Complete the Relationship Building at Work Worksheet in which you describe the use of collaborative and relationship-building strategies to achieve project goals and explain why these strategies are important.
Nobody—not even heroes, leaders, or megastars—reaches success on their own. We all rely on others to achieve our dreams, whether that’s a friend who believes in us, an instructor who challenges us, or a boss who can open the door to future opportunities. The better you are at building relationships with the people in your life (even with those who have different perspectives than your own), the more likely you are to achieve your goals. You can use your relationship-building skill to work with people from diverse cultures, exchange ideas, reach the best possible solutions, and create a stronger, more cohesive, and more productive workplace.
For this assessment, you will strengthen your relationship-building skill and build a key component of your relationship-building skill: collaboration, which means working together to achieve a common goal. You will identify and apply relationship-building and collaborative strategies based on a scenario. Relationship building is a universal skill and one you will continue to refine as you progress throughout your career.
For this assessment, read the following scenario as well as the employee profiles below.
Scenario
A group of employees at Spruce Paper Company recently finished a major project that involved multiple departments, from creative to distribution. The goal of the project was to develop a new line of holiday cards. After reviewing information about the employees involved in this project, use your understanding of two sociological concepts—status and roles—to assess how employees collaborated to achieve the project goals and describe the relationship-building strategies these employees demonstrated.
Profiles
Rita:
- Rita has been leading the project from day one. She is a senior member of the marketing team and has been with the company for 15 years.
- Rita is responsible for managing multiple departments made up of diverse team members with varied backgrounds and skillsets.
- It is ultimately Rita’s responsibility to decide the direction of the project and to make sure it is finished on time and on budget.
- Although Rita values the varied opinions, experience, and perspectives of all of her team members, she tends to rely heavily on the expertise and opinion of Nimish; because they have worked together in the past, she trusts him and gives him a lot of responsibilities.
- Rita’s constant deference to Nimish makes some of the other team members feel that she favors him.
- Rita tries to be mindful of not showing favoritism by consulting the whole team before moving forward with the conclusions she and Nimish come up with.
Nimish:
- Nimish works on the project remotely from India. He wears multiple hats, working with the marketing team by providing technical support.
- Nimish has worked for Spruce Paper Company for 5 years. He and Rita worked together at the corporate offices when he lived stateside.
- Many team members have complained to Rita that they have trouble understanding Nimish on conference calls because of his accent, and they are frustrated that he is based in India and never makes any in-person appearances.
- Rita defends Nimish’s contributions and uses the opportunity as a teachable moment to explain the importance of diversity in the workplace to her team.
- Nimish tries to address their concerns by reaching out to every member of the team to figure out how to best accommodate their various tech needs and comfort levels with preferred methods of communication.
- His effort makes it possible for each team member to communicate with him and with each other regardless of location, which gives everyone an equal chance to weigh in.
Dave:
- Dave is a graduate student in marketing at a local university and has been working on this project as an unpaid intern. He hopes the internship will lead to a full-time job offer.
- Dave’s role is assisting with market research, preparing proposals and presentations, and providing administrative support for the marketing department.
- Dave pitched an idea to Rita and her bosses, which was well received and the company implemented it.
- Dave made certain that the whole team received credit for their contributions to his presentation.
Ernesto:
- Ernesto is a retired expert in the greeting card industry and has been called in for this project to serve as a consultant. He has worked for a number of companies over the span of his career but never for the Spruce Paper Company.
- Ernesto works closely with Rita and assists in providing direction on the project. He has also taken an interest in mentoring Dave by giving him goals and deadlines to meet on the project.
- Ernesto has been retired for 6 years and is in need of a refresher on current trends.
- Younger team members find it frustrating to work with Ernesto because of this. Rita is open to hearing their grievances but explains that Ernesto offers other skills and knowledge that are invaluable to the project.
- Ernesto’s key contributions have been summarizing each department’s obstacles and avoiding tensions in meetings by mitigating differences of opinion.
Use the Relationship Building at Work WorksheeDOCX] Download Relationship Building at Work Worksheet [DOCX]to complete the following steps.
- Explain how each team member’s status and role affected how they collaborated with others.
- Identify the status and role of each team member first, and then explain how the team member’s status and role affected their collaboration.
- Describe the relationship-building strategy each team member used.
- Explain how each team member used collaborative strategies.
- Explain why collaboration and relationship building are important in professional and personal life.
Write in a well-organized and concise manner that adheres to the rules of grammar, usage, and mechanics.
Your worksheet submission should meet the following requirements:
- Written communication: Written communication should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
- Citations: Include complete citations for any sources used. Review Evidence and APA for more information on how to cite your sources
Review the assessment scoring guide for details on how your assessment will be graded.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
- Competency 2: Explain how collaboration is improved through the application of sociological concepts and principles.
- Explain how each team member’s status or role affected how they collaborated with others.
- Describe the relationship-building strategy each team member used.
- Explain how each team member used collaborative strategies.
- Explain why collaboration and relationship building are important in professional and personal life.
- Competency 4: Address assignment purpose in a well-organized manner, incorporating appropriate evidence and tone in grammatically sound sentences.
- Write in a well-organized and concise manner that adheres to the rules of grammar, usage, and mechanics.
