MGMT 8425M Week 3 Communication Case Example

"We Will Do Our Best" Recorded as Yes: A Communication Case Reconstructing One Supplier Call From the Notes and Follow-Up Email, Weighing Three Readings of the Reply and Justifying the Project Lead's Next Move

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Walden University

MGMT 8425M: Responding to Behavior and Change as a Multicultural Leader

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

"We Will Do Our Best" Recorded as Yes: A Communication Case Reconstructing One Supplier Call From the Notes and Follow-Up Email, Weighing Three Readings of the Reply and Justifying the Project Lead's Next Move

The Exchange, From the Record

On March 4, 2026, Jordan Hale, a project lead at a composite medical device maker in Minnesota, held a video call with the production team of the company's contract molder in Penang, Malaysia, to confirm that a revised order of housings could ship by April 10, nine days earlier than the original date. The meeting notes, written by Jordan's coordinator and circulated afterward, record the exchange this way. Jordan asked whether the molding line could make April 10. The production planner, Mr. Lim, answered: "We will do our best. The date may be difficult with the current tool schedule." The plant's operations manager, also on the call, said nothing on this point. The notes record the item as "April 10 confirmed." Jordan's follow-up email that afternoon thanked the team "for confirming April 10." No one replied to that email.

What Followed

The housings shipped on April 22. On April 23 Jordan wrote to his director that the supplier's planner was "unreliable" and had "committed to a date he could not hit." The director asked Jordan to write up the exchange before the next supplier review, which is the purpose of this case.

First Reading: An Indirect Refusal

On this reading, "we will do our best" and "may be difficult" together meant no, said in a form that avoided an open refusal to a customer. Hall (1976) argued that in much communication the meaning sits in context and relationship more than in the words, and that listeners used to explicit statements can miss what is being said. Holtgraves (1997) developed a measure of how much people speak indirectly and look for indirect meanings, and found differences between cultural groups as well as between individuals. Evidence for this reading: the planner volunteered a reason the date was hard, and no one on the supplier's side repeated or confirmed the date afterward. Evidence against: the planner has, in past calls, said no directly to other requests, which the coordinator's notes from January show.

Second Reading: Uncertainty Taken at Its Word

On this reading, the planner meant exactly what he said: the team would try, and the outcome was uncertain because the tool schedule was not his to control. Evidence for: the April 22 shipment came twelve days after the requested date but well before the original date, which suggests the team did reprioritize. The tool schedule was in fact shared with another customer's job, as the supplier's later explanation stated. Evidence against: if the planner thought the date uncertain, the absence of any correction to Jordan's "confirming April 10" email is hard to explain, unless silence was itself the safest response.

Third Reading: A Manager on the Call

The operations manager's presence offers a third reading. The planner may have lacked authority to refuse a customer's date in front of his own manager, and the manager may have been unwilling to refuse it in front of the customer. "We will do our best" was the answer that committed no one with authority to anything. Evidence for: the operations manager's silence, and the supplier's org chart, which places tool scheduling with the manager, not the planner. Cramton (2001) described how dispersed collaborators often fail to share contextual information, such as who controls a resource, and then attribute the resulting failures to the other party's character rather than to the missing information. Jordan's word "unreliable" fits that pattern.

The Reading Selected

The case argues for a combination of the second and third readings. The planner was uncertain, and he lacked the authority to resolve the uncertainty on the call. The first reading, indirect refusal, is possible but weaker, because the planner has refused directly before. What matters most is that the record never shows a commitment from anyone with authority. "Confirmed" was the coordinator's word and Jordan's, not the supplier's.

The Lead's Next Move

Jordan's next move should be to ask a different question at the next schedule-critical call: not "can you make the date?" but "what would have to happen on the tool schedule for this date to hold, and who decides that?" The question gives the planner a way to state the constraint without refusing, and it brings the person with authority into the answer. Jordan should also change the notes: a date is recorded as confirmed only when the supplier writes it back.

What Would Show the Reading Was Wrong

If, at the next call, the operations manager is present, the constraint is stated and the date is confirmed in writing by the supplier, yet the shipment is again late without warning, the authority reading fails, and Jordan would have grounds for the reliability concern he raised.

References

Cramton, C. D. (2001). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science, 12(3), 346-371. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.3.346.10098

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. Anchor Press.

Holtgraves, T. (1997). Styles of language use: Individual and cultural variability in conversational indirectness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(3), 624-637. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.3.624