Marketing Management Assignment help on : Marketing team during Pre-MBA courses
1. Executive Summary
This report provides a brief snapshot of my Marketing team during Pre-MBA courses. With regarding to team development; my team roles, personal and interpersonal skills; and assessment about team effectiveness. On the one hand, this team done well on same goals and objectives, utilizing all members’ resources, trusting each other, openness communicating and problem solving and decision making processors. On the other hand, more efforts should be putted on other four aspects, namely sharing leadership, effective controlling procedures, thinking in different ways and evaluation frequently.
2. Introduction
Whether one is a manager, a subordinate, a student, or a homemaker, it is almost impossible to avoid being a member of a team. (David A.Whetten, 2012) Nowadays team work is so important, you need to cooperate with others to finish your project when you work, study or even play games. With the right attitude, a team will overcome almost any difficulty to succeed in its goals. In most projects there will be times when only the determination of the team can overcome the difficulties and carry the initiative through to success. Even when there is no pressure, the team’s spirit and enthusiasm will be reflected in the quality of the solution and the extent to which other people buy-in to it. All most all professors of University of East London focus on group working, we have done a lot of group project until now. I chose my marketing team when we have the Pre-MBA courses. It is my first team in MBA program. In reality, you may ask to work with somebody who you don’t know them quite well and you have to built trust and built solid relationship during limited time. Therefore, first team is more valuable to discuss as we don’t know each other before. The marketing project last for half and one month, we had six times face- to-face meeting during the whole project (not included the online meeting). Four persons included in our marketing group, A B C and D. The team member A is local people, with more than 10 years working experience in different fields. He has got bachelor degree of history and been to different countries before like China, Japan, and Australia. He always has a big picture when we doing project and strong ability on searching and literacy. The team member B comes from south part of China with Bachelor Degree of Economics. She has no working experience even internship experience. But sometimes it is good for us, because she won’t bring some bias to our project. She never relays on her past experience and always come up with some fantastic ideas. Power point is her advantage. The team member C comes from Taiwan province of China with Bachelor Degree of Business. She is logical always holding a big picture when we doing the project. Capturing tons of business concept and tools helps our project a lot. The fourth team member D is me. I come from north part of China with Bachelor Degree of Management majoring in Auditing. I am analytical and used to deal with numbers. Because three team members come from China in our team, so I have to say that our team is heterogeneous.
3. Team Development
Teams tend to develop through four separate, sequential stages. They are forming, norming, storming, and performing. During forming stage, team is faced with the need to become acquainted with its members, its purpose, and its boundaries. Relationships must be formed and trust established. Clarity of direction is needed from team leaders. I know the Canadian person when we do orientation and asked him whether he wants to work with me before Pre- MBA course. Then A became my first team member. I found B being my second team member because I was not confidence on my oral English and I thought her English better than mine. C asked to join us when teacher asked us to build a four people’s team. Then, C became my third partner of marketing team. We gave the team a name – Silver, after we fostering it. We chose A as our leader with considering about easily communicating with professor. First meeting we talked little about marketing project. Four of us hung out and ate dinner together to talk and recognize more about each other. For example, all of us used to finishing project before deadline rather than handing in at the final day . All the team members were easy going and friendly with each other and all the people wanted to do perfect job on marketing project. Although three Chinese girls don’t have working experience, we have related academic background, enthusiasm and more efforts. During norming stage, team is faced with creating cohesion and unity, differentiating roles, identifying expectations for members, and enhancing commitment. Providing supportive feedback and fostering commitment to a vision are need from team leaders. We decided roles when we had the second meeting. A was responsible for introduction and summary part and also for editing whole essay. B was responsible for strategy and implementation and Power Point. C was responsible for SWOT and competitor analysis. D was responsible for financial analysis and forecasting. After that we did research separately and shared with each other via internet. We set up a group chat in MSN making easy to share and discuss. During storming stage, team is faced with disagreements, counter dependence, and the need to manage conflict. Challenges include violations of team norms and expectations and overcoming groupthink. Focusing on process improvement, recognizing team achievement, and fostering win/win relationships are needed from team leaders. According to our timetable, we had a meeting on Monday at school. However, A cannot come. He said “I need to spend with my family, it is family responsibility. ” We encountered our first conflict. C was quite angry after heard this news. She thought A just considering about his responsibility of family and ignoring his responsibility within our team. B even yelled to A when she spoke with A through cell phone. B also considered that we chose an irresponsible leader. Unity had become a pivotal issue for our team at that period. A conceded that our project was not in hurry, we have one and half week to prepare. But B, C and D thought that A is not considering theirs situation which is that they never do project and presentation before and they need time to practice. D played a role as icebreaker. While calling A expressed other team members consideration and dissatisfaction, talked and pacified B and C with analyzing the different study style between Asian students and North American students. After that we recognized that we need a fixed timetable to ensure everyone managing time properly and avoiding conflicts. During the sixth meeting, A apologized for his behavior while B, C and D expressed understanding about local people have more responsibilities than oversea students as local students need time to keep relationships with their family members and friends.
During the performing stage, team is faced with the need for continuous improvement, innovation, speed, and capitalizing on core competencies. Sponsoring team members’ new ideas, orchestrating their implementation, and fostering extraordinary performance are needed from the team leaders.
C found main product discussed in our project fading out market gradually when she read newspaper. Seems like a disaster for us as we had devoted so much time and energy on it. We discussed together and revised our direction. Our leader tried him best to cheer we up. We got our slogan “What we should do? Relax. Are you ready? We were born ready. Why? Because we are awesome.” These words were quite useful for improving our moral. All the team members work hard together and completed our report and power point within two days. After A finished revise job he called everybody and told us that we did an awesome job.
4. Your Team Roles
As a team member, not only need clear goals, we need roles to help facilitate task accomplishment and group cohesion. There are ten task facilitating roles as we learned, namely, direction giving; information seeking; information giving; elaborating; urging; monitoring; process analyzing; reality testing; enforcing and summarizing. I took information seeking, process analyzing and reality testing role during the project. Our task was Harley-Davidson marketing strategy in China market. I selected all the valuable information of market share and financial trend about Harley-Davidson in North American. As I analyze further I found that neither market share data nor financial statement data published by Harley-Davidson subsidiaries in China. Marketing information and finance information in China regarded as commercial secrets. Therefore, I searched news interview on general manager of Beijing dealership. The general manager said last year’s sales figure in his store. Then I multiplied the number of Chinese dealership got the whole sales in China. Next I multiplied the sales with industry’s growth rate. Finally got this years’ selling figure and Haley-Davidson’s market share in China (H-D’s selling figure divided whole industry’s selling figure). Because I have the assumption that the average sales figure is equal to that of Beijing dealership. It is not accurate. Thus, I called the subsidiary office in Shanghai directly to ensure our data being more convinced. I successfully connected marketing manager, however, she refused to provide the data I asked politely with the reason of limited right. I realized that it is not reality getting official information about Haley-Davidson’s official data. So I clarified my assumption and analysis on my report, and completed the trend analysis and financial analysis part with limited resource. Relationship-building roles are those that emphasize the interpersonal aspects of the team. The most common relationship-building roles are supporting, harmonizing, tension relieving, confronting, energizing, developing, consensus building and empathizing. All of these will assist team members to feel good about one another, enjoy the team’s work, and maintain a tension-free climate, especially when disagreement is prevalent, tension is high, or team members are not contributing to the team’s performance. I played harmonizing and supporting roles during the process of relationship-building. When we had conflict with A, I smooth B and C first and tell them everyone does not want to fail in this subject. A have different study habit with us which not meaning he does not care about this project and not care about this team. At the same time, I talked with A, said that “you know we are not meaning you cannot stay with your family members, question is that our presentation is around of the corner, the best for our team is that we discus together to improve and perfect our report and power point.” I spoke with them that the way to fix this conflict is considering each others’ situation and finding way to avoid this problem happen again. My harmonizing played an indispensable role on this conflict.
When my team member came up with new ideas, I gave them supportive replies. For instance, “You are awesome, how creative you are!” “You are so smart and also analytical, what you said is reasonable” “Our team can relay on you being outstanding” “Your power point is amazing, I very appreciate for your efforts”. I convinced that all the people want to heard positive feedback from others when they done something by their heart. Hence, I never mean to praise others. My own experience informed that positive feedback can produce positive impact on the person and also on the team’s productivity.
5. Your Personal and Interpersonal Skill
To be an effective manager or even effective team member, understanding ourselves would help us prepare for and improve our own competency in a team. According to self-awareness assessment, I am in the top quartile group with 62. I can seek information about my strengths and weakness. My strengths are self-disclosure and openness and good at dealing with conflict. When I receive negative feedback about myself from others, I do not get angry or defensive. During the project of Haley-Davidson, I took the part of financial analysis and market forecast, as I know my ability of analyzing problem and dealing with numbers. The group conflict was resolved through my coordinate by finding team members common goals and personal sensitive lines. That helped our team recognized more deeply with each other and ensured smooth operation of the rest part of project. Moreover, after finishing my part’s report, A said I need to improve my writing skills. He gave me negative feedback regards my writing parts. I did not take A as my enemy, but booked appointment of MBA writing center immediately. When I gave A my report second time, he said “I can see your hard work and improving”. How we deal with others can greatly influence our relationship. Positive relationships create positive energy. Positive relationships also help people perform better in tasks and at work, and learn more effectively. So, interpersonal skills were played significant role when we deal with people. There are many interpersonal skills we can use, for example building relationships by communicating supportively; gaining power and influence; motivating others; managing conflict, etc. Here I will emphasis on communicating supportively skill since I used this skill most commonly during the Haley-Davidson project.
Before I am have no idea about how to correct someone else’s behavior, when I have to deliver negative feedback to my friends or team members. I think it may harmful for our relationship. Thus I always give positive feedback and used to praise others’ performance. However, during the project I found that give negative feedback properly do not harm to relationship but can gain relationship. When I talk with A, I focused on honest feeling of mine. I said because your absence our work delayed for 2 days. I focused on describing the objective that he did not attend group meeting rather than put my personal judgment in our conversation. I listened his explanation instead of just blaming him. When we talk I try to find a way to resolve the time problem rather than saying:”Because of you we need to extend our schedule.” After our conversation, the relationship between A and me became better than before. He said it is a good way we improve ourselves and promote working efficiency. I am also a good listener when my team member convey their thoughts and advices. For example, B asked mine opinion about the competitor of Harley-Davidson in China market. There are so many manufactures Honda, BMW, Yamaha, Ducati, Suzuki. I advised her to consider both common size and Chinese industry situation. For common size aspect Ducati seems like the only competitor to Harley-Davidson. Because they both selling lifestyle rather than just a motorcycle. However, according to Chinese real situation, Chinese regard Honda as Harley-Davidson’s substitute. Therefore, I suggested that take Honda as our main competitor in China.
6. Team Effectiveness Critique
Our team gets 51 on the assessment.
All the team members understand and agree on goals and objectives. I marked 7 for this aspect. All of us wanted to get high marks on this project. We believe we have ability to surpass all the former team’s performance. Second criteria -utilization of resources I marked 7 for it. All members’ ability had been fully recognized and utilized. For example, A is good at researching and editing; B has business concept; C is good at making Power Point and I am expert in dealing with numbers. I also marked 7 for trust and conflict, interpersonal communications and problem solving/decision making. We did well on those five aspects. However, we need improvement on leadership, control and procedures, experimentation/Creativity and Evaluation parts. A being our team leader through the whole project, other members did not participate in leadership effectively. Hence, other members in our team need to learn how to gain power and influence others. We can regard ourselves as different departments’ director. Share leadership when we discuss different parts of project. More efforts needed in finding effective procedures to guide team functioning. For example print out timetable and also find assigned a person as a timer. Assigning people responsible for coordinating with professor and recording meeting, too. Different ways of doing things is required within our team. In order to tackle this problem, we can find other nationalities’ team member to enhance the diversity. Evaluation processors should be added into our team by talking our performance and how to improve.
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