| Course | WMBA 6695 Communication for Leaders and Managers |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion post |
| Length | About 590 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Discussion post, APA 7 citations |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Master of Business Administration (MBA) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for WMBA 6695 Week 1
Week 1 Discussion: A Message That Went Wrong
"Without Prior Approval From Me": How a Plant Manager's Overtime Email Reached Thirty-One Route Drivers Through a Group Text and Left Twenty-Three Restaurant Stops Unserved
The message below was sent on a Thursday afternoon last spring by the plant manager at Ridgeline Uniform Services, a composite uniform rental company in Columbus, Ohio, where I manage service operations. Names are removed; the wording is as sent.
Subject: Overtime
"Team, effective immediately no overtime will be paid without prior approval from me. We are 14% over budget on labor for the quarter. Please make sure your people know. Thanks."
The plant manager wrote it for the four production supervisors who run the wash floor. It also went to a distribution list that includes one route supervisor. He forwarded it that evening to the drivers' group text with the note "FYI from the plant." By Friday morning, all thirty-one route drivers had read it on their phones, without the conversation that had prompted it.
On Friday, two drivers whose routes usually run past ten hours stopped at their fortieth hour of the week and returned to the plant. Twenty-three restaurant stops did not get clean aprons and kitchen towels before the weekend.
The sentence that failed is "no overtime will be paid without prior approval from me." On the wash floor, "me" was the right person, since the plant manager approves production overtime. For drivers, "me" became a manager they never deal with, because route supervisors approve route overtime. "Will not be paid" also read as a threat to withhold wages for hours already worked, which federal rules do not allow for hourly workers whose work the employer permits (29 C.F.R. § 785.13). The drivers did the reasonable thing with the words they had.
The missing context was that the email answered a production problem: weekend wash crews had been scheduling their own extra hours. The supervisors knew that; the drivers did not. Kruger et al. (2005) found that people writing email overestimate how clearly their meaning comes through, because they hear their own intent when they reread it. The plant manager reread a message about wash crews. Keysar and Henly (2002) found the same overconfidence when speakers tried to convey which meaning of an ambiguous sentence they intended.
Has a message of yours changed meaning at its second or third stop rather than its first?
Reply to Keisha
Keisha, your hospital's "visitor restrictions lifted Monday" email is a strong example, and I think the failure point is the word Monday, not "lifted." Staff who read it on Friday took it to mean three days away; the family members who saw it posted on the unit door on Tuesday read it as the following Monday. A relative date only works for readers who know when the message was written. Camerer et al. (1989) showed that people who know something have trouble imagining a reader who does not, which fits a writer who could see the calendar. Did anyone suggest putting the date itself in the subject line afterward?
Reply to Daniel
Daniel, you named the whole second paragraph of the vendor email as the problem. Could you pick one sentence? My guess is "we will adjust pricing accordingly," because "accordingly" points back to something the customer never saw. If that is the line, it is a pronoun-like problem similar to my "me": the word only means something to the person who wrote it. Keysar and Henly (2002) would predict that the vendor's account manager thought it was perfectly clear.
References
Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G., & Weber, M. (1989). The curse of knowledge in economic settings: An experimental analysis. Journal of Political Economy, 97(5), 1232-1254. https://doi.org/10.1086/261651
Duty of management, 29 C.F.R. § 785.13 (2026).
Keysar, B., & Henly, A. S. (2002). Speakers' overestimation of their effectiveness. Psychological Science, 13(3), 207-212. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00439
Kruger, J., Epley, N., Parker, J., & Ng, Z.-W. (2005). Egocentrism over e-mail: Can we communicate as well as we think? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6), 925-936. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.925
WMBA 6695 Week 1 instructions, in plain terms
In the first discussion, students bring a real message that misfired and dissect it for the class. The original wording should appear in full or nearly so, with names removed, because paraphrasing erases the very ambiguity being studied. The post then traces the route the message took: who it was written for, who forwarded it and who finally read it without any of the conversation behind it. From that route the writer picks one sentence as the point of failure and defends the choice over other candidates. The context the first readers had and later readers lacked should be stated outright, since it is usually the mechanism. The post ties the case to one reading and ends by asking the group something; the two replies are due a few days afterward.
How the WMBA 6695 Week 1 example is put together
The post sets the scene at a composite uniform rental company in Columbus and reproduces the overtime email with its subject line. A second paragraph traces the route: four production supervisors, a distribution list that caught one route supervisor and a forwarded group text to every driver. The outcome is stated as events, with two drivers stopping at their fortieth hour and twenty-three stops left unserved. The nominated sentence is defended on two grounds: the pronoun "me" changed referent once it left the wash floor, and "will be paid" read as a threat to wages. A paragraph names the missing context and cites Kruger and colleagues and Keysar and Henly. The reply to Keisha relocates her failure point to a relative date, citing Camerer and colleagues; the reply to Daniel asks him to commit to one sentence.
Where the marks sit in the WMBA 6695 Week 1 rubric
Marks in this opening week follow precision. A post that quotes the message and names a single failing sentence gives classmates something exact to test, while a post that blames "poor communication" or a whole paragraph gives them nothing. The route earns credit when it shows the order of readers, because a message that broke at its second stop needs a different fix from one that broke at once. Stating the missing context explains why reasonable people misread the words, and that explanation separates analysis from complaint. Reading should explain the mechanism, such as why writers overrate their clarity, rather than appear as a closing flourish. Replies are scored on whether they sharpen the classmate's diagnosis, ideally by proposing a different failure point with a reason.
WMBA 6695 Week 1 help from the desk
Pick a message you can quote; if you no longer have it, choose another rather than reconstructing it from memory. Strip names but keep line breaks and the subject line. Write the list of readers before you decide what went wrong, since the list often points to the answer. Then choose one sentence and argue for it in two or three lines. Common weaknesses include blaming the reader, describing the sender's intent at length and nominating a paragraph to avoid committing. Another is skipping the context the original readers had. In replies, avoid agreeing; name a different word or line and explain why. Should you want a model post around a misfire from your own workplace, send the anonymized message and a note on who received it.
Get a WMBA 6695 Week 1 example written to your instructions
Paste the Week 1 prompt, the discussion rubric and the reply count your section expects, and a full post with its replies comes back within 24 to 48 hours, at zero cost on a first request. A short description of a message that went sideways is enough; the sample builds the rest around it.
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WMBA 6695 Week 1 questions, answered
Where can I find a free WMBA 6695 Week 1 sample paper?
Scroll below the facts table: the full post on the misfired overtime email and both replies are there, with margin notes, at no charge.
What message does the WMBA 6695 Week 1 example analyze?
A plant manager's short email saying no overtime would be paid without his prior approval, forwarded by a route supervisor to every driver's phone.
Which sentence does the post nominate as the failure point?
"No overtime will be paid without prior approval from me," because "me" pointed to the wrong manager for drivers and "will be paid" read as a threat to wages.
What context did the drivers lack?
That the email answered a production problem: weekend wash crews had been scheduling their own extra hours.
What do the two replies do?
One relocates a classmate's failure point to a relative date, and the other asks a classmate to pick one sentence from a vague paragraph.