Introduction
Working in the setting of any organization means being exposed to the threat of making a mistake based on the human factor (Mitroff & Denton, 2013). Whenever several people of different tempers and visions work together, they are bound to make communication mistakes sooner or later. As a result, an employee may be easily misjudged by a company manager, therefore, facing the threat of being demoted or even losing a job (Robbins & Judge, 2015). However, there are several avenues for addressing the issue in question. After being misjudged by a manager when working for a company in the food industry, I learned that managing the conflict and reintroducing oneself to the manager is, in fact, possible once the right strategy is adopted.
Main Body
Particularly, my employer heard me telling an immature joke about restaurant food once. Despite the fact that I strived for providing the services of the finest quality to the clients of the company, the manager started suspecting that I did not take the company’s code of ethics seriously enough to work there. In order to address the issue mentioned above, I had to work on not only proving that I did not mean anything indecent when saying the joke but also altering the manager’s vision of me as a person. In other words, both the professional and the personal relationships between me and my manager had to be improved (Wellin, 2012).
Therefore, I decided that my manager and I needed to discuss this issue openly and that he should give me a chance to explain that it was merely a silly joke and not the statement of my opinion on what quality standards in the food industry should be like. However, prior to the discussion of the subject matter, I had to choose an appropriate negotiation strategy, as well as come up with a way to alter both his personal and professional perception of me. Eventually, the approach based on collaboration and compromising (Schneider & Brown 2013) was chosen as the key negotiation strategy.
The conflict mentioned above shows in a rather graphic manner that the decision-making abilities of both individuals and organizations can be improved with the help of the negotiation strategy based on clarity, compromise, and cooperation. Unless both parties trust each other and are honest with each other, productive communication cannot possibly occur. Therefore, the decision-making process requires high clarity rates and an open negotiation process, with both sides being ready to compromise and acknowledge their mistakes. As long as both parties agree to discuss a problem openly, the decision-making process is likely to result in a solution that will satisfy both negotiators.
Conclusion
The process of addressing the issue of misjudgment is admittedly long and complicated, as the problem in question concerns not only the company’s standards and the fault of the existing system of evaluation, but also the managers’ personal qualities, including the ability to openly acknowledge their mistakes. Granted that an employee must make a very powerful effort in order to correct the impression made on the company managers unless the latter are capable of recognizing their mistakes, the problem of managerial misjudgment cannot possibly be solved in any way except for quitting the job. Although the experience described above was rather confusing, it was still necessary for drawing essential lessons in business communication from it.
Reference List
Mitroff, I. I. & Denton, E. A. (2013). A study of spirituality in the workplace. MIT. Web.
Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2015). Organizational culture. In Organizational behavior (511–542) (16th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Schneider, A. K. & Brown, J. G. (2013). Negotiation barometry: A dynamic measure of conflict management style. Milwaukee, WI: Eckstein Hall.
Wellin, M. (2012). Managing the psychological contract: Using the personal deal to increase business performance. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, Ltd.