Interpersonal Communication Issue in a Workplace
An interpersonal
communication incident that I faced happened a few years back. Due to
confidentiality, I would not be stating the company name nor using the real
names of the people involved.
My task was to send out
monthly electronic direct mailers (EDMs) to client recipients from different
countries. Before mailing out an EDM, I have to go through rounds of critic
from my supervisor, Ted, to get his approval. Each EDM takes about a week to do
up as I would need request and cull products information to determine which
hotels to advertise.
On a particular month,
Ted was away for an overseas business trip in Spain which was a seven-hour time
difference. This created a lag in our communication. The EDM was scheduled to
be sent out on a Thursday morning. On Tuesday morning, I had sent the EDM to
Ted for a critic. I waited patiently for him to reply but did not receive one.
On Wednesday evening, I started to panic as I needed to send out the mailers
first thing on Thursday morning and to edit it required time. I began to send a
reminder email, but there was still no replies when I had gotten to the office
on Thursday.
Long story short, I
missed the deadline and was reprimanded by another manager for being slow at my
work. Then, I felt falsely accused as it was not my fault for not being able to
complete my work since I had to seek approval first before anything else.
If you were in my
position, how would you have handled the situation despite the slow
replies from my supervisor?
Commented on:
- Hannah
- Delvine
- Tricia
Commented on:
- Hannah
- Delvine
- Tricia
Hi Laura, thanks for sharing your experience with us. I can understand the dilemma you faced since it was a spillover effect from Ted's side of things. I guess issues like this would occasionally surface in a setting where close teamwork is involved.
ReplyDeleteIf I were in your shoes, mailing out the EDMs would be my priority because I know I would be held directly and fully accountable for the mails that I sent or didn't sent. Thus, I would raise this issue to another manager or authority, and seek their counsel on the next steps to take in such a situation. I would also clarify if there was another authority who could approve the EDMs on Ted's behalf since he was not responsive.
I look forward to know how things turned out in the end for yourself!
Hi Laura! Thank you for sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have never experienced this before, I feel that I too would have panicked and not know what to do. This experience is very relevant to the workplace as we would be required to send out numerous emails in the future. Additionally, I have learnt from your sharing, and in the future, I would take into account lag in communication due to time differences if I were to send emails to overseas recipients.
However, if I were in your position, I would have consulted another superior to assist to critic my electronic direct mailers. I would also notify Ted I did so, this is to prevent Ted from being left out of the loop.
Regards,
Hannah
Hi laura,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your incident on the blog. I have not experienced such incident but I believe I would faced the same dilemma as you. As I am a detailed oriented person, I am very cautious in the way I handle things. I would require everything to be in place and vet by the person-in-charge.
Hence, if I am in the same situation as you, I would approach another colleague that will be able to assist me in the checking of EDM. I think I will also consult the manager for alternative solution given my current scenario. However, if all things fail, I would apologise for the incident that has happened and take it as a learning curve.
Laura, do not take this incident to heart. It is not your fault but I guess this is the reality of the working world. Such miscommunication will happen very often.
Best regards,
Tricia
Hi Delvine, Hannah and Tricia,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to read and giving valuable responses.
Like what you have all suggested, I should have sought another manager's approval instead of waiting for Ted's reply. Additionally, keeping Ted in the loops while seeking another in charge’s approval would be a good idea to take note of so that Ted is well aware of what is going on.
In the end, Ted replied to me on Thursday evening informing me that I should have asked the other managers since he was not able to reply. I felt guilty for my actions. I proceeded to apologise to the team for my incompetence.
As I reflected that day, I realise that it is still considered my fault for not thinking of other solutions quickly which led to the mailings not being sent out. Moreover, I was too stressed and did not think of an alternative quick enough then.
Overall, I learn that I should be quick thinking and be resourceful to prevent such situations from happening again. It was a good learning curve as what Tricia had mentioned.
Cheers,
Laura
Hi Laura!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing about your experience and I believe it must have been a frustrating situation for you at that point of time. In my opinion, I feel that you could use the DRB technique for dealing with conflict.
Perhaps you could understand from Ted's point of view, he might be jet lagged and tired from a whole day of work in Spain as you mentioned that he was there on a business trip. Hence, he did not reply to your email immediately. Also, I think you could explain to your other manager on the lack of responses from Ted and did not know what to do.
Since you did not encounter this kind of situation before, you could possibly let the other manager know that you did not know how to handle this kind of problems and learn from your mistake. I think in the future you could ask for help from your colleagues and higher management if similar situations ever happen.
Thank you for reading this comment and I hope this incident has helped you to learn more from this experience. I look forward to hearing how you handled this difficult situation.
Best regards,
Pei Ling and Natasha
Dear Natasha and Pei Ling,
DeleteThank you for reading my post and leaving constructive feedback.
Similarly to what you have explained, Delvine and Hannah had earlier suggested the same. I am now able to see things from a different perspective and will note down on the suggestions given.
I hope that I would be able to handle similar situations in the future. :)
Cheers,
Laura
Dear Laura,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this highly relevant problem situation. I can imagine that it was very stressful for you.
I see that you have gotten some useful feedback from your peers, though only that provided in our Wednesday lesson referenced specifically info from a conflict resolution framework that we discussed in class. It's interesting that Delvine did suggest that you should have contacted another manager to review the EDM, which in the end was what you were told by Ted.
For me this example clearly illustrates the importance of employees realizing the value of communicating beyond usual silos of interaction. You had gotten in a routine, and thus, it was hard for you to see that going beyond your usual contact would have been an easy solution to Ted's tardiness in getting back to you.
I really appreciate how this scenario became a fruitful means of discussing this imporatnt topic.
Best wishes for all your problem solving ahead.
Cheers,
Brad
Dear Professor Blackstone,
DeleteThank you for your feedback.
I did find it very useful and enlightening to get feedback from my classmates as well. It demonstrates how people can think and act differently although placed in the same situation.
I will note down the various suggestions given so that if I were to face a similar situation in the future, I would know what to do and how to react.
Regards,
Laura