Case Study 1

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Institution

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Case Abstract

This paper involves the analysis of case study 1 titled Reach for the Stars-Developing salespeople, achieving organizational success. Highlighted in the case are the key observations and information concerning worker and manager behavior. Therefore, this paper is going to analyze the important incidents, which include the issues, situations, problems and consequences in the case that influence the organizational and individual effectiveness and performance. The paper will also involve making appropriate recommendations for improving problems, meeting challenges and taking advantage of opportunities.

In summary, the case is about the company called Providence Rehabilitation and Medical Equipment that is strategizing or aiming to increase the sales by ten percent by getting into or expanding into a new product line involving the sports injury-related medical supplies and equipment. After buying a small, fast growing manufacturing enterprise, the sales director faces a challenge because there were no salespersons ready to come and work in the new product line. The decision that they made is a good decision. Instead of getting new salespersons who could possibly come and replace the existing workforce, the executives of the company opted for the idea of up-skilling and retraining its current sales force.

Critical Incident 1: Team Formation

The idea of Ravi forming self-managed teams that can effectively, efficiently and rapidly penetrate the new market segment is a very nice idea. In addition, the idea of Ravi accepting the promotion and considering it as an opportunity for honing new management skills, focusing more on his interest in strengthening the intellectual or human capital of the company, solving harder problems is essential in his self development , and for boosting individual and organizational performance. The fact that the founder of the company, James Cleavon Jefferson is serving on the board as the new owner’s conscience is a vivid indication that the organization is under experienced check (Dobson & Dobson, 2000).

Critical Incident 2: Communication

As the sales director, Ravi does a good job to communicate to the staff about the impending reorganization. This downward communication channel is very important so that the employees can be aware and ready for the new changes. Ravi also excels in team formation. This is because his tactics involve the identification of weak links or softspots among the workforce so that he can optimize the human capital. It is only possible to achieve individual and organizational performance through the linking of weak salesperson with strong ones so that the weak ones can be up-scaled by the stronger ones.

Ravi consults an experienced friend called Portia who has ambition, dynamic intelligence, sharp wit and immigrant experience and roots. This was a very good move. The advice from his friend is incredible. This is because Ravi is asked to have better understanding of the individuals in his unit. In this case, Ravi has to understand such things as ethics, attitudes, values, emotion, motivation, personality, attribution, faultline factors, cultural, demographic and generational factors and learning styles (Berens, 2001).

Critical Incident 3: Personality Profiles

Ravi embarked on this exercise of profiling the salespersons in the company. In this profile, he lists some of the attributes and personalities of his different team members. At this point, Ravi has made a huge milestone. He has known the personalities of the salespersons. The last thing that he has to do is to match the personalities with the right job.

Recommendation

It is therefore, recommended that he uses the Jungian personality to match personality with the career. In this case, it is recommended that Ravi identifies the personality strengths of the team members. For career success and organizational success, it is essential to know and leverage the personality strengths of the team members. Such distinct features of the personality of team members as creativity, results orientation, leadership as well as the ability to form effective collaboration have to be identified. The sales director also has to identify favourable work environment for each team member. This will ensure that each team member is placed in the rightful work environment. The other thing that is recommended to be done in this case is to use the personality traits in creating career and job change analysis. This includes the outlining of the conditions and symptoms where job change and career change might be desirable. The current workplace and job of the team members has to be assessed from personality fit standpoint. This is particularly important considering the fact that Ravi is making some changes in job of the different team members (Dobson & Dobson, 2000).

References

Dobson, M. S., & Dobson, D. S. (2000). Managing up!: 59 ways to build a career-advancing relationship with your boss. New York: AMACOM.

Berens, L. V. (2001). Quick guide to the 16 personality types in organizations: Understanding personality differences in the workplace. Huntington Beach, Calif: Telos Publications.