20P225 Sanchit Garg Mid Term MC-II

Question no. 1 Is the communication successful? Analyse the communication strategies adopted.
Answer:
Understanding of the case:
From the case, we can see that Kalpana, a software engineer, who’s hardworking and willing to go the
extra mile for her work is reluctant to go to Lonavala for a meeting with a client as she had already
planned a vacation two months in advance. Her project leader is quite superimposing on her and is
hesitant to allow her time off which should have already been discussed before as it was pre-planned
leave. What we can also see is that instead of finding a way out to the situation, he is just fixed on just
getting done with it by putting it all on Kalpana.

No, the communication doesn’t appear to be successful. While Kalpana was assertive and
communicated successfully, her project leader doesn’t appear much to be respectful of her need. Also,
to think of this communication as successful, we need to know how her project leader took the
alternative given by her, which is missing from the case.
She had her priorities set and clearly knew what she wanted and respectfully communicated the same to
her project leader. As she was hardworking and diligent, she could have just concurred to her leader and
went ahead to meet the client by cancelling her vacation, but instead, she stood strong on her needs
while being calm and respectful of her leader.
While her project leader was adamant for her to go meet the client on the expense of her vacation, she
was neither afraid to speak up nor did she turn aggressive and lose the peace.
She is also a good decision taker as not once did she show any hesitation or inability to take a decision
regarding her leave.
What is also evident is that she didn’t have any issue in saying ‘No’ and had a positive mindset. When
she realized the urgency of the task at hand she even suggested an alternative course of action. In this
case, it was Meenakshi. While she could have transferred all the work to her leader or Meenakshi and
walked away from the responsibilities, she was even ready to keep herself updated with the client
proceedings and chip-in if there was an immediate need of hers by cutting short on the vacation.
In a nutshell, we can understand that she was diplomatic, tactful, productive, authentic, and flexible in
her communication.

Question no. 2 What were the challenges that prevented smooth (interpersonal) communication
between Ken and Secretary?
Answer:
Understanding of the case:
Ken, a researcher, was working with an organization for a year and was laid off due to recession. Efforts
from his end to reach out to the CEO and get outplaced were not permitted by the CEO’s secretary. He
got better employment elsewhere and wanted to gift a complimentary copy of his successful article to
his former CEO to possibly build up a good rapport or maybe to showcase his value to him. This time
too, the CEO’s Secretary interrupted him and didn’t arrange a meeting with the CEO on account of his
being busy which may not be the case. Moreover, she was quite reluctant to listen to what he had to
say. She further took Ken’s email to the CEO for confirmation of dropping a copy by his office as an
offence and wanted Ken to come and pick the book back which could have just been couriered as well.
In the ending of the case, we see that the CEO even congratulated and thanked Ken for his efforts which
make it look like the Secretary was working out everything from her end without the perspective of the
CEO in mind.

Many barriers prevented smooth interpersonal communication between Ken and the Secretary:
Lack of transparency & trust - The Secretary was always adamant on the fact that the CEO was busy.
Even when Ken just came to gift a copy of his book, he was still told the same thing. As Ken had worked
for a good period and left on a good note, she should have at least communicated with the CEO
regarding his case, which never happened. She further asked him to leave the copy and go but panicked
when he said to leave an email to the CEO for the same. One instance when she lied is when she told
Ken that the CEO told the return the book back to him but later the CEO congratulated and thanked Ken.
This shows that the Secretary lied about the book as was also evident from her body language.

Active listening – The Secretary only focused on hearing what was expected instead of what Ken said.
While Ken came back to his old office on account of gifting the book to the CEO, she still expected that
he had come on account of getting a job and the book was just a gimmick. One can say that she was a
bad listener and had biased thinking which acted as noise while listening.

Inability to listen to others – While we see that Ken held up his demeanour, the Secretary had a
preconceived notion and was impolite and rude when responding to Ken. She even interrupted him
when he asked her to arrange an appointment with the CEO for the copy. She further didn’t even listen
or ask as to what the article was about and just based it on the fact that the CEO sees and hear
everything and knows about every article published which was too high a claim from her end. If she only
listened to what Ken had to say, this would not have been an issue and further, she would have come to
good terms with Ken.

Conflicts in the Workplace - There is less clarity about this in the case. Was the Secretary based her
behaviour due to some past conflict with Ken or was it just how she is? If she based it on a past conflict,
then a lack of communication exists but if it was just how she was, then nothing could have been done
to change her behaviour. Moreover, forcing Ken to come and pick up the book even when he was far
away showed that she wanted to belittle him and make him feel bad.

Empathy – It can also be seen that she did not empathize with Ken at all or understand what he came
for. She did not even allow him to meet the CEO. In the first case, on account of Ken losing his job, she
didn’t consider his feelings or the rough patch he was into. Even though she couldn’t allow him to meet
the CEO, she could have politely denied his request and helped him otherwise. In the second case, she
appears to have an excessive ego and still didn’t consider how Ken would feel coming such a long way
just to gift a copy of his book and get rejected.