Tyler Faces a Feedback Challenge
Tyler is the chief operations officer (COO) of
Mining and Drilling Co., a company that manufactures equipment for the mining
industry. With the CEO being heavily involved in strategy formulation, mergers
and acquisitions, and company finances, Tyler is essentially in charge of
running the company. With all the exploration for resources in recent years,
the company is prospering.
Tyler sees a major part of his role at Mining
and Drilling to be that of a leader who inspires, guides, and monitors the
behavior of subordinates. At the moment, Tyler is facing what he considers to
be a delicate issue. He wants to provide constructive feedback to one of his
direct reports, Gus, the director of materials management. The feedback has to
do with incidents he heard about Gus’s relationships with staff members.
Although none of these incidents or reported incidents rumors deals with
behavior that violates the code of conduct at Mining and Drilling, they suggest
poor professionalism.
Sherry, an office manager, once told Tyler that
Gus often stares at her in a lecherous manner. Sherry also said that Gus tends
to stand about five inches from her when they have a conversation about
work-related matters.
A few weeks ago, Tyler heard Garth, the IT
manager, joke about how much advice and help Gus wants with his off-the-job
communication technology pursuits, such as setting up a smart house and
interconnecting the electronic devices in his home.
Last week Tyler asked Kaitlin, his
administrative assistant, how she and her family planned to spend the weekend.
Kaitlin said with a sarcastic expression on her face, “As usual, I will have to
put a lot of time into deleting the dozens of text messages Gus sends me. I
don’t do anything to encourage Gus, but he keeps bombarding me with silly
messages. Last night he sent me five texts about cute things his dog did
recently.”
Tyler was wondering how he should approach Gus
about his behavior unbecoming to a company executive, yet still not in
violation of company policy. “I should give Gus some feedback about these
problems,” thought Tyler. “Yet I don’t want to damage my relationship with one
of the key leaders at Mining and Drilling.”
Answer these questions in essay form:
1. Are the reported incidents in relation to Gus
even worth the attention of a COO?
2. If you think the case describes a problem
worthy of his attention, how should Tyler coach Gus about the reported
incidents?
3. What opening line do you recommend for Tyler
if he does hold a coaching session with Gus about the incidents reported in the
case?
Follow the Case Study Format that is provided in
the file. You should fully analyze the case studies by first identifying the
key issues and likely root causes before you attempt to answer the questions.
The length of your post should range between 500 words minimum and 1,500 words
maximum.