The Skip-Level Meeting

When You Want to Talk to the Manager’s Manager

A couple of years ago, View Magazine called our series, Diversity: Creating Success for Business and People "one of the best products about diversity on the market." And customers agreed!

Now, we can offer you a follow-up series from the same company, ARMC. Building a Diverse Workforce for the Global Millennium is a 20-volume series that covers a huge variety of diversity issues.

Each program also presents critical business concepts like building trust and respect, performance appraisals, team building and leadership.

Program 19: "The Skip-Level Meeting: When You Want to Talk to the Manager’s Manager"

Your organization believes in open and honest communication and has an organization-wide open door policy. So how do you cope with managers who want to control the information that their superiors get from subordinates?

What do you do when your managers are afraid of the open door policy? This scenario captures a conversation between a woman and her supervisor, and his attempt to "constructively coach" her for a successful meeting with his supervisor. In addition to these "coaching" issues, there are issues of the effectiveness of work/family programs and career development for women.

CHARACTER NAMES
Mary Johnson and Bob Smith

KEY LEARNING POINTS

• Building an open workplace
• Valuing open, honest communication
• Creating a trusting, ethical, and efficient workplace
• Understanding the importance and value of skip-level meetings