Strategy Formulation - Essay Example

Strategy Formulation al Affiliation Strategy Formulation The scenario provides the fact that one’s assistant exhibits inability to take phone messages. The task is acknowledged as essential to enable taking track of sales leads. The current discourse hereby aims to present possible factors that might contribute to the assistant’s failure to take messages and to develop a strategy through first determine areas that can be changed. The factors that might contribute to the failure to take phone messages are as follows: (1) importance of noting phone messages were not appropriately understood (presentation and completeness); (2) heavy workload (channels); (3) inability to multi-task (prioritizing); and (4) communication barriers (medium and mode) (Root, 2015).

The areas that can be changed are as follows: (1) determining the scope of the assistant’s job. It could be that there are more important responsibilities that need to be urgently taken cared of and that taking phone messages were regarded as insignificant (unless explicitly communicated); (2) the location of the telephone might also be far from the assistant’s work place making it tedious to take messages, as such, putting the telephone near the assistant’s work place would help in taking the needed phone messages; (3) use of advanced technology could help (like using a headphone where the assistant could immediately talk to clients while doing other tasks); and (4) assigning other staff or personnel to take phone message, if and when possible.

The strategy would therefore really depend on the root causes of the assistant’s inability to take phone message. If it stems from structural causes, the strategy entails changing the location of the phone or applying advanced digital peripherals that would assist in multi-tasking. If the cause of the inability stems from personal traits (language barriers or inability to understand the importance of the task), the strategy could entail hiring another assistant who would be competent in doing the task.

If this is not possible, the assistant could be trained to do the task, as required. Finally, if the cause of work overload, the task should be delegated to other staff who could be relied on to take phone messages, as needed. References Root, G. N. (2015). Factors of Effective Communication. Retrieved from Small Business Chron: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/factors-effective-communication-3183.html