Business Etiquette – SoftCominVET

You need to attend a very important company meeting with other colleagues. The meeting is scheduled for 9:00 a.m., but you know that due to prior personal commitments, you will not be able to be present until 9:30 a.m. What do you do?

You communicate neither your prior commitment nor your possible delay and hope no one notices that you will arrive at 9:30.

You cancel your previous commitment because you feel like the meeting is more important and therefore has the priority.

You alert your colleagues in time of your possible delay, explaining your reasons, and stating that you will certainly catch up with them immediately after the meeting.

You need to collaborate with a colleague with whom you don't get along but who you know is competent. You need to do a very important project for your company together. How do you approach the situation?

You refuse to work with your colleague and ask to be reassigned to another project.

You divide the activities to carry out: you take care of those of your own competence and your colleague takes care of theirs.

You try to find the best way to collaborate in order to carry out the activities in a collaborative atmosphere since you believe in your colleague's skills, and this is what counts.

You are aware that a colleague of yours is not doing his job properly while also adopting procedures that are not allowed by your company. What do you do about it?

You go to the managers of the company and tell them what you know.

You do not have the right to give life lessons to your colleague so let him/her do as he/she pleases but make your disappointment known, hoping that this will make him/her think.

You talk to your colleague and ask him/her to discuss the problem with the company's management to find a solution before he/she damages the company and himself/herself.

Work Ethics competencies

Some time ago you made a big mistake during the development of a project and were reprimanded by your managers. Today, a colleague of yours is about to carry out a project very similar to the one you did and you are the person in charge of supervision. How do you act?

You give your colleague the references of the old project so that he/she can see for him/herself what needs to be done and what does not.

You give your colleague all the information about the project, tasks, deadlines.

You give your colleague all the information about the project, the tasks, the deadlines and also inform him/her about the mistake you made the first time you did a similar project so that this does not happen again.

You are responsible for the coordination of a group of colleagues and their work. Together you have to develop a project that will require a lot of commitment and collaboration. How do you act?

You are in charge of the project and therefore you do not need to ask for advice or suggestions from your colleagues during the project. If appropriate, you will ask for feedback at the end of the project.

You talk to your colleagues to listen to their proposals/doubts/complaints but in the end the decision is always yours.

You talk to your colleagues before the project, during the various stages of the project and at the end to plan, listen to their proposals/doubts/complaints because for you a good leader listens and welcomes everyone's point of view.

It is necessary to carry out a difficult activity/project that nobody wants to do. You are the contact person of the working group that will take care of this project. How do you act?

You gather your colleagues and tell them that the work has to be done and therefore there is no possibility to communicate individual motivations.

You discuss with your colleagues the pros and cons of working on such a project and try to take over the tasks that your colleagues do not want to do.

You analyse together with your colleagues the pros and cons of working on such a project, collect the opinions of your colleagues and try together to find a solution that allows everyone to work at best and achieve personal and company's objectives.

Leadership competencies

You have a lot of activities to finalise and little time. Unfortunately, there have been a thousand unforeseen events and you need someone to help you. What do you do?

You don’t delegate to your colleagues. You prefer to be in control of your own activities.

You only delegate to your colleagues when the deadline is near and when you realise that you cannot manage everything alone.

You meet periodically with your colleagues to sort tasks according to skills, available time, and company priorities.

Two people who clearly don’t like each other must work on the same project/activity to achieve a common business goal. You are one of these two people, you know that you have to work with someone you can't stand and you know that he/she can't stand you. How do you behave?

It is not possible for you to work with someone you do not trust and do not get along with, so you ask for a change of project or ask for the activities to be distributed equally between the two of you without the need for confrontation during the course of the project.

Communicate with your colleague when strictly necessary and in case of differing points of view ask a superior to tip the scales in favour of one or the other.

You try to find a moment to discuss with the colleague you have to work with. It is necessary to find a common point, a common goal and a way to work together. In some moments you take a step back and let him/her lead the activities and in other moments you try to bring your point of view to balance.

You have just completed a major project for your company but also for your professional career. How do you rate its success?

If the project is completed, it means that I have achieved the objectives.

I collect comments from colleagues, superiors and internal staff in my company.

I collect comments and suggestions from those who worked with me, from those who coordinated my work but also from those who do not work in my company but had, even if only a small part, a role in the project (e.g. the final client).

Management skills