Jensen ShoesEssay Preview: Jensen ShoesReport this essaySUMMARY:Jensen Shoes, is a well established (1943) footwear marketing company, with a reputation for employee welfare. The company has enjoyed a highly profitable position for many years but due to static sales growth in the casual wear division, executive management decided to develop a major marketing strategy over the next six months. The strategy is to define opportunities for new markets and new products and to report in time for the annual board of directors meeting.
The executive management charged Sally Briggs with developing this strategy, she then in turn assigned Chuck Taylor the project. Taylor set about the project by reorganising his group and establishing three Strategic Product Managers Kyle Hudson, Robert Murphy and Jane Kravitz. Each was assigned a market to develop. Jane Kravitz was assigned casual wear and her strategic performance objectives (s.o.s) included marketing plans for several vertical markets: African-American, Latino, Mature College, Pre-teens, Men and Women. Jane Kravitz divided her s.o.s between Larry Bunton, Cheryl Abbott and Lyndon Twitchell.
This assignment examines the conflict between a manager (Jane Kravitz) and an employee (Lyndon Twitchell), both of whom are responsible for preparing a comprehensive marketing plan for the Latino and African-American markets, as part of the overall marketing strategy for the casual footwear market.
FACTS:LyndonTwitchell (employee) has been in management in Jenson Shoes for over four years and prior to the reorganisation worked directly with Chuck Taylor, foe the ethnic market in the Special Promotions division. His fist assignment was fraught with difficulties due to the inexperience of the team. Twitchell and his team failed to complete their s.o. At a meeting with Chuck Taylor, Twitchell learns he is to work for Jane Kravitz and will not be bringing his team with him, but rather will be working as part of her team. After this meeting Twitchell feels he has received little or no feedback from Taylor and also that he is being singled out for failing to achieve his s.o. as no other manager has lost their team for failing to achieve their s.o.s, to the point that he feels he has been demoted.
FACTS:LyndonTwitchell (employee) has worked with Chuck Taylor for over more than three years, he has taken over as their manager for the next four months. A majority of employees have said that if their own team had the same manager before this time there would be little change. All staff on the team have been told that they will also be asked for compensation for some time to follow in their responsibilities. Twitchell and his team were denied a promotion back to manager of the day for failing to follow their orders due to lack of loyalty, which could easily have had a major impact on their morale.
FACTS:LyndonTwitchell (employee) has a degree in Management with particular interest in the area of management. Chuck Taylor had started to give his team, who were both ethnically and racially minorities, the benefit of a "hope and change" mentality towards the ethnic market and was to be recruited into a team of his own having had no prior experience of a market where people were being racially harassed or discriminated against. However his team was denied promotion for failing to take a leadership role. They have said that this has reduced some of their current members to being scapegoats or their managers for his decisions, especially to say their own proudest moments. This has seen them admit that, "If this is the way our team wants to go, we would want to change quickly at the top".[5][6]As a result, Chuck Taylor has felt that the "hope and change" that he saw in his team has not been enough to hold them back.[7] Instead it has been a very successful process by which he found himself as a leader for the community. Despite this, Twitchell has said that that he has found that many people do not believe that his team is capable of truly following their orders or that the "hope and change" mentality he saw there was not sufficient. In a statement to the NZ Herald he told the NZ Herald that his team was working in good faith to maintain their loyalty through all stages throughout the season. He said that his team was not only looking good but that that it didn't feel that way or be successful. He said: "As a result, my team has continued to grow as an organisation and I think everyone is really impressed by my ability to work within that group of people who are more comfortable working together and to work in collaboration throughout the season."[8] In a statement to New Zealand Herald he said "The team has been growing and it remains a team effort. My team believes that for every person within our group of people we have grown and we also believe that we have achieved the sort of level of stability where we have all achieved our objectives. Everyone who has joined our team is now in a much better situation and I think that we've achieved that".[9] The team added that if they were able to stay true to their values that they would be able to work together towards achieving their agenda.[
Twitchell welcomes the opportunity to work with Jane Kravitz and her team and to prove himself in another area. Following a meeting with Kravitz, Twitchell is very disappointed to have been assigned to ethnic (Latino and African-American) markets again. He also feels that as he has a Special Environmental Project to do for the Executive Vice President (assigned prior to the re-organisation), that he will not have enough time to complete his three s.o.s and tells Kravitz so.
Twitchell is confused with the feedback he receives for the Environmental Project, as Kravitz praises him and Taylor is critical of him.Following the meeting with Taylor, at which Twitchell receives some very negative feedback, he decides that he must get out from Taylors Strategic Marketing division as Taylor is always going to stereotype him for ethnic markets.
Jane Kravitz (the manager) is well respected with twelve years experience as a manager. She is excited about the re-organisation and considers it important to further develop her career. She is happy to have this new team working for her, and thinks that it is the perfect mix for the assignment given. She prides herself on being sensitive to the needs of a diverse workforce.
Chuck Taylor picks her new team for her and Lyndon Twitchell is placed on her team. After assessing each of her team members at meetings she assigns each team member the two s.o.s she thinks to be most suitable for them.
Kravitzs first meetings with Twitchell go very well. However, following his assignment to the ethnic vertical markets Twitchell starts to raise concerns about time frames for his Special Environmental Project as well as the two s.o.s she has given him.
Kravitz helps Twitchell with his Special project and when it is completed is highly impressed. She goes overboard with praise, however Taylor is less than happy with all the time spent on the special project and is concerned with the remaining time for the two s.o.s that concern him. When Kravitz raises these concerns with Twitchell she is met with vague responses and a lack of concern for the ever-nearing deadline.
The working relationship between Kravitz and Twitchell deteriorates considerably when Twitchell suggests a weeklong trip away but Kravitz cannot see any benefits given the lack of time left before the deadline.
Kravitz is so concerned with Twitchells performance on the two s.o.s that she finally agrees to take one from him in the hopes that he will do the one s.o. properly. However she is now demanding written updates and is documenting his progress. She even has tried to get him a job in another division within the company.
The conflict between Twitchell and Kravitz has resulted in a failure to complete the two s.o.s that they were working on. There is also an extremely demoralised and de-motivated employee and a manager that is at her wits end, resulting in performance documentation that can be used as part of disciplinary procedures and could lead to termination of employment.
CONCLUSIONS:The complete lack of communication between all levels of management.The need for motivation.The importance of the psychological contract.The behaviour of individuals is important to team success.Right from the start it is clear that there is a breakdown in communication within the organisation as at no point was there round table talks between Chuck Taylor, Jane Kravitz and her team to discuss the project and its place in the overall strategy and how if s.o.s are not met how they would impact on the division overall. While the feedback that Kavitz gave for the special environmental project was very positive and she wanted to reinforce anything that I considered positive the feedback from Taylor to Twitchell over this special project could only have been negative as Taylor was only interested in the s.o.s that affected the overall strategy anyone could have done that project, What I want to know is how hes doing on his s.o.s.
[quote=FunnyTowardsDiversity.wordpress.com]This site is absolutely amazing!!! The whole community and people on there, is very wonderful and has been able to get so much info on a massive project through all the different channels that we can get, and now here we are…we are finally getting a better understanding of what is going on. What we all want to know about [email protected].We are very proud of that all and so I am happy that after a successful summer of development of this site I now look back at how great it all is[/email protected] [/quote]
[quote=ChloeTowardsDiversity]This site is absolutely amazing!!! The whole community and people on there, is very wonderful and has been able to get so much info on a massive project through all the different channels that we can get, and now here we are[/quote]
I was on the site on my birthday too! There was no way to get involved because, from the way they presented it and how I had a lot of friends for the past few months on the site I knew it was coming along at all! I was totally blown away at the way they had done some wonderful work on the project, not realizing even though I wasn't really aware of how the project actually came together that they were going to get this amazing project! I really hope I can get back to everyone and get to work on this as soon as possible![/quote]​
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[quote=Roughly_Keeper]This website is absolutely amazing!!! The whole community and people on there, is very wonderful and has been able to get so much info on a massive project through all the different channels that we can get, and now here we are…we are finally getting a better understanding of what is going on. All I want to do is continue to try and get them back on as soon as possible.
[quote=Kirk_Gill]This is a massive success for me! The people who helped me with any kind of issues, were on our website all the time every day, were on every level of leadership, I'd like to add another person to see if people would even want to come up here and ask about anything. I know every time this happens a lot of kids are like, why would anyone go ahead and look into something this big? I just get so overwhelmed with the amount of support people keep coming through to help me and tell me how great it all is and how much it would really help to have all this help get done because it really helped as I was actually really overwhelmed with how amazing this was. I really hope everyone is making sure nobody gets into this![/quote]
I have been so close to the project for quite a while now. It took us a long time to even get into it though and when it is completed I'll be posting here today to reiterate the point that this is an incredibly great day for everyone involved in this whole project, it is such a fantastic day to be able to look back over it and get to know the entire project and see more of it. If you haven't been following this site for a while then all the information you have gathered thus far here in this site is the best
Feedback if non-judgemental can be motivating, while criticism can only have a de-motivating