You supervise customer service representatives. On Friday evening, after a long, unproductive week, you send your boss the following e-mail:

It has been a very busy week and I wanted to let you know that I have implemented a new policy for my customer service reps effective this coming Monday morning. I have included the policy below. See you in the staff meeting on Monday.

New start-time policy, effective immediately:

Effective Monday morning, all customer service representatives will be required to arrive 15 minutes before their scheduled work shift. The reason for this policy is because too many people are coming to work late and spending 15 minutes preparing for their schedules, getting coffee, and booting up their computers, which accounts for a late start, often of 15 minutes.

This 15-minute preparation time is unpaid. After you prepare for your shift, you may clock in.

Strict adherence to this policy is mandatory.

During the staff meeting with your colleagues early Monday morning, you learn that your supervisor is very unhappy with the new policy that you implemented. The supervisor looked it over during the weekend and seems angry.

You immediately ask for a meeting with your supervisor. You ask, "What specifically don't you like about the new policy?"

Your boss responds, "I'm not quite sure, but I am very upset that you sent this policy out without my advance knowledge of it."

You think to yourself: How am I going to get to the root of this problem?

You want to discuss 1 creative approach that you would use to discover the actual problem with your boss. You have to determine if this problem is the policy itself, your boss's reaction to the policy, or if something else is going on.

In your discussion, do the following:

• State the perceived problem, and why you believe your supervisor is angry.
• Analyze the situation by breaking down 2 or 3 steps of what really happened. Often, this type of reflection, or tracing your steps, helps you discover the root of the problem.
• Propose 1 creative approach to solving the problem and why you believe this will help the situation.
• Finally, state the real problem, which can differ from the perceived problem.