Solution and Answer Guide
Guffey/Loewy, Business Communication: Process & Product, 10e, 2022, 9780357129234;
Chapter 2: Professionalism: Team, Meeting, Listening, Nonverbal, and Etiquette Skills
Table of Contents
Zooming In—Critical Thinking Answers …………………………………………………………………………… 1
Uplifting Others: Collaboration and Team-Orientation at Lyft ………………………………………………………… 1
Ethics Check Answers …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
Social Loafing in Your Team? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Ghosted by a Team Member ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Sending Nonverbal Cues to Your Instructor …………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Zooming In—Your Turn Solution ……………………………………………………………………………………. 4
Applying Your Skills at Lyft …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
Critical Thinking Answers ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Activities Solutions …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
Zooming In—Critical Thinking Answers
Uplifting Others: Collaboration and Team-Orientation at Lyft
• Why is Lyft partnering with much larger organizations?
Solution
As Lyft is growing rapidly and competing with its much larger rival, Uber, it is forming
strategic partnerships, especially in capital-intensive research and development. Few
• Why does Lyft test new-hires for their culture fit, and why is it valuable for employer
and employee?
Solution
A company culture, or its personality, includes its corporate values, ethics, mission, and work
environment. For employers, a good culture fit is an employee who exhibits the values,
• What attitudes and behaviors contribute to effective teams?
Solution
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Ethics Check Answers
Social Loafing in Your Team?
• Team projects are abundant in business courses today because they prepare students
for collaboration on the job and usually work well for students and their instructors.
However, occasionally a rogue member will take advantage of a group and barely
collaborate. How do you deal with a student who does sloppy work, misses team
meetings, and fails to respond to calls or e-mails?
Solution
Social loafing refers to the slacking off some people are guilty of once teamwork allows them
to hide behind the effort of others whereas observable individual output is usually higher.
Ghosted by a Team Member
• Assume you are a member of a campus committee to organize a charity run/ walk to
raise funds for a local homeless shelter. Your friend Jovana is committee chair, but she
is carrying a heavy course load and is also working part time. As a result, she has
taken no action. She has been evasive when you try to pin her down about committee
plans. You call her, but she doesn’t pick up. You leave voicemail messages and send e–
mails. No answer. What should you do?
Solution
Students should enjoy this discussion because it is a common problem when students work
as part of a small team in a classroom to complete a task. Have them brainstorm about this
Sending Nonverbal Cues to Your Instructor
• Next time you are sitting in your business communication class or other business
courses, look around and evaluate the nonverbal behaviors of students around you.
Are your peers projecting a professional image? Are they signaling attention and
interest by sitting up straight and following the action in the classroom? Remember
that your instructors evaluate your work and your participation. Imagine how a
professor perceives students who skip classes, arrive late, forget homework, yawn
with their tonsils showing, fall asleep, chew gum or eat, play with their electronic
toys, and doodle during class. Is it fair to say that classroom conduct is naturally
different from workplace behavior?
Solution
Even if told repeatedly, students often don’t make the connection between behavioral
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Zooming In—Your Turn Solution
Applying Your Skills at Lyft
• You are a new-hire at Lyft, and your boss, Anika, is preparing a virtual meeting that
will involve 15 staffers from the Lyft headquarters and ten software engineers in
Munich. Anika would like your help with organizing the meeting and asks that you
draft a list of tasks needed to ensure that the videoconference is productive. The main
purpose is to welcome the German team and introduce the headquarters as well as
Lyft’s corporate culture. Anika also wants your ideas about adding an element of fun
and humor to the meeting, as is typical at the company. Write an e-mail to your boss
in which you outline the steps that lead to effective virtual meetings, or discuss the
steps with a teammate before presenting them in class. Use your creativity and what
you’ve learned about Lyft to decide whether and how to bring levity to the meeting.
Solution
Student responses should include the components that make face–to-face and virtual
know German.
o Explaining how questions may be asked and answered. It’s wise to determine turn-taking
among 15 people on the one end and ten on the other. The agenda outlines the
meeting. Because this virtual meeting is for welcoming the new team, all team members
should briefly introduce themselves.
o Silencing electronic alerts and alarms. Students should be able to come up with this rule
and the next one.
The virtual meeting would be mostly spent with greetings, small talk, and discussions of
the headquarters and the company culture.
As for the element of fun, more worldly students might caution that humor doesn’t always
translate well and that Lyft’s freewheeling corporate culture might bewilder the Germans
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Critical Thinking Answers
1. Cal Newport, computer scientist and author, blames open-office layouts and
relentless collaboration for a decline in concentrated deep thinking. He cites research
suggesting that even short interruptions significantly increase the total time needed
to complete a task. Other studies show that multitasking not only drags out work but
reduces its quality. One researcher believes that jumping from one task to another
reduces efficiency because of “attention residue.” As the mind turns to a new task, it
is still thinking about the old task. Are you easily distracted? What techniques help
you concentrate?
Solution
Students’ answers will vary. Many will probably dispute that multitasking is problematic as
they tend to check their screens, communicating with others, while studying and listening to
2. Evaluate the following humorous analogy between the murder of a famous Roman
emperor and the deadening effect of meetings: “This month is the 2,053rd anniversary
of the death of Julius Caesar, who pronounced himself dictator for life before running
the idea past the Roman Senate. On his way to a meeting, he was met by a group of
senators who, wishing to express their unhappiness with his vocational aspirations,
stabbed him to death. Moral of the story: Beware of meetings.” Is the comparison
fitting? What might the author of the article have wanted to convey?
Solution
The author of this article critical of meetings uses humor to mock meetings, which are
almost universally disliked. He opens his article with this rather incongruous comparison
3. Why do executives and managers spend more time listening than do workers?
Solution
Before they can make decisions, executives must listen to feedback from supervisors,
4. What arguments could you give for or against the idea that body language is a science
with principles that specialists can interpret accurately?
Solution
Although few would argue that body language does send silent messages, no scientific
principles have evolved explaining exactly what those messages mean. Most researchers
5. Ethical Issue: In his book The Ideal Team Player, management consultant Patrick
Lencioni describes what he calls the three virtues that effective team members
possess: They are humble, hungry, and smart, he believes. Humble means little ego
and giving credit to others. Hungry describes the drive to get things done. Smart refers
to emotional intelligence, to being interpersonally aware and appropriate. How does
the emphasis on humility square with the conspicuous, hard-driving bosses like Elon
Musk or Jerry Jones, the brash owner of the Dallas Cowboys?
Solution
Although the brash types are all over the news and, in their arrogance, sometimes harm or
destroy their companies, the unpretentious and humble leaders toil in obscurity, inspiring
close teamwork and high performance of their teams. Experts such as Fast Company co–
founder Bill Taylor lament that “[w]e live in a world where ego gets attention, but modesty
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Activities Solutions
2.1 Team Decision Making: Majority, Consensus, or What?
Solution
More than one strategy may be appropriate for these situations. Following are
recommendations:
a. Minority (committee decision)
2.2 Workplace Conflict Resolution: Put the Six-Step Procedure to Work
Solution
Students should apply the following six-step procedure: (1) Listen to each person’s
position. (2) Understand the other’s point of view. Ask questions and paraphrase what you
2.3 H is for Humility: Test Your H Factor
Solution
Results will vary. We recommend that you take the test for the experience so that you are
able to assess the students’ results. The inventory strikes us as remarkably accurate, if the
questions are answered sincerely and honestly. The results in each category or factor are
• Persons with very high scores on the Honesty-Humility scale avoid manipulating
others for personal gain, feel little temptation to break rules, are uninterested in
lavish wealth and luxuries, and feel no special entitlement to elevated social
status. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale will flatter others to
get what they want, are inclined to break rules for personal profit, are motivated
by material gain, and feel a strong sense of self-importance.
most successful bosses (think The Wolf of Wall Street or its older predecessor from 1987,
Wall Street). Yet recent research suggests that leaders who exhibit honesty and humility
are more successful than bullies are. Their teams tend to outperform those led by
unscrupulous, aggressive types. Leaders exhibiting humility are better listeners. They are
POLL: HOW HUMBLE ARE YOU?
Do you agree or disagree with these statements?
(1) I appreciate other people’s advice at work.
(2) It’s not my job to applaud others’ achievements.
Solution
People high in humility tend to agree with Item 1 and disagree with Items 2 through 6.
Sample Tweets
Canadian researchers have created a personality inventory. Take the free test to measure
2.4 Scheduling a Meeting With a Doodle Poll
Solution
Results will vary. The idea is to expose students to this useful scheduling tool. Once the
team leaders create their free accounts, they can generate a Web link to send to the other
members who don’t need to have a Doodle account. To allow each individual to try
2.5 Making the Most of Meetings
Solution
Answers will vary, but most will support the advice provided in this book. Mark Zuckerberg
has improved meeting efficiency at Facebook, says COO Sheryl Sandberg. The changes he
Elon Musk is known for his ruthless bluntness and strong dislike of meetings. He is quoted
to have asked a meeting participant: “You haven’t said anything. Why are you here?”
[Jackson, A. (2017, October 3). Elon Musk has reportedly used a brutal tactic to keep from
wasting time in meetings. Business Insider.] Musk’s advice is to get rid of large meetings and
retain only those that provide value to the whole audience, in which case they should be
Why Elon Musk hates meetings. Entrepreneur.]
2.6 Five-Minute Meetings: the Answer to Meeting Bloat?
Solution
Answers will vary. Students may come up with creative methods to ensure turn-taking and
participation by instituting a system of sanctions and rewards. They may realize that not
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Even proponents of the efficient five-minute scrum admit that something is lost in the
process. The extremely short time does not allow for any kind of socializing or friendly
banter. The CEO at e-commerce firm Netamorphosis in New York, Lyde Spann, says that
2.7 Virtual Meetings: Creating Buy-In
Solution
a. Setting a more reasonable start time for the Sacramento office would have shown
courtesy to the West Coast participants.
b. Asking participants to log on early may have helped to avoid the delay in starting the
meeting.
2.8 Virtual Meetings: Connecting by Skype to Clarify an Order
Solution
This simulation should proceed smoothly as long as each participating student has
created a Skype account and downloaded the Skype connection software or app.
Alternatively, FaceTime or Zoom could be used. Students could be asked to create or be
given brief scripts, each defining the individual participant’s role and motivation. This
2.9 Assessment Quiz: How Good a Listener Are You?
Solution
Share the explanation of the scores with the students:
The higher your score, the lower your listening skills. The closer your score is to 45, the
highest possible score, the more strongly you probably need a skills upgrade. By contrast,
[Source: Heitler, S. (2011, November). The art of listening: How open are your ears? Psychology
Today.]
The listening stick is a tool executive coach Amy Jen Su is using to break her clients’ bad
habits by making the business leaders more mindful. She says that better listening is a
conscious choice, a mindset. She believes that self-awareness is a crucial first step.
2.10 Listening: An In-Person or Virtual Social Media Interview
Solution
The answers will vary. Students could brainstorm and discuss their interview questions in
class or prepare questions at home. Then they could approach their interviewee in
2.11 Nonverbal Communication: Reading Body Language
Solution
The body movements do not necessarily mean the same thing when used by different
individuals. Remember that to a certain degree nonverbal communication can be culture
or subculture specific, and context always plays a major role when interpreting this type of
communication. Students may have other interpretations, but these body movements can
be construed to mean the following:
a. Whistling, wringing hands: nervous or fearful
2.12 Nonverbal Communication: Casual Attire at Work
Solution
This activity can be expanded into a research paper topic. A variation on this activity relies
on student experiences. Instead of conducting interviews in the community, they can
2.13 Express Yourself? Perceptions of Tattoos on the Job
Solution
The wisdom of permanent body adornment aside, most people would probably still agree
that it is unwise to risk rejection when applying for a job simply for the sake of showing off
a tattoo. Even young people may agree that it may be opportune sometimes to conceal
tattoos and piercings that can be hidden. The discussion could be interesting if students
2.14 Nonverbal Communication Around the World
Solution
Students should be able to find a number of gestures and their meanings discussed at
various websites. Here are two examples: Making a pyramid with one’s hands by pressing
the tips of the slightly curved fingers against each other, either held high at chest level or
2.15 Business Etiquette in Meetings: Kicking the Smartphone Habit
Solution
a. Short policy statement:
In using a smartphone or other wireless device, be professional. Respect others.
b. More complete policy:
• Turn your smartphone off or on vibrate. Keep it off the meeting table.
• Don’t look at it during a meeting or conversation.
Another source suggests three general strategies to minimize disruptions from mobile
devices in meetings:
3. Schedule frequent breaks. When meeting participants know they will be able to
check messages every 45 minutes to an hour, they are more willing to put their
phones away.
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