Case Study:
You are a senior clerk in a big branch of an esteemed bank in a metropolitan city. Your manager has decided that customer service must be enhanced and has formed a committee of junior staff to describe and present suggestions to the management in a month’s time.
You are appointed as a member of this committee however not the chairperson. A young lady, a grade junior to you is made the chairperson. She was much reluctant to accept the responsibility as she said; she had never been to any meeting nor chaired any. Although, she was offered no choice in the matter. The manager simply appointed her at the chairperson.
However she could be a good choice. She is an experienced cashier known to the public as proficient and pleasant, and she has frequently expressed strong view about the significance of good service. She thinks herself as intelligent and logical and sometimes puts people down quite firmly if she finds out flaws in their arguments.
You were not capable to attend the first meeting of the committee, however from what you heard it was not at all successful. In conversation with such present you have gained the impression that progress was slow and hard. The chairperson tended to be aggressive. Very few ideas emerged and it was not too clear to those present what they were there to accomplish.
You have as well spoken to the chairperson. She thinks that nobody was forthcoming or enthusiastic adequate. They all kept going off the subject and asking silly questions. These ideas as there were turned out to be trivial or irrelevant in her opinion, apart from the ones she had to propose herself. She contended that she was worried about the next meeting, about the likely success of the committee in general and indeed about her overall relationship with the staff who were committee members.
The next meeting is to take place in a week’s time.
Question 1: Identify the problems in this case.
Question 2: What can you do to make sure that the committee performs more effectively when it next meets?