Page 83 - Communication in Organizations Basic Skills and Conversation Models

Communication in organizations 72

can be seen from the way he relates to the waiters; there’s hardly any
communication. Second, maybe less important from a personal, but more
so from the business point of view, they will try to improve the routeing in
order to make service faster.

Step 6: Execution
After discussing and organizing the action, the most important step is the execution of the
plans. The employee will have to do something. Together they decide on the actual steps
to be taken:

Alex will do what they agreed on the very next day. There’s no time like
the present.

Step 7: Evaluation
The employee returns for another conversation and discusses his experiences with the
manager—what worked, what didn’t, what else happened, to what extent, according to
the criteria set in step 5, did he reach his goal? Also, what to do next, in view of the
results:

One week later Harry and Alex have their next conversation. Alex has
reached his goal on relationship improvement, since the waiters have
accepted and appreciated Alex’s apologies. However, he did not manage
to keep his personal affairs out of it, since one of the waiters asked him
what was wrong. He decided it might be better to tell them a bit more and
mentioned his marital problems. He did not tell them about his drinking.
They have not managed to improve the speed of the service because too
many waiters called in sick last week. The important thing is that he and
the waiters are getting along. But there is more to be done: Alex is still
drinking heavily.

Step 8: A new start

Based on the evaluation the employee continues his course of action if necessary. It is
also possible to tackle another problem. Depending on the progress of clarification, one
of the first five steps can be taken again:
In another conversation Harry and Alex start dealing with the alcohol
problem. Their goal is to reduce Alex’s use of alcohol. They also discuss
the lack of promotion opportunities. Although Harry does not see any
immediate possibilities for Alex, they do decide he will take a refresher
course in management skills.

Step 9: Conclusion