on the spot”, and I was able to determine that the Officer was aware of these issues but had not yet appropriately addressed them.  She asked me, “what do you think I should do?”.  It was at this point that she was essentially looking at me as a consultant, and although I knew how to coach a manager through this type of situation, I also felt compelled to preserve the social- status  of our relationship.

It was somewhat awkward, but at the end of the meeting, she thanked me and asked me to follow up with her after my investigation so that we could work together to address the associate’s concerns and improve the work environment.

From your own experience, describe a situation in which you used active inquiry.

I demonstrate active inquiry the most when I’m meeting with the associates on my team about a problem that they are facing.

Most recently, one of the new HR Representatives on my team approached me about an associate relations situation that she was handling.  There was a problem in one of her departments with an associate who was having attendance issues and before they were able to confront him, he indicated that he was having medical issues and was citing that this was impacting his attendance.  The HR  Manager was asking me how she should handle it, since his manager was interested in applying corrective counseling.

Instead of telling her the answers, I practiced inquiry.  I asked her questions like, “Tell me about the performance history with this associate.”, “Has anyone asked him about why he has been having attendance issues…Why?  Why not?”  “Given the recent knowledge that we have about his medical issues, what do you think are the risks with proceeding with corrective counseling?”

By engaging in these questions, the HR Representative was able to feel confident in how to address the situation with this associate’s department.  She also felt good about the meeting with me because it was her, not me, who came up with the answers.

From your own experience, describe an occasion of consulting in which you acted as an expert. Did you solve the problem?

Once recent occasion where I provided some consulting was with a manager who reports to me.  This manager has 2 direct reports and came to me with a frustration that her two associates have been complaining about their current workload.  She was frustrated because she and I had just re-distributed projects in an effort to take some responsibilities off of her own plate, since she was feeling overwhelmed.  We had decided that this would not only reduce her workload, but would also give her an opportunity to practice delegation (which is something that she struggles with).

At the beginning of our meeting, after she told me that she was frustrated with the response of her two associates, I reassured her that we would be able to “figure this out together”.  I reminded myself quietly that I wouldn’t be doing her any favors by giving her answers.  So, I decided that I would make an attempt to demonstrate some process consultation techniques.

I first asked her, “What are you trying to solve for?”  She responded that she didn’t want to overwork her associates, but she also didn’t want to automatically take everything back either.  I asked her to articulate options- and reminded her that we didn’t need to choose one yet, but wanted her to just brainstorm all options.  As she began to identify options, she started to talk through the pros and cons of each of these options.

After an hour of me asking her questions and her responding, thoughtfully, to these questions, she landed on several actions that she committed to making.  They included follow up meetings with each of her associates to assure them that she would not let them fail, but that some of the new responsibilities that they were being asked to take on was for their development (she didn’t thing that she had articulated this to them well before).  We agreed that we would “check in” again on this after 2 weeks so that we could evaluate if there had been any improvement made in their confidence and commitment to the work.

In reflection, I didn’t really answer any of her questions, and in reality, her “solution” was one that I may not have even recommended.