Hi everyone. Here is a sample case study. You should be able to link this case to the concepts on the exam, although some will be better than others. Also, this case is more than twice as long as the case you will receive on the exam.

The 'Expert' Facilitator, by Mary E. Vielhaber
In Keyton, J., & Shockley-Zalabek (Eds). Case Studies for Organizational Communication.

"Marlene, what do you think about having an external consultant facilitate our strategic planning session?" asked Mitch Johnson, the vice president of finance for the Midwest Energy Company. Mitch posed this question as he and Marlene Lewis, the director for banking relations, met to discuss the upcoming departmental strategic planning session.
"That sounds like a great idea to me, Mitch. You and I want to be actively involved in the discussion rather than leading it, so it probably would be better to have a facilitator help us."
Deregulation of the electrical utility industry had led to new competitive pressures for all electrical utility companies. Both Mitch and Marlene knew that the finance department had to make changes in how it managed the company's cash and pension investments. Marlene, in particular, was keenly aware that there would be considerable resistance. Some employees always seemed to cling to the old ways of doing business.
"There's a consultant I know named Tom Davison," said Mitch. "I think he would do a good job for us. Last summer, he worked with the top-level executives at our teambuilding retreat. I am not sure if he does facilitation, but I'll check with him."
Several days later, Mitch mentioned to Marlene that he had hired Tom Davison to facilitate the strategic planning session. "I told Tom that the goal for the departmental strategic planning session was to come up with a strategic plan that could move the department forward in the new deregulated environment. I asked Tom to meet with a smaller committee to prepare for the session. Then I asked Bill Edward, the director of risk management, and Susan Maher, the director of pension investment, and four of our top financial analysts to work with Tom to prepare for the departmental session.

The Strategic Planning Session

As members of the finance department cam into the conference room on the day scheduled for the strategic planning session, Marlene chatted with the facilitator, Tom.
"I met several times with the six people who were on the preparation committee, but I wasn't able to schedule much time with Mitch. Clearly, he is one busy guy. We talked by phone yesterday, and he seems fine with the agenda I developed for today," said Tom.
By 9:10 A.M., most people had arrive and sat down. The seating was typical. The financial analysts sat together; the directors were at another table; the assistant directors were at another table; the administrative assistants were at a table in the back or the room; and the last two tables had a mix of people who arrived late. Marlene sat with the directors and waited for things to get started.
As Marlene sat down, she noticed at each place there was a small wireless keypad the size of a television remote control. The keypads would allow each person to register individual responses of strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. Marlene assumed that Tom planned to gauge their reactions to ideas with these feedback mechanisms. Next to each wireless keypad, there was a cardboard tent that had a number corresponding to the number on the keypad.
Prior to the meeting, everyone had received an email with the starting time (9:00 A.M. sharp!) and the ending time (4:00 P.M.). The notice said that this meeting was to develop the strategic plan that would guide the department for the next three to five years. Since there was no written agenda, Marlene was really not sure how the day would be spent.
Finally, at about 9:20 A.M., Mitch Johnson began the session with some opening marks. "I want to thank everyone for coming. This is a very important meeting for the finance department. We are going to begin a strategic planning process today that will culminate in a three to five year strategic plan for the department. I want each of you to contribute your thoughts and ideas openly today. The contributions of each member of the staff are valuable.
"Prior to today's session, a committee from the department met and they generated some ideas about our mission, vision, goals, strategies, and action plans. Our goal today is to build on those ideas and to reach some common understanding as a department about where we are going and how we plan to get there.
"This plan is important because with all of the change that is going on in our company and our industry, we don't want to be over a barrel and have to dig our way out of a hole."
Marlene chuckled to herself as she thought about the way Mitch mixed metaphors. Mitch continued, "To help us reach consensus today, I have asked Tom Davison to facilitate our session. Tom has his own consulting business and I have seen his work. Last summer Tom ran an outdoor teambuilding session for out executive team."
After a brief pause, Tom began the session by thanking Mitch and then said, "To start today's session, I would like each of you to get up, walk around, and introduce yourself to two people you don't know."
The group laughed. We know each other all too well, Marlene thought. We meet quarterly as a group, and there have been no new hires in the last two years. Hesitant, but willing to respond to Tom's request, Marlene introduced herself to Susan Maher, sitting next to her, even though she knew Susan well after working with her for seven years. In fact, Susan and Marlene were both on Mitch's executive team, so they met together every week for several hours. Following her lead, others got up and shook hands with colleagues, imitating what Marlene had modeled. Anyone listening to these introductions would have noticed that people were faking it. Yet people played along and pretended to enjoy meeting colleagues they already were quite familiar with. Meanwhile, Tom did not seem to notice that his icebreaker wasn't accomplishing much at all.
As people shook hands, Marlene heard he song "Celebration," a popular tune form the early eighties playing in the background. Obviously, Tom chose some very upbeat but dated music to get the day started. Marlene also noticed that Mitch must have slipped out of the room when the introductions started. Mitch wasn't someone who could fake an introduction just to be polite. He probably thought he could take a quick break, check his phone messages, and get back before the real discussions began.

Getting Down to Business

When it became clear that everyone had exhausted the introductions, Tom continued. "Well, now that you have had an opportunity to meet some new people, I would like to get started. Today we have a lot to cover. We will be developing our mission, vision, goals, strategies, and action plans for the next three to five years. I know this may sound like a lot, but I have some technology here that will allow us to move more quickly through these topics. My job is to help you find the most expedient way to reach consensus."
Taking a wireless keypad in his hand and holding it up for everyone to see, Tom continued, "At each of your places, you will find a wireless keypad for voting. This mechanism will allow you to vote anonymously on ideas today. After you vote, the totals will be displayed on this large screen in the front of the room. To test this out, please answer the two questions that you can see on the screen up front with strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree."

"Now let's look at the results."
Marlene was not surprised. A large majority (65%) agreed that they would still work even if they were independently wealthy. However, a large majority disagreed that they would work for this company. Marlene knew that recent rumors about a reorganization had made most people concerned about whether their jobs were secure. There were also rumors of a merger with another, larger energy company. These rumors were especially troublesome, since people were speculating that the larger company would keep their own finance department and Marlene and her colleagues would be replaced.
Tom briefly commented on the results from the voting. When he asked for questions, the participants looked around nervously. No one asked a question or offered a comment about the results. Moving on, Tom explained that the group would continue to use the wireless keypads to determine the team consensus on a variety of issues.
As Marlene thought about the rumors, and her colleagues' obvious reaction to them, Tom put a mission statement on the screen. He explained, "This mission statement was drafted by a few of your colleagues in the department." Since most of the people in the room were seeing the mission statement for the first time, they carefully read the words on the screen.
Tom continued, "Now, I want you to vote on this statement. Again, choose one of the following responses: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree."
Ralph, a supervisor in the cashier's office, raised his hand and asked, "Tom, can we discuss this statement before we vote?"
Tom quickly replied, "No, I just want you to vote so we can see if we have consensus."
Ralph frowned and looked around the room to others for support. No one said anything, so he continued. "That doesn't make sense to me. How can we vote when we have not talked about this mission statement at all? I'm not even sure what the statement means."
Tom looked away from Ralph and directed his attention back to the group. "After we have tallied the votes, we can discuss the statement. Will everyone please vote now?"
When the results appeared on the screen, it was clear that just over half of the participants either agreed or strongly agreed with the mission statement. Tom summed up the results by saying, "Just over 50% of you either strongly agree or agree with the draft of the mission statement. You will also notice that another 20% are neutral. While this is not a strong consensus, the results show that most people agree with the mission statement proposed."
Without asking questions or comments, Tom moved on. Next, he put up a vision statement and asked the participants to vote. This seemed really odd to Marlene, and she suspected others were uncomfortable as well. How can we decide our vision when we have not all bought into the mission statement? Marlene decided that she would abstain from voting. She looked around and saw confusion on some of the faces. In fact, many of the individuals at the meeting seemed to be preoccupied with something else. Some were attending to their PDAs, and some were looking over papers they had brought with them.
Tom looked at his computer screen and announced firmly, "It looks like not everyone has voted. Please vote now."
There was a brief pause, followed by another request to vote on the vision. When it didn't look like people were responding, Tom turned his laptop compute and pushed a key. As he turned back to the audience, the numbers of the keypads that had not been used appeared on the large screen in the front of the room. Since the numbers on the tent cards at each person's place were also large, most people could glance around and see who had not voted. Marlene's number was there. And so was Ralph's number.
Tom again announced, "These five people have not voted. Will each of you vote now?"
An undercurrent of whispering became obvious. Finally Ralph stood up and said, "I object, Tom. You said that this voting would be anonymous. Why are you singling us out? I honestly feel that I cannot vote on a mission statement until I have had an opportunity to talk the mission statement over with colleagues."
Marlene looked around the room and wondered why Mitch still had not returned to the room. She wondered if anyone else, including Tom, had noticed his absence.
Tom again looked away from Ralph and explained to the group, "This is not a final vote. I just want everyone to let us know how they are feeling."
"I would be glad to tell you how I am feeling, but you said we can't discuss the mission statement yet," Ralph interrupted.
Tom turned to the group and asked, "How many of you would like to stop and discuss the mission statement?"
Hands went up. Marlene thought it looked like more than half the people there had their hands up. She did notice, however, that all of the committee members who had worked with Tom to prepare for the session did not raise their hands.
"It looks like the majority are happy with the voting," Tom concluded.
Not to be deterred, Ralph continued, "It looked pretty even to me. Maybe we should count hands."
Again, Tom seemed to ignore Ralph as he turned to the group and asked, "Do you want to continue?"
Marlene could see by Ralph's expression that he was angry as he continued. "I thought my contribution was supposed to be valued. Where is Mitch? What are we doing here?"
Marlene sighed. This meeting would be a disaster if Tom did not take control immediately. Just then, Mitch walked back into the room.
Tom turned to Mitch and said, "Mitch, we seem to have some disagreement about the process you and I discussed for today. I planned for the group to vote on the draft statements for the mission, vision, goals, strategies, and action plans. Then I thought we would discuss them and vote again. I want them to vote to find out how many people agree. If we all agree, there is no need to discuss the statements. What do you want to do, Mitch?"
Clearly, Mitch had little idea of the controversy that was brewing before he answered, "Tom, you are the facilitator, you decide."
Before Tom could say another word, Ralph and two other people who had not voted and whose numbers had appeared on the screen got up and walked out of the room.
Marlene wondered what she should do. She knew that Ralph and others, including herself, were frustrated by the process, not necessarily the ideas. What could she say to help Tom understand that he needed to stop and resolve this misunderstanding before the group could continue with a productive discussion of strategic planning?