Managerial Communication

14 April 2011

Dr. Terry Roach

C13: CASE 13-2 KEEPING THE MEETING ON TOPIC

In my opinion Mr. Mendoza should have created an agenda for this meeting outlining the topics that he intended to cover during this meeting. The meeting was scheduled “to develop the actual series of tasks needed for the final system conversion.” In his opening statements in this meeting he should have told DeLaura and Synge that he wished to discuss the primary goals of this meeting and if time permitted, any other questions or concerns would be discussed.

When DeLaura and Synge strayed from the topic during the meeting, Mendoza should have gently re-iterated that this meeting’s goal was to discuss the final system conversion. It seems that in this case that he was probably too abrupt when he interrupted them, which caused them to “shut down.”

Mendoza should have used the Nominal Group Technique. This technique allows all members of the group to express their views without intimidation. The group members can have a list already prepared prior to the meeting about items that are important to the project. By constantly interrupting the two, he alienated them from the conversation, thus they merely shut down and offered no other ideas or suggestions. However, both DeLaura and Synge strayed from the meeting’s goal and should have recognized that this was why Mendoza was a little irritable. Both the facilitator and the group members were at fault in this situation.

Mendoza should have been able to keep the two members focused on his agenda and then turned his attention to their questions at the end of the meeting. I believe that this would have been a win-win situation.