Effective Resolutions Group

Consultants:
Kristina Cisneros
Jemaise Jones
Jacqueline Martinez
Natalie Santana
Sandy Sarduy
About E.R.G.
We are a consultant group committed to improving office settings in order to ensure company
success. We offer analytical services at both branch and corporate levels. We specialize in

conflict resolution, organizational analysis and interpersonal effectiveness between individuals in

an organization. We focus on information flow and train management in order to maintain
excellent problem solving techniques within the workplace.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to enter an organization and understand its strengths and weaknesses. We intend
to analyze an organization and its individuals, their roles and how each impact the overall
productivity and success of given organization. We intend to offer recommendations as well as
plans of actions to ensure measures are taken to fortify weaknesses and add to the success of an
organization.
E.R.G. Consultants and Specialties
Kristina Cisneros:
Jacqueline Martinez:
Sandy Sarduy:
Jemaise Jones:
Natalie Santana:

Individuals in Organizations
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Conflict
Management and Information Flow
Problem Solving

Each consultant will advise on their area of expertise and recommend plan of actions for each
section. There will be recommendation overlap as we offer multiple multi-dimensional
workshops and/or programs. A summary of all recommendations will be provided at the end of
consultant reports.
Background on Organization
***We strive to keep our clients confidentiality, the organization name will not be disclosed***
Office Communication Protocols (Formal and Informal Networks):
At the organization request, we were sent to analyze one of their branches. Communication
protocols for this branch come from their corporate office Vice President to their Branch
Manager. Said manager is therefore responsible to relay all office information to branch
employees. There is an in-house human resources representative for employees to seek council
for such concerns. Branch manager often uses other employees to relay communication
messages such as Employee Red and/or secretary, Employee Pink.
Organizational Business Departments:

This office setting is made up of a manager, assistant to the regional manager, sales department,
accounting department, human resources, quality assurance, customer relations and supplier
relations. There are warehouse personnel, however, these individuals were not included in this
organizational analysis.
Analysis Reports
Kristina Cisneros
Individuals in Organizations
Focus: Employee Red encourages Employee Blues Lack of Leadership
September 3, 2016 (10:30 a.m.)
Scenario 1: Employee Red takes on the Employee Blues responsibility of choosing a new
health care plan for the employees of the organizations.
Impact: Employee Reds action of doing so is with the intentions to benefit himself by giving
him a sense of power he does not actually have. Taking advantage of employee Blues laziness
and selective responsibility to do the job he is supposed to do, causes a negative influence on
employee Blues leadership productivity and the organizations productivity as a whole.
Employee Reds way of dealing with the responsibility that is not in his power feeds Employee
Blues selection of what he does and does not want to take responsibility for. This causes the
employees to not take such things seriously as new policies, rules, etc. Employee Reds attempt
to take control over the situation for the other employees creates a disrespectful and
unprofessional attitude among the rest of the employees regarding Employees Red and Blue.
Plan of Action: Due to Employee Reds desire and drive to be in control of decisions/situation
regarding the organization shows his motivation to move up to a higher position. Although this is
a positive quality, Employee Red does not have the right skills to be an effective leader.
Therefore, Employee Red should join a mentor program with one of the effective leaders in the
corporate office in order to learn the skills it takes to be an effective leader. These skills include
people and communication skills, power management, etc. With this mentoring program,
Employee Red who has the potential to become a higher leveled leader in the organization with
the proper guidance as to how to go about certain situations.
September 5, 2016 (9:30 a.m.)
Scenario 2: Employee Red takes on Employee Blues responsibility to organize the holiday and
weekend work schedule for the employees.

Impact: Employee Reds obsession with being in control and accepting power that he is not
entitled to, causes an uproar with the employees within the organization. As employee Red
continues to add to Employee Blues lack of leadership, Employee Red is feeding this sense of a
workplace with no authority. This continuous occurrence is in Employee Reds mind benefitting
himself because of his love for being in control but is harming the productivity of the
organization as a whole and himself as an individual as well.
Plan of Action: Employee Red should be demanded to not accept the responsibilities Employee
Blue places on him. Instead, Employee Red should recognize his own responsibilities and with
the power he does have, use it to help Employee Blue if necessary rather than taking the full
responsibility of a power he does not attain with his job title. Employee Red should be required
to use his drive to raise his position in the organization by shadowing or joining a mentorship
program with one of the efficient leaders in corporate. This will allow Employee Red to grow as
a leader and attain the proper skills needed to attain control of a situation in the workplace.
October 5, 2016 (11:30 a.m./12:30 p.m.)
Scenario 3: Employee Red takes on Employee Blues responsibility to fire people because of the
downsizing.
Impact: Continues encouragement of Employee Blues insufficient leadership. Causes a
disturbance in the authoritativeness of the organization. Creates a sense of no authority amongst
the employees, causing the employees to further disrespect Employee Red as a colleague and
Employee Blue as their authority figure in the office.
Plan of Action: Give Employee Red the opportunity to grow and develop the proper skills to
truly earn the position in which is responsible for such powerful decisions amongst the
organization. Assure Employee Red is not available to or viewed as submissive to Employee
Blue in order to stop this passing on of responsibilities which continues to disrupt the
organization.
Jacqueline Martinez
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Interpersonal refers to the communication that occurs between people and the relationships that
are built from this communication. Effectiveness refers to the success of a message being
communicated. In analyzing this office setting, almost all employees lack interpersonal
effectiveness in one way or another.

Employee green is one of the members of this organization that provides a good example of
having high interpersonal effectiveness. This employee has leadership capabilities that go hand
in hand with his interpersonal effectiveness.
Employee blue, however, could learn from employee green and has even tried to pass important
duties to employee green. Given that employee blue has a higher title and duties list than
employee green, employee blue needs to improve his interpersonal effectiveness.
Employee red has the capability to have high interpersonal effectiveness, but currently is not at a
satisfactory level. Employee red needs coaching or workshop.
> Employee Green exhibits high interpersonal effectiveness
> Employee Blue exhibits low interpersonal effectiveness
> Employee Pink exhibits satisfactory interpersonal effectiveness
> Employee Red exhibits low interpersonal effectiveness
Scenario 1:
September 1, 2016 (11:30 a.m.) Employee Green tells customer that he will call him back due to
Employee Red knocking things over on his desk. Employee Red lacks interpersonal effectiveness
because instead of communicating to Employee Green that his stuff needs to be moved, he just
pushes Employee Greens papers causing things to fall onto Employee Greens desk while he is
on the phone with a customer. Employee Red explains it is about demarcation, however, he is
crossing the limits of professionalism by being disruptive.
Impact:
Employee Reds lack of interpersonal effectiveness and not addressing the issue in an effective
and professional manner causing a disruption to not only Employee Green but to the customer on
the phone. This impacts the organization because it could potentially lead to Employee Green
losing a sale. Employee red could have waited for Employee Green to be off the phone to advise
him that his clutter was overflowing the borders of his desk.
Plan of action:
There is sufficient space in this office setting to separate the desk of these two employees about
1-2 inches to avoid overlap. It significantly provides space in between the desk to maintain
boundaries from the overflow of clutter and the eavesdropping of conversations between the
customers on the phone and the other salesperson. Additionally, we recommend Employee Red
take a workshop on interpersonal effectiveness. This will help Employee Red not only with
Employee Green, but with all other employees he lacks interpersonal effectiveness with.
Scenario 2:

September 1, 2016 (12:30 p.m.) Employee Pink says Dont we all to Employee Blues
comment about needing a raise. Employee Blue stops and reprimands Employee Pink and tells
her that if she has a problem with her compensation to take it up with HR and to be professional.
Pay rate is not something that should be discussed between employee or managers. By protocol,
Employee Blue did the correct thing by advising Employee Pink to take it up with HR, however
Employee Blue, himself, was the one who made the raise comment. Employee Blues demeanor
and tone were too aggressive and showed lack of mindfulness. Mindfulness and appropriate
communication are key concepts to interpersonal effectiveness.
Impact:
Employee Blue does not address issues or employee concerns with tact and professionalism. Part
of Interpersonal effectiveness is being able to say no and be taken seriously, but tone and
demeanor to relay the no are essential to maintain a level of professionalism. Incidents like
these make Employee Blue unapproachable as well as could lead to conflict issues if employee
opinions are perceived to go on as unheard.
Plan of Action:
Employee Blue requires a leadership and interpersonal effectiveness workshop.
Employee Pink needs to be advised once again of company protocol as well as a list of issues
that are directly handled by HR.
Scenario 3:
September 1, 2016 (10:00 a.m.) Employee Blue always picks Employee Green to do manager
duties because of high interpersonal effectiveness. Employee Blue asks Employee Green to pick
a health care plan. Employee Blue knows Employee Green has high interpersonal effectiveness
and will be able to relay the message of the healthcare change with little to no loss of morale
between the employees as well as maintain the relationships between him and the other
employees at a satisfactory or above level. Employee Blue picks Employee Green because he,
himself lacks satisfactory interpersonal effectiveness.
September 1, 2016 (10:30 a.m.) Employee Blue picks Employee Red to choose a healthcare plan
because he does not want his employees to be mad at him and he does not want to have the
responsibility of the task. Employee Blue continues to try to pass the task at hand to others,
further proving he lacks interpersonal effectiveness as a manager.
September 1, 2016 (3:00 p.m.) Employee Red lacks interpersonal effectiveness when asking
employees to break confidentiality and write down the medical conditions they want covered by
their insurance plan. A part of interpersonal effectiveness is being able to identify and assess the

emotions of all parties involved. Employee Red fails to understand the sensitivity of such
medical information as well as the importance of such decision to each individual employee.
Impact:
These interactions between Employee Blue and his subordinates negatively impact the
organization, because the organization is lacking a strong and interpersonally effective leader.
The morale between all employees is at risk, because they do not feel appreciated or cared for.
Healthcare is a benefit they were offered when they started the job and therefore changes of such
benefits should be handled with ethical care and correct context procedures.
Plan of Action:
Employee Blue needs to attend both a leadership workshop as well as an interpersonal
effectiveness. Both of these workshops will be offered at the corporate level for all managers of
all branches. These workshops and the appropriate training of all management are crucial to
company success as well as overall interpersonal effectiveness in each office setting.
Sandy L. Sarduy
Conflict
Process that occurs when individuals, small groups, or organizations perceive or experience
frustration in attaining goals and addressing concerns.
Focus: Conflict between employee Red and Green is repetitive and disruptive
September 1, 2016 (11:30 a.m./2:30 p.m.)
Scenario 1: Employee Red Starts arguing over desk space with employee Green. Leads to back
and forth arguments between employees Red and Green. Employee Green later places employee
Reds stapler inside gelatin.
September 2, 2016 (8:00 a.m.)
Scenario 2: Employee Green is on call with a client. Employee Red is stationed at the desk next
to employee Green and starts to shred papers thus creating large amounts of noise and making it
difficult for employee Green to communicate with his client. Employee Green asks employee
Red to please stop shredding papers till he is done with his call or to go shred papers somewhere
else. Employee Red refuses and continues his disruptive action. Employee Green reacts by
disconnecting the shredder from the outlet. Employee Red reacts to this by disconnecting
employee Green from the client on the phone.
September 3, 2016 (2:30 p.m.)

Scenario 3: Employee Green locks employee Red in Conference room.

October 10, 2016 (8 a.m)
Scenario 4: Employee Red arrives at work to find his desk missing. Employee Green has moved
employee Reds desk into the mens bathroom.
Impact: Continues conflict between employees Green and Red result in reduced productivity.
The behavior displayed by these two clearly shows that they cannot work together or next to
each other. They continually cause disruptions and cause conflict between each other rather than
focusing on work.
Plan of Action: Employee Green should be moved to a new desk that is not next to employee
red to put some space between the two. For a period of time Employee Red and Green should
have another employee assigned to them as a sort of manager to oversee their work and keep
employees Red and Green from being able to start any conflicts and disrupt the workplace.
Jemaise
Management and Information Flow

Jones

Introduction:
a. In an organization, the informational flow is the facts, ideas, data and opinions that are
discussed throughout the company. Information is constantly flowing through organizations and
acts as the blood of the company.
b. In an organization, management refers to the process of dealing with or controlling things or
people.
Focus: Employee Blues interaction with his fellow employees and an evaluation of his
management and maintenance of information skills.
Scenario 1: September 5, 2016 (9:30 a.m.) Employee Blue is informed by corporate that the
organization will be switching Health Care packages due to budget cuts. Employee Blue is told
that he must choose a new plan by the end of the week. However, Employee Blue asks Employee
Red to complete the task because of his concerns with causing tension in his personal
relationships with the other employees. Employee Blue also chooses not to relay the changes
being made to the remainder of the staff.
Impact: Employee Blues lack of appropriate information flow and leadership qualities causes
disorganization and miscommunication within the organization. For instance, the other

employees in the organization do not feel up to date with information or that Employee Blue
fulfills his responsibilities as a manager.
Plan of Action: In order to improve his performance in the workplace, Employee Blue needs to
attend Effective Resolutions Group leadership workshop. In this training session, Employee Blue
will understand the importance of accepting authority in the workplace, and how an organization
works better when information is relayed effectively and efficiently to its employees. Employee
Blue will learn that the organization will benefit by him accomplishing his duties as a strong
leader instead of worrying about maintaining personal friendships with other employees.
Scenario 2: October 7, 2016 (8:00 a.m.) Employee Blue is informed by corporate that he needs
to terminate an employee by the end of the week. Once again, worried that he will jeopardize his
personal relationships with the other employees, Employee Blue dumps the task on Employee
Yellow, Employee Brown and Employee Beige. Employee Blue asks the three of them to find an
employee who they think is not performing well. Employee Blue finally decides to choose a
random employee to let go, and settles with Employee Aqua. After the encounter, Employee
Aqua reports that Employee Blue admitted that he only terminated him to protect his image as a
manager.
Impact: Employee Blues lack of authority negatively affects the climate of the organization.
Employee Blue does not represent an effective leader and proves that he does not know how to
properly enforce policies or make difficult decisions. This causes a sense of confusion and allows
for other employees to take on responsibilities that are not assigned to them.
Plan of Action: In order to improve Employee Blues work ethic in the organization, we feel the
organization needs to invest in a co-management system. For example, Employee Green
embodies the qualities that a good leader should own and can serve as a worthy role model for
Employee Blue to learn from. Employee Blue and Employee Green will now have an equal say
when it comes to decision making and can find different strategies to effectively communicate
information to their employees. In order to do so, Employee Blue will receive a cut in salary in
order for the organization to stay on budget. This means that Employee Green and Employee
Blue will receive the same compensation and share the same title in order for the organization to
move forward in the right direction.
Scenario 3: October 12, 2016 (3:30 p.m.) The organization is due for performance evaluations
and Employee Blue is in charge of conducting the process. However, Employee Blue does not
follow the organizations performance review protocol. For instance, when corporate informs
Employee Blue of the performance review process, Employee Blue does not take into
consideration that he needs to thoroughly review each individual and their contribution to their
selective departments. Employee Blue waits until the last minute and gives dull, brief answers to
the individuals instead of following the organizations professional procedures.

Impact: Since Employee Blue is not candidly reviewing the individuals in his organization,
employees do not know which areas they need to improve on. Not to mention, the other
employees are not being recognized for the areas in which they excel in either. In this scenario,
we see that Employee Blue is not performing his responsibilities as a manager and can not
effectively transmit vital information to his employees. This causes a sense of doubt in the work
space
and
can
affect
the
organizations
productivity.
Plan of Action: Employee Blue needs to learn the significance of being a reliable and effective
leader in an organization. In order to prevent Employee Blue from conducting poor performance
reviews in the future, the other individuals in the organization should conduct a review on
Employee Blue and rate his performance as a manager and director of the organization. Also,
corporate needs to have a private meeting with Employee Blue and go over the protocol for
managing performance reviews. By doing this, Employee Blue will see what areas he needs to
improve on and will understand why it is in his best interest to apply what he has learned from
the leadership training workshop as well as his conversation with corporate. Employee Blue will
benefit from his consultation with corporate and will understand how much the organization can
improve from having an honest and dependable leader.
Natalie Santana
Problem Solving
Problem Solving is pivotal in an organization. If employees can not get past a problem then it
could affect the organization greatly.
September 5, 2016 (9:30 a.m.):
Scenario 1: Employee blue was asked by corporate to pick a health care plan. To avoid the
assignment he assigned employee red to do the task for him. Employee red chooses the
healthcare plan that covers the least amount of things because it is the cheapest.
Impact: All other employees are upset because they arent getting enough benefits to cover their
needs.
Plan of Action: The employees should be allowed to make the decision of which healthcare they
are going to be provided by majority rule. Majority rule decisions would help ensure that at least
50% of the organization is happy with the decision and will be more likely to continue to support
it.
October 5, 2016 (4:00 p.m.)
Scenario 2: Employee blue is told that he must fire someone. He decides to call in employee tan
and fire him. Employee tan talks employee blue out of firing him and convinces him that

employee magenta does less work. Employee blue fires employee magenta upsetting him
because the decision was unfair
Impact: Employee blue is too easily persuaded. As manager he should be able to tell employee
tan that his decision is final.
Plan of action: Employee blue needs to learn to mandate as a leader. He should be able to
evaluate his employees properly and make his own decisions. He should shadow someone from
corporate to teach him how to properly fire an employee and know how to properly decide who
is let go.
October 12, 2016 (3:30 p.m.):
Scenario 3: Employee mauve has a personal issue with employee red and employee green for
not attending her American idol party. When performance review comes around she fakes
customer reviews that says that employee red and employee green did not do well. At the end of
the day employee blue confronts employee mauve about the reviews because when customers
were called they did not say what the reviews said.
Impact: This could affect the jobs of employee red and employee green. Personal issues should
not be brought into the workplace.
Plan of action: Employee mauve should be required to take a refresher course on the companys
policies when it comes about interpersonal relationships outside of the office and the
consequences for falsifying any company documents/information.
October 13, 2016 (8:00 a.m.):
Scenario 4: At 8 am manager, employee blue decides to do email surveillance. Employee green
is hosting a party and invites everyone except for employee blue through his work email.
Employee blue sees this when doing surveillance 10 am. Employee blue tries to get invited to the
party all day and doesnt get invited. Employee blue still shows up uninvited.
Impact: Employees should not be using work emails for personal things. Employee blue also
should not be trying to mingle and intrude on employees personal lives and events because it is
unprofessional and will ignite lack of respect from employees.
Plan of action: A policy should be set in place that work email addresses could not be used for
personal communication. Employee blue should also make sure to inform employees of email
surveillance. As far as employee blue intruding on employee greens party, employee blue should
be given a warning from corporate and be reminded of the type of relationship that a manager
and his employees should have. Although this happened outside of working hours, we advise
employee blue attends a boundaries and risks training to learn about the possible outcomes and

legal retaliation management can face if a subordinate decides to use personal information
against management, such as blackmail.
Summary of Recommendations

Mentor program with corporate

Cease responsibility hand off from manager to subordinate
Desk re-location/separation
Workshop on Interpersonal Effectiveness
Leadership workshop
Co-management system implementation (includes promotion and salary cut)
Corporate meeting to reiterate manager duties
Protocols implementation (Employee-Manager Review, Anti-personal emails)
Protocols review (HR office protocols, legal action against document falsification)
Boundaries and Risks training for management
Effective Resolution Group can further assist with workshops/trainings, programs and protocol
reviews. As an additional service to clients, we schedule at corporate convenience and offer
discounted plans of action for previous clients.
Keys of Employees, Seasons, Episodes and Times:
Blue:
Green:
Yellow :
Purple:
Violet:
White:
Beige:
Magenta:

Michael
Jim
Angela
Phyllis
Meredith
Temp Ryan
Oscar
Devin

Season 1:
Season 2:

September
October/November

Red:
Pink:
Orange:
Brown:
Black:
Gray:
Tan:
Mauve:

Episodes:
***Dates used land on Monday-Friday***
9/1 = episode 1
9/5 = episode 3
9/7 = episode 5
10/3 = episode 1
10/5 = episode 3

9/2 = episode 2
9/6 = episode 4
9/8 = episode 6
10/4 = episode 2
10/6 = episode 4

Dwight
Pam
Jan
Kevin
Toby
Stanley
Creed
Kelly

10/7 = episode 5
10/11 = episode 7
10/13 = episode 9
10/17 = episode 11
10/19 = episode 13
10/21 = episode 15
10/25 = episode 17
10/27 = episode 19
10/31 = episode 21

10/10 = episode 6
10/12 = episode 8
10/14 = episode 10
10/18 = episode 12
10/20 = episode 14
10/24 = episode 16
10/26 = episode 18
10/28 = episode 20
11/1 = episode 22

Times:
Minute 1 of episode = 8 a.m.
Minute 3 of episode = 9 a.m.
Minute 5 of episode = 10 a.m.
Minute 7 of episode = 11 a.m.
Minute 9 of episode = 12 p.m.
Minute 11 of episode = 1 p.m.
Minute 13 of episode = 2 p.m.
Minute 15 of episode = 3 p.m.
Minute 17 of episode = 4 p.m.
Minute 19 of episode = 5 p.m.
Minute 21 of episode = 6 p.m.

Minute 2 of episode = 8:30 a.m.

Minute 4 of episode = 9:30 a.m.
Minute 6 of episode = 10:30 a.m.
Minute 8 of episode = 11:30 a.m.
Minute 10 of episode = 12:30 p.m.
Minute 12 of episode = 1:30 p.m.
Minute 14 of episode = 2:30 p.m.
Minute 16 of episode = 3:30 p.m.
Minute 18 of episode = 4:30 p.m.
Minute 20 of episode = 5:30 p.m.
Minute 22 of episode = 6:30 p.m.
Sources

Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2012). Fundamentals of Organizational Communication: Knowledge,

Sensitivity, Skills, Values (8th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
The Office (U.S. TV Series) --- Season 1 (2005)
Season 2 (2005-2006)