Organizational Behavior and Leadership Essay

Effective Communication: Partnership in Italy. The given case is about effective communication. In the case, Melissa Chang who is handling all sorts of sourcing activities at the company, she is asked to travel to Venice, Italy to meet her company’s partnering company. She is asked to travel for solving the issues that has made a bad impression of her company towards the partnering company. As before also Melissa’s colleagues cancelled their trip to Moscow at the last minute which hampered their relationship with other partners and their company’s performance looked bad. So it is a very important meeting for Melissa as their partnering company in Italy had several times requested for the information to be provided to them but it was not done. So Melissa had to travel to Italy to understand what are the causes that is affecting the company’s relations with their partnering company. Review/Analysis of the Case Analysis of Findings The case is related to Melissa Chang who is travelling to Italy to meet the partnering company to solve the misunderstanding between her company and partnering company. The discussions and questions are being done while meeting with the partnering company in Italy. But with the effective communication, Melissa is able to answer all questions consciously listening to the issues/ queries from the partnering company. Hence Melissa is successful in making the meeting very productive and planning for future plans with the partnering company. Melissa’s communication skills and convincing them with providing the actual information accurately made the partnering company rethink and reassure to continue work for further more. For example, Surya Nepal Pvt. Ltd. is the major leading company in Nepal which produces several products. Surya Nepal’s partnering company is ITC India which is among the top companies in India. ITC has been working with Surya Nepal for more than 2 decades and their relation had been very good. Last year, Surya Nepal took the contract of producing 20000 pcs of Tshirts within 60 days. Surya Nepal completed the production in about 70 days. So they were 10 days late. Surya Nepal did not provide full information to ITC why the production was late. And when ITC called up for a meeting, Surya Nepal provided ITC with full information about the issues that arise while performing the tasks. Surya Nepal answered to all the questions asked by ITC. After that only ITC was convinced with Surya Nepal. Question 1: Melissa’s communication style Melissa travelled to Italy to meet her company’s partnering company to settle down several issues that has arise and caused a bad impression of her company. Melissa needed to do her job with full responsibility and get more work out of Italian partners. If things did not get cleared up quickly, they could lose the partnership. Melissa rather solving the issues through phone calls, mailings and sending other personnel to meet Italian partners, she herself went to attend the meeting. Since Melissa’s colleagues in the past had cancelled their meeting to Moscow at the last minute which hampered their company. So she was looking forward for the meeting. When she reached to Italy, she was nervous that the language barrier would make the problems more complicated. But her choice of communication to interact with Italian partners proved to be the right choice to solve the issues. She used the direct communication i.e. face to face interaction which made her realize Italian part ner’s frustration. This communication was an effective move to help Melissa interact well with the Italian partners and know more about them and their products as well as the problems. In the first day of the meeting, she found the internal issues such as not providing of information from US partners. And Melissa answered all their questions and explained the business process in US. She listened to the issues of the Italian partners and understand the feelings of their accurately. And at the second day, her communication skill was so effective that the behavior of Italian partners changed and they were much warmer and willing to sit down and discuss  details of work. So her response to the feelings of the Italian partners helped her analyze the situation properly. Melissa’s also noted down Italian partner’s cues or issues and answering correctly to the partner’s efficiently. Mainly the active listening of Melissa helped her answer thoroughly. Melissa established rapport towards the partners which effectively communicate to help them feel comfortable. So Melissa’s communication style impacted the performance of the Italian partners which we can see in the case that Italian partners projected plan for the next fiscal year and also a formal dinner in her honor was arranged. Italian partners also praise Melissa for her quick actions and decisiveness. Question 2: Primary source of information to Melissa’s visit The primary sources of information prior to Melissa’s visit to Italy was the establishment of effective communication in between the Italian partners and her company in order to solve the issues. Italian partners requested several times for information to Melissa’s colleagues but it was not fulfilled. So to tackle the communication barriers in between the two partnering companies is the primary source to Melissa’s visit to Italy. The act of removing the distance relationships of two companies is the main visit of Melissa. To find out what were the major concerns of Italian partners towards the US based company and knowing of their views, ideas of continuing the business or not was a real challenge which forced Melissa to visit Italy and meet Italian partners. Question 3: Primary source of information after Melissa’s visit Melissa attended the important meeting with Italian partners to analyze the situation very tactfully and skillfully by applying appropriate communication with them. After her visit to Italy, at the US, she will be holding a meeting for all the office staffs and personnel where she will be discussing about the causes, effects and productive views in between the two companies. First of all she will be discussing why all office staffs and personnel did not provide Italian partners with prior information regarding the product and its development as Italian partners were keen on knowing the development of the products. Secondly, the view of company adding that language barrier affecting their relations is unbelievable since Melissa  went to Italy, interacted well with the partners and shared each other thoughts which brought two of them into a productive planning for further fiscal year. Most importantly, Melissa will be saying that she was successful in building effective communication by providing exact information and listening to their views and answering them with very accurately are the primary sources of information that will be after Melissa’s visit. Question 4: Melissa’s change in attitude in dealing with Italian partners Before Melissa’s visit to Italy, she was nervous that she would not be able to face the Italian partners. Since the meeting was going to be at Venice, Italy, without major business standards of her company she was afraid of attending meeting. Also the thought of language barrier was taken as a major issue for not attending the meeting. But this all was just views, opinions of others. When Melissa visited Italian partners then she instantly noticed their feelings while attempting to face to face interaction. She came to know what difficulties Italian partners were having by not receiving the actual information. She changed her view of Italian partners as how Italian partners would be reacting. She answered all the queries asked by Italian partners with actual detailed information. This changed the behavior of Italian partners thought of US based company. Italian partners were very much impressed by Melissa’s style of communicating. This helped both to sit down and settle down the problems with building of effective communication. The meeting got very productive as further fiscal planning was planned. When this was done, Italian partners arranged a dinner in Melissa’s honor to praise her for the quick actions and decisiveness she demonstrated during the meeting, also her listening skills to relate their business needs was excellent. So this made Melissa to think that she did right thing of planning to visit Italian partners by her own and come with some productive news. So this changed Melissa’s change in attitude about dealing with the Italian partners. Summary and Conclusion After analyzing the case, it seems that Melissa Chang was successful in utilizing the right communication style. The choice of transactional model of communication by Melissa, that includes the direct interaction with the  Italian partners helped her understand the real problem issues and bring out the best possible ways to solve that issues. Face to face communication helped Melissa to understand the feelings of the Italian partners. The process of noting down their cues by Melissa and responding to their cues helped to change the behavior of the Italian partners. So Melissa was successful in making the meeting productive, solving the issues and making relationship greater. Melissa was praised by the Italian partners and arranged a formal dinner in her honor. So this proves that her performance and effective communication impacted the Italian partners so much that a projected planning for the next fiscal year was also planned at the same meeting. Reference Adhikari, Dev Raj (2009) Organizational Behavior Hersey and Blanchard (2008) Management of Organizational Behavior