As a new supervisor hired from outside of the hospital, it took you very little time to learn that morale in the department had been at low ebb for quite some time. As you started getting acquainted with your employees by meeting with them individually, you quickly became inundated with complaints and various other evidences of discontent. Most of the gripes concerned perceived problems with administration and building services, but there were also a significant number of complaints by your staff about other employees in the department and some thinly veiled charges suggesting that a couple of staff members have consistently been complaining about the department to your boss. (Your boss has said nothing to you about this.)

It sounded to you as though a number of common themes ran through the group's complaints, and it seemed to you that a number of differences could be cleared up by airing these issues with the entire group. You planned a meeting for that purpose, instructing all employees to be prepared to air their complaints (except for those directly involving other staff members). Your employees seemed to think this was a reasonable idea, and several led you to believe they would be happy to speak up.

But your meeting turned out to be brief. Hard as you tried to get people to air their gripes, nobody spoke. You tried again two weeks later, with the same results: no one uttered a word of complaint. Yet all the while the negative undercurrents continued to circulate through the department.

Answer these questions, numbering your responses:

1. Why do you suppose you get only silence from these employees when you attempt to deal with them as a group? Explore possible causes of this frustrating condition.

2. Why might the complaints that several of your employees raised involving administration and building services is a reasonable place to start working on this group's communication problems?

3. How long do you believe it will take to "bring this group around" to where you need them to be? Why?