Supervision: Concepts and Skill Building 10th Edition by Samuel Certo Solution manual
Pilar should have called Miguel on his behavior when it started to occur and should have tried to draw him back to the point of the meeting. Not saying anything in the beginning showed a lack of control on Pilar’s part. Hence, a continuation of Miguel’s behavior should not have been a surprise. If calling him out on the behavior still did not work, she could have proposed meeting at a different time when he was less distracted and could fully understand what was at stake.
- Table 1.1 categorizes the skills of a supervisor. Applying this modern view of management skills, choose one of the skills described in the table. Then analyze Pilar’s performance in both meetings in terms of that skill. How was she a success or failure?
- Technical skills: Pilar is not able to persuade Miguel that there is a problem with the account he has worked on—she fails in this respect.
- Human relations skills: While Pilar is very nice to Miguel, she does not communicate the extent of the problem to him, nor does she motivate him to change his budget issues and diffuse the problem at hand—she fails in this respect.
- Conceptual skills: The fact that Pilar calls the meeting with Miguel indicates that she sees there is a problem. Pilar understands that if Miguel does not fix his problem of going over budget and failing to tell his clients, he will lose the account—Pilar is a success here.
- Decision-making skills: Pilar sets out a plan for Miguel, having his assistant make a weekly report to hand over to her. She knows that if he does this, the client will at least see that there are steps being made to remedy the problems—Pilar makes a good decision and is a success here (whether or not Miguel follows this is another story).
- Knowledge skills: Does not apply in this case
- If you had been in Pilar’s shoes, what would you have done in the first meeting immediately after Miguel began to focus on things other than your intent for the meeting?