Exercise 1 - Motivation Case Study

For the past 5 months, Susan Kwan, a manager at Orion Manufacturing, has come home from work depressed and angry. It seems no matter what she does, she can't motivate her employees to improve their performance. Over the past year, Kwan sent each employee to an extensive training seminar, spent money on new equipment, and transferred out the employees who lacked the ability to do their jobs. Despite these interventions, her department's performance is at the same level it was 2 years ago. Because of this performance stagnation, Kwan is worried that she will be fired.

Kwan thought that a boost in morale might increase performance, so she gave each employee a 12% raise. Yet, instead of morale being increased, many employees complained even louder than before.

Kwan also held a department meeting in which she gave an inspirational appeal for everyone to "work hard and do the very best job you possibly can." Her department seemed enthusiastic for a week, but productivity did not change.

Where did Susan Kwan go wrong? What advice can you give her to motivate her employees?

Exercise 2 - Case Study

Daniel Garcia was eating lunch at Anderson's Restaurant one Thursday when he noticed a help-wanted ad for the restaurant on his placemat. The ad indicated that most servers made more than $30 an hour and that the restaurant atmosphere was fun, exciting, and a place to meet new friends. As a college student, Daniel thought the job opportunity was perfect: The money was good, and because most of his friends were back in Arizona, the chance to have a good time and make new friends was highly appealing.

During his job interview, the restaurant manager promised Daniel that he wouldn't have to work more than 20 hours a week and that he could always have one Friday or Saturday off each week. Daniel accepted the job offer and began work on the following Monday.

The first week at work was spent learning the menu, restaurant rules, and serving techniques. Daniel was one of five new servers, but he was the only one who was also attending college. As one would expect, the second week was a bit stressful as the new servers began waiting tables. The first day was filled with mistakes, but by the end of the week the five new servers were performing like experts.

As the weeks passed, Daniel began to feel stressed as he tried to balance his 15-hour course load with the demands of his new job. Most weeks he worked 30 hours, and he had not had a Friday or Saturday night off in the past 2 months. During the next month, Daniel called in sick one Friday and then again a week later on a Saturday. Daniel was also feeling a financial pinch. Even though he was working more hours than he expected, his base pay and tips averaged only around $13 an hour. Though he liked his coworkers, Daniel always seemed to be arguing with his supervisor, who Daniel thought was giving the best hours to employees with less seniority than he had. Even worse, the restaurant was constantly busy, and there was never any time to joke around or have fun. Daniel's grades began to drop, and after failing a test in his 8:00 a.m. history class, Daniel finally quit his job.

On the basis of the theories discussed in the text, what caused Daniel to become so dissatisfied that he eventually quit his job?

Exercise 3 - Listening Styles

In your text, you learned that Geier and Downey (1980) believe that there are six styles of listening: leisure, inclusive, stylistic, technical, empathic, and nonconforming. Each style of listener "hears" only communications that are consistent with his/her style. The purpose of this exercise is to provide you with an opportunity to practice communicating in different ways to different types of listeners.

For each of the situations below, indicate how you would speak to each of the six styles of listener.