discuss 9

Select 5 questions for each chapter to respond to:

Chapter 14 – Select 5 to respond

1. How would you define or describe the differences between coaching and the fundamental management activity of directing?

2. Since it is people who make the mistakes, why are we told specifically to direct our negative feedback at performance or results and not at people?

3. How can a supervisor encourage employees to take risks without allowing them to wander into trouble?

4. What is the contingency theory of reinforcement? Provide a detailed example.

5. Why should we bother to praise performance that’s not outstanding in any way but just consistently acceptable?

6. How would you relate management by wandering around (MBWA) to a supervisor’s need to remain visible and available? Explain.

7. Instead of bothering to dispense praise whenever an employee does something deserving of it, why not simply save up all such instances to convey in an outstanding performance evaluation?

8. How do you believe you would go about deciding if some condition, occurrence, or circumstance suggests the need for counseling or the need to go directly to disciplinary action?

9. When employees seem to be violating the rules, is it always their fault? If not, cite an instance in which the employee may be blameless.

10. Why do you believe some supervisors fail to counsel employees or initiate disciplinary action even when the need to do so is clearly evident?

11. What would you primarily be looking for when following up after an employee counseling session? Why?

12. Often, when you need to counsel an employee you will already have in mind a workable solution to the developing problem. Why not simply mandate the solution and be done with it?

13. Describe one significant barrier to successful counseling. Why do you believe this barrier exists, and what can be done about it?

14. Identify the major similarities and differences between holding an employee counseling session and holding a performance evaluation interview.

15. Why should the supervisor retain documentation of an employee counseling session, and why should this documentation not become part of the employee’s permanent record?

Chapter 18 – Select 5 to respond.

1. What do you believe to be the strongest factors in ensuring that a diversity initiative is taken seriously throughout the organization? Why?

2. We have long been admonished to ensure equal treatment of employees. How can we possibly respond to cultural differences among employees in a group without treating some differently from others?

3. What might need to be done with the organization’s personnel policies to accommodate workforce diversity? Provide an example.

4. Describe one of the possibly significant risks embodied in a supervisor’s lack of sensitivity to diversity issues.

5. Provide at least two reasons why we can state that the total workforce in health care is more culturally diverse than most other lines of business activity.

6. Describe a situation in which an organization’s stated values are in apparent conflict with the values implicit in management behavior.

7. Explain why it is likely that personal values are difficult to alter, and describe how doing so might be accomplished.

8. Describe several of the kinds of legal actions that can arise from issues of workforce diversity.

9. Who is likely to be key in ensuring organizational support for a diversity initiative, and to whom will most of the implementation activity belong?

10. Provide an example or two about how assumptions about people can lead a supervisor into difficulty.

Reading Umiker’s Management Skills for the New Health Care Supervisor 7th edition