Handling an erroneous floor plan error with colleagues and clients

¶ … role, you rely on various other team members to provide you with accurate information relating to the events which you then share with the client and sponsors. After sending what you believed to be the current floor plan to the client and sponsor, you realize that your colleague supplied you with an old version of the floor plan that inaccurately reflects the available space for the sponsor activation. How would you handle this situation, both with your colleague, and with the client and sponsor?

Colleague

Reprimanding colleague will only worsen an already potentially stressful situation. I would set up an appointment with the colleague where I can speak to him directly in order to find out the reasons for his failed assignment: did he mislay the original assignment; did he receive incorrect or misunderstood directions, is he under personal stressful situations that made him prone to error. I will keep an open mind and be careful to be non-judgmental and empathic. Active listening and willingness to understand will help me discover the reason for the error.

I can then work out ways with colleague for rectifying error. This may involve me, or colleague, speaking to client and sponsor explaining the situation to them and asking them for extension of time in order to resubmit the plan.

Sponsor

The same situation that applies to client applies to sponsor, and the same actions will occur. A meeting, either jointly or singly, will take place where the situation will be explained and another chance solicited for colleague to present the correct floor plan. Conditions will be negotiated so that if colleague fails in presenting plan at jointly convened time, the colleague will have to suffer certain consequences. All parties -- client, colleague, sponsor, and I -- will be witness to this decision and to defined consequences.

A contract, in all cases, is better, and it would be best that a contract were written before client-team arrangements had been made in order to circumnavigate potential difficulties. One could, in this case, simply resort to the contract as a way of dealing with this difficulty.

If no contract were written, or if this situation is not covered in the contract, I would handle the situation as described above.

The crux of the issue is validating and understanding position of each party. The sponsor and client's needs and situation needs to be realized, whilst my colleague's action needs to be looked into rather than judged; all sides need to feel validated and understood.

First and foremost, therefore, the primary techniques of communication need to be practiced where I show each party that I understand and appreciate his situation.

It may be that the best scenario would be having sponsor/client and colleague sit down together and discuss the situation, facilitated by myself. We could then lay out the problem, basis for the problems, ways to rectify it, deadline for amendment, and consequences if amendment were not produced by deadline.

Sources

Riggs, C.J. (1983). Dimensions of organizational conflict: A functional analysis of communication tactics. Pp. 517-531 in, Communication yearbook. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Thomas, K.W.(1992). Conflict and negotiation processes in organizations. Pp. 651-717 in M.D. Dunnette & L.M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.