Collaboration Skill Assessment

Welcome to your Collaboration Skill Assessment

You are a department manager and you have recently thought of a new procedure that you believe would improve the work process. Some of the employees in your department agree with the change and some do not. One of your employees openly criticises the idea to your director. What would you do and why? Choose ONE option.

You decide not to respond to the critics in order to avoid unnecessary conflict.

You reprimand the employee for going over your head to the director and work to promote your idea with even more enthusiasm.

You meet the employee for a talk and explain that bypassing your authority is unacceptable.

Employees' trust in their manager is important so you decide to implement only some of the changes to keep my employees satisfied.

At a marketing meeting with your supervisor and the senior marketing manager you find yourself in the midst of a conflict between them. You know that the two do not get along professionally and that they are in constant disagreement. They are now arguing about strategies for a new campaign, and are asking you to pick a side. What would you do and why? Choose ONE option.

You accept the idea of the senior marketing manager. Since she is more senior she has more influence on your status in the company and therefore it is politically wiser to support her.

You accept the idea of your supervisor. Since he is directly above you, he has more influence on your daily routine in the company and therefore it is politically wiser to support him.

You weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each side and decide accordingly without getting involved in their personal conflict.

You believe that getting involved in this dispute would be detrimental to you as both sides are superior to you. Therefore, you refuse to pick a side saying that both strategies are equally successful.

After you have served two years as manager of the sales team, the director of your company appoints a new deputy manager. Although you have been able to work together, your impressions of her are negative - you find her arrogant and disloyal. The director has now considered sending her on a course that would create an opportunity for her relocation to a different position within the company. However, it would also speed up her promotion. What would you do and why? Choose the most effective one among the responses below.

Since this course is likely to result in the relocation of the deputy manager, you approve her participation in the course.

You contact your director immediately and ask that she be relocated to a different position, more suited to her capabilities.

You veto her participation in the course and discuss it with her. You express your concerns and you try to work out your differences. You update your director.

You approve her participation in the course since it was offered by the director. However, you voice your concerns to the director.

You have been working as a salesperson for the past year and have consistently achieved great sales numbers. Due to personal reasons, you have recently been unfocused at work and as a result your work performance has declined. Additionally, due to changes in the market, the sales figures of your team have decreased as well. Your director does not seem to be taking the changes in the market into account and is blaming your poor performance on poor leadership on your part. What would you do and why? Choose the BEST option.

You explain your personal situation to the director and apologise for the decline in the performance of my team. You ask to take a few days off to recuperate.

You make a decision to put aside your personal situation and consult other sales directors regarding their ways of coping with a volatile market. You devote yourself entirely to your work.

You update the director on the changes in the market and explain that there is nothing that can be done at the moment to improve sales.

You scold your team members for their poor performance and set new, more attainable sales targets in line with the changes in the market.

You've been working in the same place for the past three years and have managed to work your way up. Lately, you have been feeling that you have reached your potential in the company so you start pursuing options for advancing your career in other companies. You are now in the midst of negotiations for a new position. Rumours that you are leaving have spread in your current work place. What would you do and why? Choose ONE option.

Since the rumour is already out, you update all your acquaintances in the organisation that you are in the midst of negotiations for a new position. This may even encourage your directors to promote you within the company.

Since it is only a rumour, you don't update anyone until you actually hand in your notice. Nothing has been decided yet.

Since the rumour is already out and you will probably leave, you invest a little less in your work and a bit more in attaining the new position.

Because the rumour is out you update your manager and only him about your intention of leaving. Since you are still an employee there, you keep working normally.

The company you work for is experiencing financial difficulties. You have thought of a creative solution that will enable it to recruit more clients. However, the downside is that the company will have to let go a stable, loyal but not so profitable client (due to a conflict of interest). Two out of three marketing people agree with you while your manager does not because she believes this is too risky. What would you do and why? Choose the BEST option.

You trust your manager's judgement and withdraw your proposition. There's no point in going against her better judgement.

You present a document to your manager systematically detailing the advantages of your proposition and its contribution to the company. If she keeps insisting, you'll support her decision.

You implement your proposition despite the manager's resistance. Since you have a lot of faith in this proposition, you decide to trust your judgement and go behind her back this once for the benefit of the company.

You confront your manager on the issue and insist that she accept your proposal. You are positive that you are right. You have the marketing people to back you and will not give up until you convince your manager otherwise.

A co-worker is undermining you. Currently, he is at a less senior position than you in the company and hasn't been working there for long. However, he is better educated than you and is also considered a fast learner. You know from a third party that he is interested in taking over some of your responsibilities. What would you do and why? Choose ONE option.

You wait to see how things develop; at the moment this information is merely hearsay.

You call your co-worker in for a talk. You explain that cooperation is an essential feature of any workplace and tell him you believe both of you can learn from one another. If he refuses to understand you take more serious steps.

You do not want to take any chances with such issues. You report the matter to your supervisor and advise him to consider replacing your co-worker.

Since you do not want to make a "big deal" out of the issue, you ask a third party to intimate to your co-worker that his behavior is unacceptable.

You are a department manager. Two members of your staff are long overdue to participate in a professional training course. The training department manager has informed you that she has chosen employees from a different department instead. Relations with the training department are already problematic. Please choose the action that you would probably take.

You do not accept the decision and send the training manager a furious email demanding that she re-open the course for your employees as their performance is hindered by the delay in their training. You make sure to cc the executive director.

Since relations between you and the training manager are already strained, you decide to let the subject go this time and wait a few months until the next course opens.

You contact the manager of the other department, whose workers were selected for training instead of your employees. You try to convince him to let one of your employees take the course instead of one of his.

You talk to the training manager and try to understand the reasons for her decision. You explain the necessity of training for your department's performance and try to persuade her to let at least one of your employees attend the course.

In the past month one of your employees has shown a major decline in sales performance. Although the decline has been ongoing for a couple of months, it has been particularly steep during the past two weeks. In addition, she has started coming in late and seems very frustrated with her work. Her behaviour is influencing the atmosphere in the office as she is a popular employee and has been working for the company for the past two years. What would you do and why? Choose the BEST option.

You meet with the employee and explain that her negative behaviour is affecting not only her performance but that of the entire office. You express a sincere desire to help her during her rough patch on condition that she cooperate with you and improve her attitude.

You feel that since she is a very popular employee it is crucial that she be replaced temporarily or else office performance will suffer. You assign her to back office tasks for the time being and promise her that once her performance improves, you will re-instate her in her former position.

You call a staff meeting to talk about the negative atmosphere in the office. You single out the problematic employee and discuss her contribution to this atmosphere in the hope that her behavior will improve.

You decide to let it blow over. She has been a consistently good employee until recently and you feel you need to "cut her some slack". Part of your job is to be sensitive to your employees' needs when necessary.

You are assigned to work on a project along with another co-worker. He has been working in the department longer than you. Since he has no great ambitions or aspirations to develop professionally, he does not put much effort into your mutual project. What would you do and why? Choose the most effective option.

This is an inflexible situation as far as you are concerned, so you accept it and do your share of the work load to the best of your ability. The rest is up to your co-worker.

You are concerned that the quality of the project will reflect badly on you and the company, so you put in extra hours to complete the project by yourself to the best of your abilities.

You cannot accept this kind of attitude. You immediately contact your manager to discuss the situation. You request that your co-worker be replaced by another worker to complete the project.

You reach out to the co-worker, explain your difficulty and try to negotiate a fair distribution of the work load between you. You take into account that you might have to put in extra hours to complete whatever tasks he neglects to do.

You are assigned to work on a project along with another co-worker. He has been working in the department longer than you. Since he has no great ambitions or aspirations to develop professionally, he does not put much effort into your mutual project. What would you do and why? Choose the least effective option.

This is an inflexible situation as far as you are concerned, so you accept it and do your share of the work load to the best of your ability. The rest is up to your co-worker.

You are concerned that the quality of the project will reflect badly on you and the company, so you put in extra hours to complete the project by yourself to the best of your abilities.

You cannot accept this kind of attitude. You immediately contact your manager to discuss the situation. You request that your co-worker be replaced by another worker to complete the project.

You reach out to the co-worker, explain your difficulty and try to negotiate a fair distribution of the work load between you. You take into account that you might have to put in extra hours to complete whatever tasks he neglects to do.

You work in a large audit firm as a consultant. There are five additional members in the team, all working under the supervision of a team manager and the department manager above him. Matt, a co-worker in your staff with whom you share an office, needs your advice regarding a report he is about to present at this week's team meeting. These meetings are led by your team manager but the department manager is almost always present, too. Although the part of the report that Matt shows you seems fine, you notice that the numerical analysis in another section of the report is missing important conclusions. You can tell that this section of the report does not adhere to the standards of your department's supervisors. Matt seems to be confident about that part of the report and you get the impression that he is not interested in your opinion about it. What would you do and why? Choose the most effective option.

If he is not interested in your opinion there is not much you can do about it, so you let it go and leave him to deal with the consequences of a poor presentation.

. If he does not want to listen to you, notify management about it. Talk to your manager and ask him to explain to Matt the importance of the necessary changes.

You do your best to get him to listen. It may involve some discomfort but you try to explain the logic behind your criticism in the hope that he will understand.

It's best to stay out of it. If Matt does not want to hear your thoughts, that is his right and there is always the possibility that you are mistaken.

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