Scenario: university department.

Background: Normally, the administrative staff of this university are not members of the

school’s academic decision-making body, the School Board. As Head of School I had

proposed to the Board that our senior admin. person (Susan for the purposes of this exercise)

be invited to become a member of the Board, because of her extensive knowledge of

academic matters—much greater than many of the academics, especially the more recent

recruits. (The Board has the power to coopt members in addition to those included by the

university’s constitution.) This had been endorsed unanimously by the Board, and was, I

thought, working well—until one day I received an email from Susan advising me that she

had decided to resign her membership of the Board. This puzzled me very much, as she was

normally such a willing and enthusiastic contributor to discussions, always extremely happy

to share the fruits of her knowledge and experience.

As it happened, Susan came into my office to discuss another matter just a few minutes after

I had read it. We have a very friendly, reasonably informal working relationship, and so after

we had dealt with the other issue, the following scene took place—more or less...

Jim: Oh, Susan, before you go, I wonder if we could have a chat about the email I just got
from you, about resigning from School Board.

Susan: (suddenly looking cross and upset) Oh, yeah, but there’s not really a lot to say.

J: Why don’t you have a seat, and if you like we can close the door to give us a bit of
privacy.

S: (shrugs shoulders as if she doesn’t really care) Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.

((Jim closes door; Susan sits down, then Jim sits down.)

J: Susan, the first thing I’d like to say is how upset I am that you’ve offered to resign
from the Board. As you know I think it’s a great idea to have you on the Board, and I
thought it was working really well. So what’s been going on for you that has made
you want to resign?

S: Oh, I’d rather not go into the details if you don’t mind—it’s more or less a personal
matter between me and another staff member.

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Jim Beattie Interpersonal Skills—Roleplay Script

J: Uh-huh. That’s okay. I can see that you’re quite upset, and I’d be very happy to talk
about it if you’d like, but there’s no pressure.

S: Well if you don’t mind I think it’s not important enough to bother with.

J: That’s fine. (Pause) Actually, while we’re talking about School Board matters, one
thing I’ve been meaning to tell you about is what happened at Academic Programs
Committee yesterday. You remember the proposal you put to the School Board about
the changes to the rules for the BA degree? Well, they accepted it! And even Les
thought it was a great idea. So that’ll go straight to Council at their next meeting, and
they’ll pretty much rubber-stamp it, so that’s going to make next year’s intake so
much easier to handle, isn’t it?

S: (brightening up a bit) Oh, that’s really good news. I thought Leon might try and
block it.

J: And you know, that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been on the Board—no-
one else would have even thought of that, because we just don’t have the practical,
day-to-day knowledge of the sorts of administrative problems the old rules were
creating.

S: (still cheerful) All in a day’s work. But I still think it’s best if I resign. I’m just not
comfortable any more about being the only non-academic member of the Board.

J: (puzzled look) Really? Are you happy to tell me a bit more about what’s making you
feel uncomfortable?

S: Well, I suppose I have to tell you eventually. I had a bit of a clash with Tony
yesterday. I picked up a few factual mistakes in some class notes he’d given Eileen
to proof-read, and he hit the roof when I tried to point them out to him, and started
shouting about how I should just back off making judgements about academic
matters and leave that sort of thing to the academic staff. He didn’t say anything
about me being on School Board, but I could tell that this is what he was really
getting at. And so I just thought: I give up; I don’t have to put up with that sort of
abuse, and the Board can run perfectly well without me, so why should I get myself
into a lather about it. I’m really too busy to be spending time on School Board
matters anyway.

J: I imagine Tony’s reaction must have made you feel pretty awful... as if your efforts
weren’t being acknowledged and valued.

S: Yeah, I was bloody furious.