How Could Have Rick Fire Have Handled This Whole Situation More Skilfully?

How could have Rick Fire have handled this whole situation more skilfully?

I believe that throughout the whole situation, Rick has misinterpreted Les's behaviour. As he did not know Les at all, he should not have assumed that Les was not paying attention or was not interested in Rick's propositions. Due to his perception of Les's reaction to his ideas, Rick did not pursue holding regular meetings with Les, however, Rick shouldn't have listened to people's opinions about Les. People often gossip and spread rumours about upper management, and one shouldn't base his decisions on these rumours. I have seen this type of behaviour many times in my previous work experience in engineering, and rumours can be very far from the truth sometimes. Rick should have met with Les face to face as often as possible, in order to keep him updated about the project's progress. Had he done that, he would have been able to make his own opinion of Les, and in case Les would have been counter-productive, Rick could have taken the issue up with higher management. It also seems that upper management seems to be very favourable to Rick, especially Karen, who (as the case states) supports him in every idea he has, and even proposes solutions to Les's roadblocks. We can see this either as favouritism, or as Karen's personal agenda of somehow trying to "make a fool of"/overturn Les to take over his position eventually. This is accentuated by the fact that we know that Les is already uncomfortable with the whole reporting structure, so he was either already threatened by Karen's position or simply thought it was inappropriate for the business's success. However, throughout the whole situation development, Rick should have definitely contacted Les in person, not just by email, and he should have asked for feedback instead of just informing of his actions. As we learned from the text "The Source of Successful Communication" , both parties involved must be actively listening, and if Les wasn't doing that, Rick could have reconstructed his message to make sure it got heard. Another important thing that Rick could have done to avoid the whole misunderstanding is that he should have insisted on meeting with Les at least a few days in before the meeting scheduled with Foot Locker instead of the morning of the meeting. Rick would have had the time to explain in detail the pricing suggestion, and in case there was still a disagreement, Rick could have consulted with someone else within the company. This would have brought out Les's issue with the whole project before actually facing the client, they could have worked out their issues and the two Consumers Solutions employees wouldn't have embarrassed themselves as they did in front of a potential client.

Last, but not least, Rick should not have been so rude to Les right after the meeting with Foot