Optiоn 1: Mаke а Request: Cоmmittee Representаtiоn Only choose 1 email to write. Note: This prompt will work best for students who have some experience in a professional workplace. In a highly competitive business environment, change is inevitable and often desirable. But much change is planned at the upper-management level with outside consultants, while the people most affected may not be consulted at all, or only briefly. In this case, you’ll practice advocating for your own participation in shaping changes in your workplace. SituationYour company is planning a major reorganization and has engaged a prominent consulting firm to assist. The consultants will primarily interact with a steering committee composed of upper management (department heads and C-suite). As a junior staff member, you feel you could make a valuable contribution to the work the committee is doing. You decide to ask if it would be possible for you to participate in the planning process. The first step is emailing your request to your direct manager; if they feel you’ve made a good case, they will pass it along to management. Audience Option 1: Your Real-Life ManagerIf you have experience of a similar situation (i.e., an executive committee that excludes junior staff), address the email to your real (past or present) manager, and make a note of it in your Context Statement. Option 2: Case-Study ManagerOr, write to Shana Robillard, a 15-year veteran of the firm. Shana has strong feelings about not wasting time and prefers direct communication. She is generally supportive of suggestions from staff, but you are unsure how senior management may feel about your request: whether they will be open to it or see it as an implied criticism of leadership. TaskWrite an email as an individual, not on behalf of your peers or other colleagues. Make your request clearly and respectfully. Provide 2-3 concrete examples of how your position, experience, and/or perspective could provide helpful input to the process at your specific company/organization. The examples should ideally be the kinds of things that might not be as visible or accessible to upper-level management. Your discussion of your examples should include not only what you have to offer, but how and/or why the committee could use your input. Keep in mind that although you are writing to your manager, they might eventually pass your email on to upper management. You may use details from the prompt in your message but must use your own words rather than merely repeating the language above. Option 2: Offer Difficult Feedback Only choose 1 email to write. Giving feedback upward, or even laterally to someone more experienced, is one of the most delicate professional skills to develop. The challenge is not just what you say, but how you position yourself when delivering it. In this case, you’ll practice addressing a high-stakes issue while maintaining your relationship with the message recipient. SituationYou are approximately eight months into your first professional role at a mid-sized consulting firm. You were hired as a junior analyst, and while you've been building credibility steadily, you are still new enough that most senior colleagues don't know your work well. The firm has a clear but unspoken culture of deference to experience: junior staff are expected to be helpful, proactive, and careful not to overstep. Earlier today, your supervisor asked you to do a final review of a client-facing slide deck that a co-worker, Bernard Green, prepared for a presentation tomorrow morning. Bernard has been with the firm for six years, is well regarded by leadership, and has a reputation for doing polished, detail-oriented work. Your supervisor described the review as a "quick check" before it goes to the client. As you review the deck, you notice that one of the central data charts comparing industry benchmarks and forming the basis of the firm's key recommendation uses figures from last year's annual industry report. You know from your own recent research that the updated report was released last month and indicates changing trends. The updated figures would shift one of the chart's conclusions noticeably. The discrepancy is not something a client would likely catch immediately, but it is the kind of thing that, if discovered later, could reflect poorly on the firm's credibility. You don’t want to trouble your supervisor who is traveling and has back-to-back client meetings all afternoon. Also, you worry about the impact of reporting the problem to your supervisor and decide to notify Bernard directly instead. AudienceBernard is six years your senior at the firm and has a strong internal reputation. You have interacted with him in team meetings and on one previous project, when he was friendly but clearly in the lead role. You admire his work. He did not ask for your feedback; your supervisor assigned you the review task. Your goal is to flag the issue in a way that gives Bernard a chance to address it before the presentation, without implying he is careless or that you are checking up on him. You also want to make sure the error is corrected. TaskWrite a professional email to Bernard flagging the data discrepancy. Explain how an update might show new trends, but frame it in a way that preserves the relationship. Consider carefully what information to include and what tone to strike. You may use details from the prompt but must write in your own words. Option 3: Balance an Urgent Work Task with Coworker Needs Only choose 1 email to write. Best practices recommend meeting people where they are before raising professional concerns. When a colleague is visibly going through something difficult, leading with the task, however urgent, risks damaging the relationship and your reputation. Staying silent when the organization’s goals are at stake has consequences too. In this case, you’ll practice following up on a work task while a colleague is dealing with a personal issue. SituationYou and a peer colleague, Marcus Morgan, have spent the past two months co-leading your company's annual community service day, a high-visibility, all-hands volunteer event that draws attendance from senior leadership, including the VP of Operations and the Chief People Officer. Your manager has described the event as one of the most important culture-building moments of the year. You and Marcus split the work evenly: you've been managing internal communications and volunteer registration, while Marcus handles all vendor contracts, the event-day logistics timeline, and the online sign-up platform. The event is in two weeks. Marcus briefly mentioned in a small group work conversation that he's been getting headaches/migraines more often, which caused him to go home early a few times last week. In the conversation, he attributed it to not taking enough breaks from looking at his computer screen and stress from project deadlines. He's been gone Monday through Wednesday of the current week. You heard from another team member that Marcus just got some test results he was waiting on from his doctor, but there's no indication that he's formally out on leave. This morning, your manager sent you a message asking for a full event status update by end of day Friday, including vendor confirmations, volunteer numbers, and the finalized logistics timeline. You have your half of the information, but everything on Marcus's side is either in his accounts or in his head. You do not have access to the vendor portal, and the logistics document lives in a folder he hasn't shared with you. It is Wednesday afternoon. His status on your company's messaging platform shows him as active, though he hasn't responded to a routine message you sent Tuesday. AudienceMarcus is at the same level in the organization as you, and you have a collegial but not deeply personal relationship. You genuinely like him and want to be supportive. You do not know how serious his diagnosis is, how he is feeling day to day, or what his plans are regarding work. You also do not know whether your manager is aware of the situation. TaskWrite a professional email to Marcus. Your email should acknowledge that something significant may be going on for him personally and express care, while also raising the question of how to handle the work you share. Be thoughtful about how you reference what you may or may not know about his situation, and consider carefully how you frame the urgency of your manager's request. You may use details from the prompt but must write in your own words. Do not simply restate the scenario.
An аudit perfоrmed in аccоrdаnce with generally accepted auditing standards shоuld: