The Missing Conversation(s)
A program director in one of the colleges here at Ohio State is paying the price for not having the appropriate conversations with his boss, the dean of the college.
Kevin, as director of programs, is responsible for admissions into the undergraduate and graduate programs in his college. In a recent conversation, he pointed out that registrations into one of the graduate programs was down almost 40%. If, he pointed out, he was unable to substantially increase admissions in the next several months, his college would suffer a substantial loss in revenue and potential damage to its reputation.
When asked what happened, he indicated that the marketing campaign that had been planned was never fully or completely launched because the college’s communications director was, as he said “doing other things.” I asked if he talked with the Dean about this, and Kevin said “Yes, I met with him on a couple of occasions and explained the situation and that if we didn’t get the marketing we needed, admissions would suffer.”
“Ok,” I asked, “but did you make a specific request of the Dean to have the communication director implement the marketing plan immediately?”
“No, the Dean knows this program is a priority, so I would expect him to put in the correction,” was Kevin’s reply.
“Well, has he put in the correction?’
“Not that I can tell,” Kevin replied dejectedly.
It is easy to blame the communication director and the dean for the current admission situation. However, doing so ignores that one or more of the four conversations were missing. Kevin appeared to rely on conversations for understanding to get the dean to take action, but never specifically asked for what he wanted done, when, or why though a performance conversation. This is exactly the situation depicted in this Dilbert cartoon.
Further, even if we assume Kevin made a request, that he can’t tell if the dean has acted indicates a missing closure conversation in which he follows up with the dean. It could be that the dean is willing to take a “hit” on admissions in order to achieve some other goal, but Kevin won’t know unless and until he has a closure conversation to get the current situation complete.
The results we get are a product of the conversations we have. When we don’t get what we want or expect, the first place to look is at our conversations to see what is missing.
