Business & Finance

Action Plan

Write an action plan reflecting on strategies that would be helpful if you were to speak up in your second story from the Tale of Two Stories exercise that you submitted.  This is not about justifying your actions, but rather should focus on what you might want to do to speak up effectively if you were to face a similar situation in the future.  Look at your story as a case that you might analyze for this class using the Decision-Making model from class.

The response can be two-three pages (or more, if needed). The response should focus on:

1. Be Attentive – Clarify the facts and issues involved

  • What are the facts? Did you need more information?
  • What assumptions were you making? 
  • What was the ethical conflict and how could you have defined your goal?

2. Be Intelligent – Identify the stakeholders

  • Looking back, what were the goals of the key stakeholders?  What sources of support might have existed?

3. Be Reasonable – Use the values of the ethical lenses

  • How could you have used the 4 Lenses of the ELI to create a balanced response or made a more well-reasoned decision about what to do?  Please apply the 3 questions from each of the lenses for this analysis. Note, they might not all arrive at the same answer, but you should try to integrate them into a final response as best you can.

4. Be Responsible – Communicate your final decision through an action plan

  • What approach would have been effective?  Dialogue? Adversarial? Questioning? 
  • What would be the most effective way for you to have spoken up in this situation or what would have made it more comfortable to communicate?
  • What rationalizations did you need to be prepared for?

5. Be Reflective – Evaluate and reflect on the results

  • What part of this decision-making model might have been most helpful for you to consider in this case?  For example, did you rely too much on assumptions and keep quiet as a result?  Was it difficult to consider others or see where they were coming from at the time?  Was it difficult to make a decision or feel confident in your ethics?  Or did you find it too difficult to act and not have an effective strategy for speaking up? 

Your response may rely on some or all of these points, depending on your reflection on the experience.  Your response must cover AT LEAST steps 1-4 of the 5 steps of the decision making model, shown in the analysis and plan.  Which steps you focus on will depend on your story and the steps most relevant/necessary for developing a stronger plan of action.  Each step you develop is worth a maximum of 10 points.  The assignment as a whole is worth 40 points.