Marketing Department At The Next Meeting

The conflict will be reduced when the purpose is reinstated and employees are told that they are working towards mutual goals. Once the common goals are indentified they can work as a team and there will be less conflict as they are trying to achieve the exact same goals.

While working for the department, it became very apparent that the practices and management style of the Department Director significantly affected the culture and daily activities of the individual sections under his leadership. First, he would set objectives and standards for the individual sections. These objectives usually looked good on paper but were often unrealistic when applied to daily operations. These lofty ideals, set as goals to middle management, seemed overwhelming and out of touch with the reality of hands on field operations. As a result, middle management would frequently choose to either change or completely disregard the given directives. This disconnect in the chain of command would often cause confusion and inconsistencies at the operations level. Additionally, lack of follow-up meant the Department Director assumed his set objectives were being carried out while lower level employees remained uninformed.

Use the four Ps of marketing to develop a marketing plan to address a new device to increase medication adherence or oral health in your new practice?

This case was prepared by Associate Professor Marc L. Lipson. It was written as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  2010 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an e-mail to sales@dardenbusinesspublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School Foundation.

I was asked by the acting director to take over one of the division’s due a reassignment of its Director. The directorate was responsible the Strategic Investment and the Capital Investment Planning for the CIO. The acting director wanted me to turn the staff around or convince them to move on to other agencies or positions outside the office. I immediately interviewed each staff member and I came to understand that I inherited a staff that had been completely demoralized by the old director and was on the verge of filing complaints with the union. This issue, coupled with acting director’s negative view of the staff, meant that I was fighting a war on two fronts. During the interviews with the staff, I found that most were competent and hardworking but were afraid to take any action without management approval. This approach made me a single point of failure. To make matters more complicated, when I spoke to my superior about what he believed their short comings were, he cited their lack of independence and their ability solve problems at a lower level. I quickly met with them and provided them parameters to make decisions within. Once I empowered them, I gave them authority to deal directly with the Department Of Commerce and the Office of Management Budget. To complicate matter even more, they were often the victim

In the spring of 2012, our management group, group 7, was assigned to take over a business as top level management. With the only guideline of creating a drastically more capable and profitable organization within a year, we had a lot of work ahead. The business belonged to Old Joe, an absolute genius engineer who was lacking in business management skills, Fred, a failed engineer with underlying personal issues resulting in counterproductive activity, and Netty, Old Joe’s wife. This division of the business specializes in the creation of medical products, and has customers globally. The backwards situation the business was in cannot be overstated. There was a huge set of order back logs, quality problems, inventory issues, social and

The Chief Executive Officer, Tom Wilkes, instructed his general management team to reduce their operating cost by a value of fifteen percent by year-end (Bethel University, 2014-A). When Kerrie returned, she called the initial meeting of her senior staff and provide the new strategic plan. There was dissension within the senior staff that questioned Kerrie’s ability to lead. This was blatantly evident from Sam, vice president of account management, as he questioned the direction of Kerrie and Mr. Wilkes (Bethel University, 2014-A). Others in the senior staff also questioned Kerrie’s abilities, Kerrie knew that this was her opportunity to demonstrate her leadership abilities (Bethel University, 2014-A). After some discussion, she assigned and asked each member to assess and report on the areas that could assist with cost reduction (Bethel University, 2014-A). Knowing there were issues, Kerrie enlisted Dave, human resources

Conflict is actually more beneficial to our lives then we think because it allows us to think critically and be productive in ways we are not used to. It builds a stronger foundation in working in team dynamics and helps improve the process in working in teams. Surprisingly I felt like working together was the easy part for the most part, even though we had some challenging moments, and the difficulty was in fact actually coming up with a scenario that incorporated all of our fields. We brainstormed various scenarios and finally came up with one that involved all of the disciplines. Then each of the disciplines shared how they would handle the situation, and in fact some members of the group were surprised by the different measures they would

There is no doubt that having a better understanding of different consumer demographics will impact marketing and has an effect on marketing communications. How messages are communicated most effectively can change depending on who the target audience is. A message that is targeting young consumers, like an advertisement for the Twilight movie would be different than one targeting men. The same can be said for having a better understanding of the psychographics of the consumers. Knowing the different interests and lifestyle of the target population can help tailor the message to be most effective. People who are interested in

The initial conflict was started due to an incompatibility of goals by the two parties. Michael wanted to fulfill his work obligation and prioritized that over study hours while the executive board was concerned for obtaining those study hours. Tensions got heated when they confronted him head on after returning home from work, which lead to finger pointing and bickering. The initial conflict interaction ended relatively shortly, but the conflict seemed to push forward over the span of a couple weeks. Evaluating the goals on both sides is crucial to apprehending the communicative process (Berger, 2005). Due to the goals being misconceived, it lead to a standstill. Another important proximal context aspect that directed this conflict was the rules that were at play. Since this conflict was an organizational conflict instead of a social conflict, it created little room for Michael to justify his actions through emotions or other strategies. The organizational goals were not aligned with Michaels prior to the conflict itself, which our textbook would explain that Michael was challenging the rules of the organization through the use of conflict in desire to change the rules and or create new ones (Cupach, Canary & Spitzberg, 2010). It goes without saying, that this conflict did not lead to a successful resolution; but understanding the proximal outcomes and how they shaped the individuals experience is worth noting for future

Conflict under bureaucratic management often originates from a task based dispute. Whereas the more interdependent post-bureaucratic teams tend to face relationship based issues. Task based conflict can easily be remedied through the gathering of facts and logic, in contrast relationship based conflict can easily turn into futile personal attacks and emotional confrontations. Clearly relationship based conflict under post-bureaucratic management has proven more difficult to solve as it pertains to personality differences and interpersonal tensions. Nonetheless the solution of relationship based conflict will result in much higher productiveness and

The text book describes conflict as “a process that begins when one party perceives another party has or is about to negatively affect something the first party cares about.” There are different views on dealing with conflict. There is the traditional view that seeks to eliminate any conflict and the interaction group that seek to use conflict as a stepping stone to greater things. Conflict can arise in any situation and, following the managed conflict view, it is not necessarily something to be push under the table but something to

With this extremely diverse group and the lack of a formal structure, one can see how conflict can and will easily arise. The company is developing a “top-of-the-range laptop scheduled to launch in two-weeks’ time,” but Jason wants the timetable pushed back until all of the glitches are worked out. Don, on the other hand, is adamant about keeping the current launch date do in part to the spokesperson he procured who will not be available during the time frame Jason has suggested. This issue has caused a major break in the already fragile working environment.

Conflict is inevitable and at times stimulates beneficial or creative thinking. Often conflict is a signal that people are miscommunicating and making different assumptions about what has gone unspoken. The conflict in itself is not the problem. It is the team’s reactions to it that determines the impact, thus causing it to be a negative experience. Conflict or divergence can be destructive or it can be constructive. It is up to the people involved in the conflict to manage the outcome. This gives them an opportunity to articulate their assumptions and figure out a way to come to agreement. In a learning team situation, conflict can arise when the original agreement to work together does not address

This case was prepared by Professor Mark E. Haskins, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and has benefited from collaborations with various colleagues over the years on earlier versions. It was written as a basis for discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  2012 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an e-mail to sales@dardenbusinesspublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School Foundation. ◊