Please help to suggest some ideas to answer for questions of the following Case Study!

CASES INVOLVING BUILDING POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS Find Somebody Else Ron Davis, the relatively new general manager of the machine tooling group at Parker Manufacturing, was visiting one of the plants. He scheduled a meeting with Mike Leonard, a plant manager who reported to him. RON: Mike, Ive scheduled this meeting with you because Ive been reviewing performance data, and I wanted to give you some feedback. I know we havent talked face-to-face before, but I think its time we review how youre doing. Im afraid that some of the things I have to say are not very favorable. MIKE: Well, since youre the new boss, I guess Ill have to listen. Ive had meetings like this before with new people who come in my plant and think they know whats going on. RON: Look, Mike, I want this to be a two-way interchange. Im not here to read a verdict to you, and Im not here to tell you how to do your job. There are just some areas for improvement I want to review. MIKE: OK, sure, Ive heard that before. But you called the meeting. Go ahead and lower the boom. RON: Well, Mike, I dont think this is lowering the boom. But there are several things you need to hear. One is what I noticed during the plant tour. I think youre too chummy with some of your female personnel. You know, one of them might take offense and level a sexual harassment suit against you. MIKE: Oh, come on. You havent been around this plant before, and you dont know the informal, friendly relationships we have. The office staff and the women on the floor are flattered by a little attention now and then. RON: That may be so, but you need to be more careful. You may not be sensitive to whats really going on with them. But that raises another thing I noticedthe appearance of your shop. You know how important it is in Parker to have a neat and clean shop. As I walked through this morning, I noticed that it wasnt as orderly and neat as I would like to see it. Having things in disarray reflects poorly on you, Mike. MIKE: Ill stack my plant up against any in Parker for neatness. You may have seen a few tools out of place because someone was just using them, but we take a lot of pride in our neatness. I dont see how you can say that things are in disarray. Youve got no experience around here, so who are you to judge? RON: Well, Im glad youre sensitive to the neatness issue. I just think you need to pay attention to it, thats all. But regarding neatness, I notice that you dont dress like a plant manager. I think youre creating a substandard impression by not wearing a tie, for example. Casualness in dress can be used as an excuse for workers to come to work in really grubby attire. That may not be safe. MIKE: Look, I dont agree with making a big separation between the managers and the employees. By dressing like people out on the shop floor, I think we eliminate a lot of barriers. Besides, I dont have the money to buy clothes that might get oil on them every day. That seems pretty picky to me. BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS BY COMMUNICATING SUPPORTIVELY CHAPTER 4 267 RON: I dont want to seem picky, Mike. But I do feel strongly about the issues Ive mentioned. There are some other things, though, that need to get corrected. One is the appearance of the reports you send into division headquarters. There are often mistakes, misspellings, and, I suspect, some wrong numbers. I wonder if you are paying attention to these reports. You seem to be reviewing them superficially. MIKE: If there is one thing we have too much of, its reports. I could spend threequarters of my time filling out report forms and generating data for some bean counter in headquarters. We have reports coming out our ears. Why dont you give us a chance to get our work done and eliminate all this paperwork? RON: You know as well as I do, Mike, that we need to carefully monitor our productivity, quality, and costs. You just need to get more serious about taking care of that part of your responsibility. MIKE: OK. Im not going to fight about that. Its a losing battle for me. No one at headquarters will ever decrease their demand for reports. But, listen, Ron, I also have one question for you. RON: OK. Whats that? MIKE: Why dont you go find somebody else to pick on? I need to get back to work.

Questions:

• What principles of supportive communication and supportive listening are violated in this case?
• If you were to change this interaction to make it more productive, what would you change?
• Categorize each of the statements by naming the rule of supportive communication that is either illustrated or violated.