Frist Discussion

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Youhave just been hired as a brand manager of toothpaste for a largeconsumer products company. Your job mainly involves encouraging theadvertising and production groups to promote and manufacture yourproduct more effectively. These departments aren’t under your directauthority, although company procedures indicate that they must completecertain tasks requested by brand managers. Using what you learned fromboth Chapter 9 and Cialdini’s video on “Secrets from the Science ofPersuasion”, describe the sources of power and influence you can use toensure that the advertising and production departments will help youmake and sell toothpaste more effectively.”

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Friend Reply

As abrand manager, the challenge would be having the departments follow thegoals being set to sell toothpaste more effectively. First, to breakdown some barriers, the use of coalition formation would be a good wayto slowly build respect and credibility in the office. As the bookstates, a coalition influences people in three ways: “pools the powerand resources of many people”, “the coalition’s mere existence can be asource of power by symbolizing the legitimacy of the issue”, and”coalitions tap into the power of the social identity process” (McShane& Von Glinow, 2019, p. 223). I would first find people with similarideas and goals to build the coalition with. Once a good group of peopleis established we would meet to brainstorm ideas and let the members ofthis coalition know to invite any other coworkers to the next meeting. Ithink it would be best to not try and manage every employee but ratherslowly win over all of the employees with time and continued effortshowing them I believe in the work being done.

I would show the employees the video on the six rules of persuasion.Once they have all seen the video I would ask questions to see whichpath the employees want to go down first. Personally, the best option tostart with in my opinion is rule number one, reciprocity. The companycould give away samples in hopes the customers would want to gift backby purchasing the product after trying it. People always love freesamples and it is an easy way to get the word out. The second rule totry in my opinion would be rule number 3, authority, having dentistsspread the word about our toothpaste. No one is more credible andqualified to speak about toothpaste than a dentist. That way theemployees have some of the say in what is done and feel like they areimportant to the company. Those would be examples I would use to showemployees ideas and get their gears turning. Also, I would start byusing reward power. I would reward any employee that was helping growand better the brand of the company with a brainstorming day to justfocus on brainstorming ideas or developing their idea. From personalexperience, I have found people will respect someone faster if they arepositive.

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Second Discussion

Thechief operating officer (COO) has noticed that production employees inthe company’s manufacturing operations in Mexico are unhappy with someof the production engineering decisions made by engineers in thecompany’s headquarters in Chicago. At the same time, the engineerscomplain that production employees aren’t applying their engineeringspecifications correctly and don’t understand why those specificationswere put in place. The COO believes that the best way to resolve thisconflict is to have a frank and open discussion between some of theengineers in Chicago and employees representing the production crew inMexico. This open dialogue approach worked well recently among managersin the company’s Chicago headquarters, so the COO believes that itshould work equally well between the engineers and production staff.Based on your knowledge of communication and mutual understanding as away to resolve conflict, discuss the COO’s proposal and yourrecommendations.

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Friend Reply

Inchapter ten of the book, conflict “is a process in which one partyperceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected byanother party” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2019, p. 234). Conflict whilemostly viewed as a negative effect can have positive results as well.When conflict occurs it makes people evaluate and think about the issueswhich then leads to growth and change. The conflict occurring for thiscompany is a task conflict. Task conflicts are based solely on the taskthat needs to be done. It focuses on doing the task correctly andefficiently. Engineers in the company want the task done a certain wayand now the manufacturing employees are not doing it the right way inthe eyes of the engineers and are unhappy with the engineers.

In this situation, it is viewed to be a miscommunication problem.Personally, I would have the two team representatives meet and problemsolve the conflict. Check to see if it was a miscommunication or amisunderstanding. If it is a disagreement in the way the engineers wantit done and how the manufacturers think is best then that can beresolved with problem-solving as well. Both parties can bring theirideas together to present a way that works for both interests. If itgoes down to the wire and time is an issue both parties will then haveto compromise on a new way to make the project work. I agree with theCOO and believe an open discussion would fix a lot of the problem hiscompany is facing. If the open discussion goes south the plans wouldhave to be reevaluated.

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the book “M: Organizational Behavior. McShane & Von Glinow, 4th ed”

Chapter 9 and 10