Scenario 3D: Troubles at Andromeda Travels and Tours Pty Ltd

1. Organise participants into groups of 3 and allocate roles (Marketing Manager- Mike Raymond, Finance Manager- Nate Coleman, and the HR Manager acting as the mediator)
2. Distribute the background information to the role players and the mediator.
3. Distribute the confidential role details for Mike and Nate.
4. The suggested role-play time is 65 minutes.
   • Preparation time: 15 minutes
   • Role play time: 30 minutes
   • Debrief time: 10 minute
   • Group debrief time: 10 minutes

You are the Marketing Manager of Andromeda Travels and Tours Pty Ltd and have extensive experience overseeing successful promotional campaigns. You started working from a very young age to take care of your family and didn’t have an opportunity to pursue tertiary education. However, that didn’t stop you from being effective in your job and successfully achieving your work targets. You have known as a self-motivated, tenacious, and optimistic person. With your experience, you were able to develop successful marketing campaigns in the Tourism industry and got promoted to the Marketing Manager of Andromeda Travels and Tours Pty Ltd.

You are currently working on a joint project with the Finance department. With your extensive marketing background, you are expected to lead this project and allow the Finance manager and their team to make budget-related decisions. Contrary to your expectations, in a meeting with the CEO, Nate then suggested that he wants to get involved in leading this project. The CEO also approved Nate’s suggestion. Therefore, you agreed with Nate’s suggestion, thinking that you could expand your experience by leading an interdepartmental team. Since Nate has zero experience developing a promotional campaign, he asked you to set meeting agenda, which you did without hesitation. The first few interdepartmental meetings were refreshing, and employees from both departments shared some insightful ideas. You had a good feeling about this project. After the initial meeting, Nate set up a social media chat group for Marketing and Finance departments and emailed you asking you to start using the chat to share the project updates and create video stories using funny filters. Although you didn’t see the need for using a chat group to share updates, you decided to send the project updates through the group chat anyway.

In the meetings, you noticed that Nate tries to get credit for the ideas you share with the team, and he acts as if he came up with the ideas. One day you overhead Nate talking with one of his colleagues: “Well I don’t think Mike knows anything about what is happening in the world now. Emails are ok, but group chats make it easy to share things, and you can respond quickly. And this campaign is based on social media, so we have to keep up with the technology. And to be honest, I don’t know how he is keeping up in his position, but I am sure he won’t be able to be promoted any further with those ancient ideas”.

This conversation has troubled you greatly. After thinking about it for a long time, you decided it was time to update your academic knowledge, so you enrolled in a university to start a degree in marketing. Now having an academic qualification hasn’t bothered you before, and it has never prevented you from getting promoted before, however, after overhearing Nate, you have doubts regarding your future career.

Recently, in a meeting, Nate started questioning the credibility of your ideas, which lead to a heated argument between you and Nate. In this heated argument, you decided to confront Nate about how he tries to get credit for your ideas, to which his response was, ‘It’s not only your ideas. I shared my views too, and we both lead this project together, so I should be getting the credit too.’ With that answer, you decided you don’t want to work with Nate anymore. You have spent months preparing for this project, and you really want this project to be a success. However, since the CEO wants you to work with Nate and Finance department, the last few meetings were unproductive and have led to a delay in the launch of the promotional campaign. You also heard from the other team members Nate has clearly mentioned that he won’t be withdrawing from this project.

Now, the CEO has referred you to a mediation session with Nate to resolve the dispute. The HR manager is conducting the mediation session.

Your Position: Nate needs to back off from this project or work under your leadership

In the private meeting with the mediator- You are quite stressed about what Nate has talked about with his colleague. This has impacted negatively on your mental health and work performance.

You are the Finance Manager of Andromeda Travels and Tours Pty Ltd. You have five years of work experience and graduated from one of the prestigious universities in Australia with a degree in Accounting and Finance. After joining Andromeda Travels and Tours Pty Ltd, you have been working with the marketing manager, Mike, in approving the budgets for promotional campaigns. In a recent meeting with the CEO and the Marketing manager, Mike proposed a new social media promotional campaign that he has been working on. As a social media enthusiast, this new promotional campaign seems interesting to you, and you know that your experience working on a project like this would look good on your resume. So, you asked Mike whether you and a few members of the finance department could join and lead the team to work on the new promotion campaign. The CEO also approved your idea. You could sense a slight hesitation from Mike, but with the CEO’s approval, he said yes.

Since you have no previous experience working in a marketing campaign, you asked Mike to set up the meeting agenda. The first few interdepartmental meetings were refreshing, and members from both departments shared some insightful ideas. However, you noticed that Mike is taking all the decision-making authority in the project work, even the budget-related decisions. Since you are both from the same management levels, you want to demonstrate some authority in the meetings and project work. Therefore, you decided to create a social media chat group for this meeting to share and update the project details quickly as well as create videos based on current social media trends. Also, members from the financial and marketing departments liked the idea of a chat group, as it is more informal, team members can motivate each other and reduce the power distance between the managers and the other team members. Mike questioned the usefulness of the chat, but you noticed that he started using the chat to provide project updates.

Although Mike has several years of experience overseeing promotional campaigns, he is not up to date with current social media trends. In the next few meetings, you noticed that Mike doesn’t appreciate and acknowledge your ideas and tries to undermine your authority in the project. This behaviour of Mike is troubling you, and even one of your colleagues asked you about Mike and his behaviours in the project work, and you decided to share your honest opinion with your colleague: ‘Well I don’t think Mike knows anything about what is happening in the world now. Emails are ok, but group chats make it easy to share things and you can respond quickly. And this campaign is based on social media, so we have to keep up with the technology. And to be honest, I don’t know how he is keeping up in his position, but I am sure he won’t be able to promote any further with those ancient ideas.’

In the last few meetings, you realised that some of Mike’s ideas are not suitable for social media promotions. Also, from a finance perspective, you were concerned about Mike’s suggestions, as some of them were not profitable.  So, you decided to confront him regarding the credibility of these ideas. Unexpectedly, this led to a heated argument between you and Mike. Mike ordered everyone in the room to leave and asked why you were trying to get credit for his ideas.

So you responded, ‘It’s not only your ideas. I shared my views too, and we both lead this project together, so I should be getting the credit too.’

Although you don’t want to work with Mike, you really need to complete this project as it will be useful in expanding your work experience. So, you have clearly expressed that you will not be withdrawing from this project, and you want Mike to acknowledge your ideas. The last few meetings with Mike were unproductive and have led to a delay in the launch of the promotional campaign.

Now, the CEO has referred you to a mediation session with Mike to resolve the dispute. The HR manager is conducting the mediation session.

Your position- You don’t want to withdraw from the project, and Mike should respect your ideas.

You are the HR manager of Andromeda Travels and Tours Pty Ltd. Your CEO has asked you to mediate a dispute between Mike Raymond and Nate Coleman.

At the conclusion of the role-play it is imperative that the participants are given the opportunity to debrief with each other and other role-playing groups. The debrief should be prefaced by first outlining the importance of feedback in the spirit of learning through action and reflection and not seen as the opportunity to highlight weaknesses or communicate criticism. The following questions can be utilised to guide the debrief process, with the ability to include further content-specific questions on the mediation process and/or skills in accordance with your curriculum.

1. How did you find the role-play exercise?
2. Were you able to communicate what you wanted to the other party?
3. What role did the mediator play in the mediation?
4. How did you feel about the outcome of the mediation session?
5.  What went well in the role-play?
6. What did you find difficult about the role-play?
7. What would have helped improve your experience in the role-play?
8. What would you do differently next time you engage in a similar conversation?
9. What skills were evident in the role-play?