Scenario 1 Person A Team Member Person B

Scenario 1 Person A Team Member Person B Team Leader IT System Down It’s 5: 05 pm on a Friday afternoon. You have an important social event at 6 pm and scheduled to leave at 5. 15 pm. You get an email advising a payment system is experiencing an outage and customers wont be able to pay for anything online over the weekend. You know this kind of outage could take between 1 -2 hours to resolve and your colleague who is quicker than you at resolving these issues has already left for the weekend. You contact your team leader for advice. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Customer Experience

Scenario 2 Person A Support Team Member Person B Project Manager Project Implementation There has been a change for a major service surrounding crucial payment information to provide to customers. The project has reached the implementation phase and the project manager has sent out requests to key frontline support teams to deliver communication packages and training in two weeks. After receiving the request, the support teams have communicated some frustration over the timeframe given and that they weren’t consulted about how the change was going to be implemented. You organise a meeting with the program manager. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Courageous Conversation

Scenario 3 Person A HR Team Member Person B Team Member HR and training You are in HR and have been forwarded an email from a team leader in your department and the email is providing feedback from one of her team members. The team member had been enrolled into a 3 day professional development course which was cancelled due to not enough interest. She has advised she isn’t happy with the short notice and wants to talk to you about it. The team member schedules a catch-up with you to discuss her frustration. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Colleague

Scenario 4 Person A Team Member Person B Payroll Team member Payroll You have just received an email from payroll advising you have been overpaid $100 per pay for the past 6 months. You did think you were paid too much but didn’t say anything as you thought the extra was from the last pay rise. Payroll have advised that due to this error they will be taking the overpayment from your next 2 pays which effectively means you will have approx. $100 a fortnight left. You are currently saving for a house and have rent & bills to pay. You are very worried about how you are going to live. You call Payroll to discuss the situation. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Colleague

Scenario 5 Person A Senior User Person B Project Manager Procurement You are in a meeting to influence the purchase of a new system to support and organise the large volume of data and content across several departments. This system will be used internally and externally for customer facing staff. The people in your meeting are strongly swayed by the current vendor choice as it meets most of the needs of your organisation but the contract is a 5 year deal. The initial meeting with team members involved in the decision making clearly outlined the contract needing to be flexible (i. e. to allow for customer insight and iterative development). You are being pressured by the project manager to make a decision on the current vendor as it has a been a long and tedious process finding a vendor that meets the requirements. You call a urgent meeting with the project manager. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Customer Experience / Courageous Conversation

Scenario 6 Person A Team Member Person B Manager Policy Change You have been talking to colleagues and one suggested an initiative which you agree with and would like to take further. The initiative is for certain front line staff to be authorised to write off/waive late payment fees. The belief is that if front line teams can do this for certain situations, this would encourage customers to make their original payment. You run the idea past your manager who did not agree and has said no. You feel very strongly about this and have created a paper outlining the benefits, potential savings over costs etc You have scheduled time with your manager to discuss further. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Courageous Conversation

Scenario 7 Person A Team Member Person B Colleague (attendee) The meeting You are in an important meeting to discuss a cabinet submission you have been working very hard on. The submission is to implement a grant program for start up businesses to undertake more research and development which will promote innovation, increase growth in start-ups and grow jobs. While you are presenting your paper, one of the attendees (your colleague) is constantly checking their watch, yawning, fidgeting and regularly checking their phone. In fact, it looks as if they are text messaging or emailing. When it comes time to make a decision, this colleague says they are not comfortable to make a decision just yet and asks if they can chat to you offline before they do. The others agree to hold off on making a decision until the next meeting which is another month away. You decide to follow up with the colleague immediately after the meeting. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Courageous Conversation

Scenario 8 Person A Team Member Person B New team member The new team member Your Department has hired a young person fresh out of university to work in your team. You’ve been with the department for a long time, and have much experience in the field. You want to offer them assistance, but they seem standoffish. They have been working on a process to improve the service outlet ticketing machine search function however when you are shown you politely point out a couple of areas where you think the customer might struggle. Without even turning around to answer you, they shrug and say “It’s too hard to do change it now”. You’re annoyed by the response, and seeming lack of respect. You arrange a catch up as soon as possible. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Courageous Conversation

Scenario 9 Person A Team Member Person B Colleague (updated website) Online information You are reading through a recent change to the website and you feel the information is quite confusing as they haven’t used ‘customer speak’. You know it was just recently updated by a colleague and are not sure what to do. You schedule a time with your colleague to discuss your thoughts. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Customer Experience / Courageous Conversation

Scenario 10 Person A Team Member Person B Team Leader Customer Service You have just finished with a customer who has been told the wrong information by one of your colleagues. This is the third time this happened (same colleague) and you are very frustrated as you have spent 30 mins getting yelled at by the customer before managing to calm him down. You call a meeting with your team leader to discuss what they are going to do about this issue. a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Customer Experience / Courageous Conversation

Scenario 11 Person A Team Member Person B Team Leader Communications and Engagement You have a customer who comes to you with a request to upload information to the web and to be distributed via the ‘all staff’ email. It is poorly structured and confusing, and is only relevant to a small audience in the department and a small external audience. You have previously worked with them to give advice on writing style, content and the need to target information to relevant audiences but the message does not appear to be getting through. You advise them that it is not in a user friendly format, is not appropriate for the channel they want and offer to help them re-work it into a more suitable format for a different distribution. This is the third time this happened. They say they don’t care, that it’s been approved by their ADG and it has to go out by the end of the day. What do you do? a) What steps would you take to prepare for the conversation? b) What alternative solutions/options would you consider? c) What moves would you use to gain the best possible outcome? Customer Experience / Courageous Conversation