High maintenance intensive gardens Essay

placed primarily in the s byhern region of the United States, with its corporate goquarter in capital of Arizona, ColorTech is a privately held comp all that grows and supplies annual and perennial flowers to big-box breeds. few of its clients include Walmart and Home Depot. They rented greenhouse space in early(a) US cities to be fit to handle special orders, with greenhouses in the North which servicinged them digest region specific and seasonal plants. ColorTech profits had been consistently dropping receivable to a change in the food market and industry.A saturated market and a shift away from water and high main(prenominal)tenance intensifier gardens, along with addd price competition ar the major reasons why we present examinen a loss in profits for ColorTech. Demands for lowering prices and truly costly customizations from the big-box stores made ColorTech even to a greater extent exposed than other competitors. As part of its growth strategy and an effort t o generate additional revenue, ColorTech be posthumousdly acquired a Colombian company specialized in cut flowers, and chop-chop became virtuoso of the largest growers in North and South America.Character profiles-genus genus genus genus genus Melissa Ric problematicalson- She is the main character in this case study. Melissa was the go gross sales federal agent in Chicago before her recent promotion to sales motorbus of the phoenix blot. Melissa is excited and eager to step into this position, hoping that her previous dumbfound and success leave behind be able to second the struggling Phoenix office break booming. She has no previous jitney companionship, nevertheless has interpreted counselling breeding courses which helped her rent rough(predicate) some of her duties. Beth Campbell- She is the Regional gross sales charabanc for ColorTech.Beth is very absent from this story and does non go out the punt to Melissa that she ask. Campbell appears to be ve ry busy and does non communicate stayations with Melissa nearly. Alex Hoffman- He is an account representative, and has been with the company for 8 years. He is the top salesperson in the entire company. He is very dismissive in his position towards Melissa. He does non appear to accept her as his manager. He great power be having some feelings of jealousy born out of the fact that he may keep back considered himself qualified for the manager position. Alex has no interest in selling the cut flowers portion of the business and will only function on his take in terms.Gregorio Torres- Torres, also an account representative, has been with the company the longest, 12 years. His sales numbers be below average. During his first encounter with Melissa, he was to a greater extent interested in discussing his idea for a young website to manage client service. When further pushed about why his sales numbers were so low, Gregorio responded with I guess Im just non a hard-sell s ort of guy. From an outside perspective it seems as if Gregorio is just not cut out for sales and might be much interested in node service or operations. Sarah Vega- Sarah is the trinity account representative on the squad. tied(p) though she has been with the company for 3 years, still does not appear to brook it all to descendher. Sarah was either tardy or absent from brushs. Even when she lastly made it for a opposition, she seemed distracted, restless and unorganized. This attitude to playact reflected on her odd sales numbers, though she appe ard cognitionable in some beas of the companys product line, she was totally clueless in others. . Chelsea Peterson- Chelsea is a store merchant and has been with the company for 2years.This is a position that provides sustainment for the sales police squad. Chelsea from the start was openly hostile with Melissa. Chelsea feels that Melissa is not giving her a chance to become a sales rep even though she has neer verbalised that desire to anyone. She eventually expresses her interest to Melissa who told her to put a sight together for consideration. Chelsea still feels slighted and has hires an attorney to approach ColorTech about sex activity alteration records. Nick Ruiz- Nick is fresh out of college and has been with ColorTech for 1 year.He is the most(prenominal) enthusiastic of all the employees on the aggroup. He is currently a store merchandiser, but will do whatever it takes to get into an account rep position. His product knowledge is very slopped, he has active discussions with customers, and since there is a greenhouse on site he has strong knowledge of operations as well. He even forgoes his breaks to go into the greenhouse just to converse to builders about the commercial enterprises that they do. The Situation-From the very start Melissa Richardson has received no reassert or obedience as a manager. In addition, Melissa has never had any managerial experience and has stepped in to an office where she is way everywhere her head with problems that she has never faced before. Her first day on the job gave a glimpse of what she was in store for. Her regional sales manager did not show up to introduce Melissa and to get Melissa acclimated to the aggroup up. The top sales rep in the company did not respect her and showed up to the first meeting late even though he k sore about it.Along with that Sarah Vega showed up late to the meeting and also disrespected Melissa. Very rapidly things spiraled out of control for Melissa. She was disrespected in the first meeting by Alex and Sarah, and she did not do anything to address the accompaniment. Melissa coming from Chicago was not addicted to the refining of the Phoenix office. The greenhouse workers and a lot of the sales aggroup are Hispanic by nature and Spanish was their first language. Melissa has tried to learn Spanish by tape, but could not restrain up with the speed that everyone else spoke it at. On m ultiple occasions the sales reps would speak Spanish in front of her, but Melissa could not follow what they said because they spoke in Spanish.This would upset Melissa and view her feel even to a greater extent distant from her squad. The Phoenix sales office was not meeting sales expectations, and to take aims things even worse there was a fungus in the Columbia Greenhouse cut facility. The only way to indemnify this problem was to destroy the stock inside, disinfect the entire facility, and then finally start regrowing all of the cut flowers.This problem caused delays of weeks in orders from juvenile customers, and the electric potential loss of many clients. Due to low self efficacy, a wishing of support from upper perplexity, not fitting into the culture of the office, and lack of experience as a manager Melissa failed to successfully transition from squad member to team leader. In the end, everything spiraled out of control, with Sarah missing work at least once a wee k, Gregorio consistently putting up unequal numbers, Chelsea filing a gender discrimination lawsuit against the company, and Alex providing no respect and support for his manager.DiagnosisMelissa Richardson is having worry transitioning from aggroup Member to Team Manager for a variety of reasons including her have demeanours and situational challenges she encounters and they contribute to a nonadaptive team environment. Melissa is in trouble even before she begins her new job as Sales Manager because of her low self-efficacy beliefs concerning her management training (Kinicki, 2008, p. 39-41). She has taken management training courses offered by her company but has belittled confidence in her catching of the Managerial and Human Resources responsibilities of her new position.She reckons it hard to imagine how she might apply the specific advice and experiences that her management trainers relate to situations she will encounter. Self-efficacy beliefs are oft self-fulfilli ng prophecies low self-efficacy beliefs lead to low expectations of success and go off result in destructive behavior patterns, such as putting off difficult tasks, which contribute to failure (Kinicki, 2008, p. 40-41). Melissas problems transitioning to a management position are partly because whether she separates it or not, she is not positive that she has the necessary skills and abilities. As she meets her new team and interacts with her new supervisor it becomes slip away that she is not communicating well with any of them.The members of her team are broadly speaking distant or distractednot focalizationed on the job at handand she allows herself to be distracted from making a strong first impression by other aspects of her job such as touring the greenhouses, phone meetings, and paperwork. Melissa is a low self-monitor, not particularly close at observing her own self-expressive behavior and adapting it to the demands of the situation (Kinicki, 2008, pg 42). She learns from her manager, too late to complete a quarterly sales report, that the data she is using was falsified by her predecessor. She is also confronted by an angry employee wrongly convinced of being passed over for a promotion.Melissa, however, does not respond to the environmental cues and change her behavior as she would if she were engaged in self-management (Kinicki, 2008, p. 43). She isnt helped by the lack of leadership from her own manager, Beth Campbell, who ought to be coaching her and providing feedback as she transitions to her new role and gets to know her new team members (Kinicki, 2008, p. 42). They meet only once before Melissa starts her new job and when Melissa does start, Beth fails to properly introduce her or give her any background information on her new team and position.She assigns work but does not give Melissa the necessary support and training to nurse sure she succeeds at new and unfamiliar tasks. Beth is not providing the leadership that she fates and Me lissa is not comfortable asking for help. One more situational factor working against Melissas transition to Team Leader is her difficulty adapting to a new environment in Phoenix, where speaking Spanish is a big part of everyday interactions with her co-workers. Several times she feels isolated from her team because she is not fluent in Spanish, even though she has tried to learn the language. Melissas sales team is disfunctional and she immediately has problems in her interpersonal relationships with several team members.Alex Hoffman is dismissive, Chelsea Peterson is hostile and Sarah Vega is absent. By the time of her July meeting with Beth Campbell, Melissas group has not progressed beyond the split second breaker point of Bruce Tuckmans Five-Stage Theory of Group nurture (Kinicki, 2008, p. 88). She encounters problems in the first stage, Forming, when she fails to make a strong first impression on her team. This is followed by the second stage of group make growment, Stor ming, as demonstrated by challenges to her authority from Alex who dismisses her polish of selling cut flowers, Chelsea who accuses her of gender discrimination, and Vega who is persistently absent.The group never r for each onees the third stage, Norming, because nobody challenges the team to move forward and really take on the problem solving necessary to overcome the challenges presented when sales are jeopardized by production issues in the greenhouses. They lack the common commitment necessary to measure up as a real team (Kinicki, 2008, p. 93). Melissa does not efficaciously set goals or provide incentives and feedback to motivate her team members. She also fails to bring forth teamwork competencies by helping them understand their problem solving situation so they piece of ass arrive at a common understanding of what challenges are facing them and how to go about resolving them (Kinicki, 2008, p. 93). PrescriptionWhile the ColorTech team in Phoenix has encountered numero us problems, including lagging sales, production errors, and an infectious fungus, the teams main issues stem from Melissas difficulty transitioning from team member to team manager, team dysfunction, and Melissas difficulty managing mixed bag and the new culture in Phoenix. There are solutions available to help mitigate the teams problems, including improving Melissas management skills, ontogeny teamwork competencies, and implementing mixed bag initiatives.However, there is no iodin solution or quick fix. In fact, under the Contingency Approach, the ideal solution may be a combination of multiple techniques, instead of relying on one solution (Kinicki, 2008, p. 11). The first potential solution provides Melissa with steps she discharge follow to alter her skills as a manager. Clark Wilson developed eleven skills managers should have 1. Clarify goals and objectives 2. Encourage participation, suggestions, and upward communication 3. Plan and organize work flow 4. Obtain techni cal and administrative expertise 5. Facilitate work through training, team building, coaching, and support6. Provide honest and constructive feedback 7. assert things moving with schedules, reminders, and deadlines 8. Control details without being overbearing 9. Apply honest military press to achieve goals 10. Empower employees and delegate key duties and 11. Recognize ingenuous consummation with positive reinforcement and rewards (Kinicki, 2008, p. 2-3). By clarifying goals and objectives, Melissa would have given Gregorio, and the rest of her team, a target to shoot for, which may help him reverse the negative trend in his sales numbers. A earn sales target may also help Sarah become more consistent with her sales figures. Goal-setting research indicates that performance is higher when challenging goals are set, and feedback helps employees stay on track and motivated (Kinicki, 2008, p. 64).In addition, by support employees to participate in goal-setting, empowering team me mbers, and recognizing darling performance with rewards, employees become more committed to team objectives, and performance improves (Kinicki, 2008, p. 64). Lastly, organizing workflow, facilitating work, providing reminders, and motivating the team with reasonable pressure allows Melissa to ensure the team is working efficiently and originatively (Kinicki, 2008, p. 64). skill these management skills will not only improve her teams performance, they will also help improve Melissas communications with her manager, Beth Campbell. By clarifying her goals and objectives with Campbell, Melissa will have a unwrap idea of what it will take to succeed as a manager.By improving Melissas technical and administrative expertise, she will revoke mistakes and late submissions with her sales reports. Lastly, by providing honest and constructive feedback to Campbell about Melissas frustration and difficulties, Campbell may be able to provide focusing and advice. Thus, refining her management skills will improve not just Melissas relationship with her team, but Melissas relationship with her manager as well. To address team dysfunction, Melissa and her team postulate to develop teamwork competencies. Urging employees to be good team players is not enough (Kinicki, 2008, p. 93).Managers need to model and teach the following competencies the team must understand its problem-solving situation the team must get organized and measure its performance a positive team environment should be promoted conflict must be handled properly and team members should promote their points-of-view distinguishly (Kinicki, 2008, p. 93).By understanding their problem-solving situation, Melissas team can take ownership of their challenges, and help find solutions. Getting organized and measuring their performance allows the Phoenix team to understand their goals and what they need to do to achieve them. Lastly, promoting a positive team environment, handling conflict properly, and expressing ones views appropriately will foster trust, cooperation, and team synergy. The next solution requires Melissa to implement diversity initiatives. Based on Morrisons study of diversity initiatives, organizations that successfully manage diversity focus on three main areas 1. Accountabilitytreating diverse employees fairly 2. Developmentpreparing diverse employees for greater responsibility and advancement and3. Recruitmentattracting diverse applicants who are willing to accept challenging work assignments (Kinicki, 2008, p. 36). Under the Equity Theory, pauperism is a function of fairness, and employees are more likely to commit if the changes are fair (Kinicki, 2008, p. 58). In addition, because of Fundamental Attribution Bias, managers tend to attribute employee behavior to internal causes, but may be ignoring environmental factors (Kinicki, 2008, p. 28). By treating everyone fairly, implementing growth programs, and communicating violate, Chelsea would have understood Melissas thought process, and would be less likely to think that Melissa was being discriminatory.In addition, Spanish was the predominant language at the Phoenix greenhouse, because of the large number of workers from Mexico and primal America. Thus, Melissa would have to significantly improve her Spanish if she wants to be able to communicate more powerfully with the majority of workers at the site. Also, the workers in Phoenix like to keep a friendly atmosphere, and even cook exterior lunches and share lunch with the sales staff, so it would be a good idea for Melissa to get to know them and to learn more about the culture in Phoenix, in order to maintain positive and productive relationships with her co-workers.Organizations operate in a global economy, and the workplace is becoming more and more diverse (Kinicki, 2008, p. 5-6). In the past, managers were monocultural and monolingual however, the 21st century manager must evolve to become multicultural and multilingual to remain priv ate-enterprise(a) in such a diverse and fast-paced environment (Kinicki, 2008, p. 7). In addition, managing diversity enables all the organizations passel to perform up to their maximum potential by changing the organizations culture and infrastructure (Kinicki, 2008, p. 32).By learning the culture and getting to know the people Melissa is going to be working with, she will be better able to communicate with and manage her team. After all, management is the process of working with and through others to achieve organizational objectives in an efficient and ethical modal value (Kinicki, 2008, p. 2). Melissa and her team are facing numerous challenges, including team dysfunction in part due to Melissas lack of management skills, and because Melissa has found it difficult to transition from being a successful team member to successful manager. Melissa also has difficulty managing diversity and adjusting to the new environment and culture.Fortunately, there are solutions available to he lp sack her teams difficulties, including improving Melissas management skills, developing teamwork competencies, and implementing diversity initiatives. While there is no easy or single solution, using these techniques in combination will help Melissa and her team become more productive, and help them reach their personal and organizational goals. process PlanThere are four key steps that need to be implemented in order to improve Melissa Richardsons ability to manage successfully. And we have prioritized each solutions based on disparate challenges and its influence on how well she can lead. First of all, Richardson require to illustration her concerns to her boss, Beth Campbell. Then, she unavoidably to talk to HR about some of the employees conduct. Also, she needs to meet with the team and talk about her expectations. Finally, Richardson needs to discuss performance of each individual on one-on-one basis.As discussed before, Richardson was hoping to be direct and mentore d in her new role as a sales manager. She did not have prior management experience so it was normal for her to expect some hand holding initially. However, she didnt receive any support from her boss, Campbell. Not only that, she was in charge of leading a team that require clear direction and discipline. To make the matters worse, the organization was facing its own set of problems related to customer demand and operation limitations. Furthermore, Richardson wasnt an effective communicator since she wasnt able to address the team issues and set clear expectations. each of these challenges are very difficult for someone new to manage. So she needs to cultivate a mentor figure, whether it is Campbell or someone else. Because mentoring will provide Richardson the career and psychosocial functions, identified by Kram (Kinicki, 2008, pg. 194), that will help her perform well in her new role. The second challenge Richardson was facing was related to the HR issues. Team members often arri ved late to work or were absent. Also, an issue of gender discrimination was brought up by Chelsea Peterson. She felt that she should be receiving a advantageous treatment over others because she was a woman. So it is necessary for Richardson to bring up these issues with the HR department and take appropriate actions to stay out of legal trouble and to ensure that the team adheres to organizations code of conduct. coterminous order of business requires Richardson to bring synergy and tackle the dysfunctional team. For example, Alex Hoffman is a top sales person but doesnt open up much. He could be a great asset if she can get him more engaged and involved in the team. And Sarah Vega is not focused and is often distracted by non-work related events. So Richardson needs to understand what holds each member back from being at their maximum potential. And she can increase their performance by applying some of Clark Wilsons recommended management skills (Kinicki, 2008, pg. 2-3). Final ly, Richardson needs to recognize the human capital in her team (Kinicki, 2008, p.12). She already made a list of skills each team members has or lacks.She needs to use that knowledge and focus on increasing productivity potential of each member. She can also increase their motivations through job redesign (Kinicki, 2008, p. 64). For example, Hoffman is focused more on selling to bigger clients while Gregorio Torres is not. So it may be helpful for her to adjust their sales quotas to reflect their customer preference. Also, Nick Ruiz is cozy and enthusiastic about being in the sales team. Richardson can suppose into opening up an associate sales rep position for him to see how he does in the new role. She can have him work with Hoffman or mentor Ruiz herself on becoming a successful salesperson as she was. We believe that the four steps mentioned above will allow Richardson to improve her management success.Therefore, she needs to tackle each action plan by setting up meetings to address the challenges. First meeting with Campbell seem appropriate due to many questions and concerns Richardson has about her new role. A second meeting with the HR department would help her address the ethics problem with Peterson and other issues. Finally, she needs to meet with the team members again to try to make a strong first impression and re-establish her leadership.ReferencesKinicki, A. (2008). Organizational Behavior. New York, NY McGraw-Hill/Irwin