Analysis of Management Communication in the Shoe Market

Introduction

This case is about difficulties that professionals encounter in accomplishing certain company goals, further finding appropriate solution and approach to their issues. Jansen Shoes is a trendsetter and leading marketer in the USA of high – quality athletic and casual footwear for children and adults. The company had stable profit however had decline in one segment (casual footwear), so the executive management assigned the Director of Strategic Marketing Chuck Taylor with directions to investigate and develop a major marketing strategy within a short period of six months. Taylor established 3 Strategic Product Managers who will be responsible for developing marketing plan, including strategies for advertising, new product development, positioning, revitalizing existing products and penetration into international markets. One of the Strategic Product Managers is Jane Kravitz and she need to develop plan for casual wear. One of the 3 marketing professionals is Lyndon Brooks who need to develop marketing plan for vertical markets: Latino and African American which contains 3 strategic performance objectivities, one environmental project. The fundamental issue in this case it that Jane Kravitz and Lyndon Brooks did not have the proper way of communication. Additional issues are direct management style and stereotypes.

Diagnosis Communication: Lyndon Brooks also did not have enough time to complete his strategic performance objectivities.

Stereotypes: Jane is making the same mistakes from the past that previous managers were doing, Lyndon was characterizing in one group of people Black American with assumption that he knows this group of people. Jane defocused Lyndon from the rest of his objectives by saying “I suggest that we put African American and Latino markets”.

Management style: Jane is constantly trying to please and motivate Lyndon with different types of gestures instead of, to use her authority and to demand proper job finishing from Lyndon. The performance’s of Lyndon were poor and also there are signs that he is irresponsible employee. Wrong priority, the special project for environment was given more priority instead of the s.o.’s. With this decision they have jeopardize the whole project and performance of the whole team. This is because there was no alignment between the managers. Jane is the manager of the team and Jane should decide which person should take the responsibility for the special project. We have impression that Lyndon is privileged in comparison with the other team college’s. This can cause other issues in the future in Jane’s team.

Solutions

For all problems that we found in this case we tried to find solutions for them.

Management style

For us, management is one of the most creative arts, because of the ability to change and improve human talents. On the other hand, Organizational behavior is a connection between Management and Human talents, and it is about “what organizations can do for me” or “what can I do to change the organization”. In this particular case we are thinking that the management is trying to reorganized human talents and help them change their vision and perception.

• Trying to set common goal with Brooks – project must be done by the deadline period.
• Jane is pushing Brooks harder for information because she is trying to motivate him and make him realize that they have a deadline.
• At the end they need to make contract with mid-level manager and VC for some extra time that was given in process of the negotiation.

Stereotypes

We think that Jane assigns attributes to Brooks on basis of Chuck’s critical thinking in this case but she still hasn’t decided whether to trust that he is going to finish it. Also, we are thinking that Jane generalizes Brooks’ ability to finish s.o.s’ based on Chuck opinion.

• Jane believed in Brooks that he will finish the project on time even if Chuck thinks that he is not compatible for this project.
• Even if Jane knows that Brooks is just an ordinary professional she is trying to help him, and she believes that Brooks is going to finish s.o.s’.

Communication

Competent theory for this section is going to be Pygmalion Effect because Jane is trying to tell that the greater expectation that Brooks is providing about the project and she is trying to make him a better performer. Also she is trying to be crystal clear when she is speaking about the needs for the project to be done which makes her use Communicate Required Behaviors.

• Trying to understand Brooks – why traveling to San Diego is important for the project.
• Trying to set friends line communications, on other hand to motivate Brooks to finish s.o.s’ on time.
• Jane needs to talk with VC that Brooks thinks that in a short period of time he is not able to finish that extra project. ·
• After making the same errors and mistakes on a line with professional employee Brooks needs to inform mid-level manager for the problem.

Conclusion

The fundamental issues that arise in the case of Jenson Shoes are lack of communication, stereotypes and direct management style. Jane should have considered Lyndon`s behavior before jumping in to conclusions. In this situation, Jane is committing a fundamental attribution error— “the tendency to attribute others’ actions to internal causes while largely ignoring external factors that also may have influenced behavior” - by assuming that Lyndon simply does not want to do his job with his wish to go on trip to San Diego. The feedback that Lyndon is receiving from his superiors is mixed. For instance, Chuck was less than impressed saying “anyone could have done that project rather than providing positive reinforcement for his accomplishment. On the other hand, Jane is constantly rewarding Lyndon, despite the fact that his negative behavior calls for some form of punishment. This can correlate to power of expectations - Pygmalion effect, when bigger expectation from employees can lead directly to bigger accomplishment by their side.

Jane fails to accept that Lyndon’s behavior is internally caused as a result of her anchor bias and overconfidence bias. Even though there are obvious signs of Lyndon being an irresponsible employee, she holds onto her first impression of him and does not change her style of management. Rather, considering herself to be a good manager and confident in her ability to address challenging situations, she maintains her initial easy-going approach. Her decision to preserve her style of management can also be attributed to a confirmation bias. While the first two solutions regarding the self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping would be effective in combating their respective problems, it is clear that the most crucial underlying issue in this case is a lack of proper communication. Since open communication among these individuals would certainly bridge the gap between conflicting perspectives and curb any stereotypical thinking, we have concluded that the third solution regarding communication provides an excellent remedy to all three of the key problems listed.