Motivation, Stress, and Communication - Job Overview of Sales Manager in Apple Inc - Assignment Example

? Motivation, Stress and Communication Task: Motivation, Stress and Communication Job The job I have chosen is a marketing and sales manager in Apple Inc. It is a full time position in the technology firm. The sales manager will be responsible for sales in California State. The position is restricted to B-to-B sales. The marketing and sales manger will report to the VP of sales, whose office is in Cupertino city. Job Objective The goal of the post is to develop and oversee the performance of sales activities in the allocated market. Additionally, the position has the responsibility of staffing and directing a sales team, providing headship towards the accomplishment of utmost profitability and growth in tandem with the vision and values of the company. Furthermore, the individual will have the task of instituting procedures and stratagem to enlarge the client base in the marketing area and contribute to the advancement of training and instructive programs for consumers and account executives. Responsibilities and Accountabilities The individual will have the task of devising a business plan and sales strategy for the assigned areas that guarantee the attainment of the firm’s sales goals and profitability. The individual will be in charge of the performances and development of the account executives. Furthermore, the individual is expected to conduct and coordinate, at individual as well as team level, effectual searches of sales leads and prospects. In line with the company’s development plans, the individual has to prepare strategies aimed at penetrating new markets and maintaining already existing markets. Apart from the harmonization of sales activities, the individual has to perform personalized reviews with all account executives to institute effective communication. This will be in order to gain a clear understanding of training and development requirements, and to provide information in the improvement of Account executives sales and activity performance. He has the task of providing timely feedback of the performance of new products in his market region to the VP of sales. The marketing and sales manager, at the beginning of each month, will hold counsel with all sales persons in his region to establish realistic sales objectives. Consequently, by following the drafted course of action, or making alterations, the individual has to achieve the projected sales. He/she has to monitor the performance of the sales persons in his charge. Additionally, the person has to have a keen understanding of the company’s fiscal data to gain insight on what is happening in the assigned region. The marketing and sales manager will, apart from maintaining a high level of personal motivation, coach, counsel, prop, and motivate sales personnel in the region. Concerning the sales personnel, the manager will monitor their performance comparing it with the previous period’s performance and make suitable resolutions. Concerning products, the individual will bear the task of developing appropriate displays for the products where necessary. He/she also has the duty of handling all complains from customers regarding the products sold. Significantly, the individual must be capable of maintaining continual professional growth, improving sales skills, managerial skills, business skills and product comprehension. Relationships and Roles The Job requires an individual with familiarity of 5 years in sales supervision. The individual should be familiar with technological trends, especially in the gadget field. Broad practice in all facets of SRM is a prerequisite. The individual should bear a confirmed record in managing and heading highly-trained, motivated, successful, and achievement oriented sales force. He/she should further demonstrate strong leadership aptitudes. A strong comprehension of consumer and market dynamics is a requirement, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced and vibrant market setting. The interested individual should bear a minimum of a bachelor’s in business, marketing and sales. Furthermore, the individual should demonstrate proficiency in communication. Goal setting and performance Goal setting is one of the most effective hypotheses of employee stimulation. Various authors working in different locations in the globe, in different fields have confirmed this notion. The theory postulates that the difference in performances between individuals performing similar tasks, in similar circumstances, is due to a variation in performance goals. The first tenet is that difficult and specific goals lead to considerably superior performance than where there are abstract, simple or no goals. The second principle holds that given that ability is invariable, and goal commitment is present, then the higher the goals, the higher the motivation. The third tenet is the acknowledgement of the fact that variables such as praises, results or the collusion with other people in making goals, only result in setting and commitment to certain goals. The final principle states that goal setting, apart from affecting the mechanisms of motivation, selection, endeavor and diligence, it also bears cognitive benefits (Bobby & Kenneth, 2009). For the goals to be effectual, they must be exigent and precise. Additionally, feedback must be availed in the advancement towards objective accomplishment. There must be ways of maintaining dedication to the goals, hindrances must be eliminated and resources provided for the attainment of the goals. Using this motivation strategy, on my assumption of the position, I would set a number of goals regarding sales in my company. The goals are divisible into three classes: long-term, mid-term and immediate. For example, the long-term goal would be to increase the mobile market share of Apple in California to 60% by the end of the year. The medium-term goal could be to double the present market share by the end of six months, while the short-term goal may be to recruit, train and coach a team of effective sales persons by the end of the first two months. How it would help Setting the goal to increase the market share of the company to 60% in an already developed market such as California is not an easy goal. Having set such a high goal, the level of efforts that I would expect from myself increases (Bobby & Kenneth, 2009). The fact that I have set my own goals makes it necessary to match my efforts to the goals I have set. Setting my own goals guarantees goal commitment. Setting high objectives means that my labors will be marched to the level of complexity of the task; this translates as increased impetus. Research has shown affirmative linear functions when linking target complexity and levels of performance and endeavor. The highest and most challenging goals result in the highest levels of effort and performance (Locke, 2004). However, if the goal is set too high, beyond a person’s ability limit, it may lead to loss of commitment fro the goal; consequently, leading to reductions in effort. Additionally, setting SMART goals results in improved performance than urging my sales personnel to do their best. Setting goals and communicating them to the sales teams would necessitate me, as a manager, to be the first to increase my efforts towards achievement of the goals. This is goal commitment, and marched with effort translates to motivation. Setting objectives provides an external reference position to gauge the team’s achievements. Failure to achieve the goals shows a lapse in effort necessitating increase, in the levels of effort. This concept applies even in the positive sense; meeting the goals set at the end of the period provides further impetus to continued effort due to the positive feedback (Locke & Latham, 2006). Though effective, the goal setting approach may be rendered unproductive if the goals are too lofty high. Goals must be feasible within the specific phase. Breaking the long-term goal into medium-term goals and short-term goals breaks the seemingly hard task into easy and achievable tasks. This would enable my team and me to see the achievability of the short-term goal, but not the enormity of the larger goal (Medlin & Green, 2009). My reactions to stressful situations In my daily encounters, I have come to identify certain situations that result in stress. These causes are both internal and external. Such situations include when faced with a large volume of tasks, especially when they require a lot of effort. In such situations, my concentration is lost, and I cannot accomplish even a part of the task that I would have been able to accomplish given standard circumstances. Consequently, I have learned that I achieve task accomplishment better when I approach them in small bits at a time. Another stressful situation is confrontation with colleagues. During teamwork tasks, where there is a division of roles, I get upset when some members do not do their assigned duties within the time allocated. In such times, I opt to do the work assigned to the other party rather than confront them and risk ineffectiveness as a team. Failure to attain set targets, especially, without any clear reason, also results in differing levels of stress depending on the significance of the goals not met. This affects attendance to future tasks, if the breach amid the actual achievement and the set goals is too large, effort is reduced, but the gap is small; I inevitably increase future efforts. Apart from the above situations, generally stressful situations reduce my efficiency in performing tasks. My normal reaction is to withdraw from the stressful situations, take time off and think about the situation, albeit, calculating the culpability of others and measuring it against my own. These spans differ in length relying on the urgency of the situation and seriousness of the issue under question. Steps in managing stress associated with my new position One of the situations that easily lead to stress is a mismatch between tasks and abilities. In my position, in a giant company, there are possibilities that certain tasks will be new and challenging. There are different steps that I plan on taking to alleviate stress, consultation and training. In novel situations, there are chances that my superiors may have experienced such challenges in the course of their careers (Deb & Biswas, 2011). Whenever appropriate, I plan to consult with my superiors, seeking their counsel and opinion on such situations. The most effective solutions I plan to use in my new position is improving my skills through training. The technology industry is uniquely dynamic; new inventions are constantly changing the playing field for marketers as new trends come and disappear. New strategies must be sought at every turn. To avoid stress due to inefficiency, I plan to improve my skills in marketing through attending various instruction courses. Training is an effective way of reducing stress due to limitations in skills. Concerning stress due to expansive workloads, I plan to utilize two strategies: prioritizing and delegating prioritizing will ensure that attention to tasks in order of their significance (Deb & Biswas, 2011). This would ensure that tasks are dealt within the right time depending on urgency and importance. The problem of expansive workloads is also soluble by delegating tasks to the sales personnel. This, however, means first recruiting competent sales persons, or facilitating the raining of the already recruited persons to enable them handle a wide variety of tasks. This would reduce the pressure of dealing with lots of tasks leading to stress. Delegating tasks also has the advantage of creating a working experience where the sales personnel have learning opportunities and prospects of career growth. This is also likely to boost their motivation. Another likely cause of stress, in my new position, is change. The setting of goals inevitably leads to changes. New approaches to common problems must come into place to enhance achievement of new goals. This may result in dissatisfaction among the sales personnel. Dissatisfaction may in turn lead to reduced productivity, and consequently, increased conflicts. To avoid such situations, I plan to announce changes to the personnel before the actual changes happen. Additionally, this will be enhanced by involving them in the planning and execution of such changes. Maintaining amiable communication with the sales teams will further enhance interactions and operations reducing conflicts.   Addressing nonverbal and cultural barriers to communication Communication is a two way practice involving the sending and reception of messages amid two individuals. Anything that may hinder this process is a barrier. Some of the barriers are nonverbal. These include paralanguage, silence and body language. Paralanguage refers to the use of inflections when relaying messages verbally. The inflection may result in misunderstandings or misapplications. Such inflections include a person’s tone, pitch or volume. Generally, high pitches and volumes connote anger and are often rude. The lack of expression is also a barrier. Silence indicates disregard and may be used to ignore a person. Whether intended for these purposes or not, it may imply them nonetheless. However, silence may be positive depending on its use. Another nonverbal obstacle to communication is body language. The posture of the person sending the message or receiving the message may create a barrier. For example, looking down or facing away are such postures. These dispositions may communicate indifference to the subject of communication resulting in a barrier. Facial expressions may also be a barrier. Blank stares, for example, may show that a person is not listening leading to the sender of the message withholding the message (Frank, 1990). Addressing nonverbal barriers to communication is dependent on knowing them, predicting when they are likely to occur, identifying them when they occur and developing effective strategies to overcome them. Barriers resulting from paralanguage may be avoided by communicating in a clear language, with appropriate diction and a business tone. Avoiding emotional intonations during communication would also alleviate the effects of paralanguage. Another way of avoiding nonverbal communication barriers is to show appropriate expressions when others are relaying a message. This would include remaining quiet when others are conversing, but nodding and showing signs of attention. Other gestures would include leaning forward and asking questions. Verbal and unspoken feedbacks assure the other party that one is listening. This, in turn, makes it simple for them to listen to me when I address them. Cultural barriers to communication The benefits accrued from working with teams are enhanced when the teams represent a variety of expertise, personality and ethnicity. The variations result is different perspectives while approaching similar situations, leading to effectual decision-making (Frank, 1990). The triumph of these teams, however, lies in effective communication. Possible barriers to communication in such settings include stereotyping, ethnocentrism, misperceptions, and misinterpretations. Additionally, there may be cognitive, behavioral and emotional constraints. In the contest of multicultural personnel, the most effective method of enhancing communication is cultural awareness. This refers to the deliberate effort by an individual to appreciate the existence of other cultures apart from their own and the difference they bear in language and communication behaviors (Frank, 1990). As a manager, my duty would be to enhance cultural awareness. One way to do this is to hold team building sessions, where the sales teams would interact informally and learn from each other about their varied cultures. Cultural awareness prevents stereotyping since a person already knows the other people; therefore, lacking the need to construct unfounded perceptions. Misperceptions and misinterpretations occur due to differences in languages. Different words sound similar to different languages in other languages. These similarities may result to misinterpretations as people converse. Additionally, some words may sound like rude or uncouth in other language. Such situations are preventable when people from different cultures interact and learn from each other, gaining cultural awareness. As a manager, this would involve deliberate effort to learn the different cultures in my sales teams. References Bobby M. & Kenneth W. G. (2009) Enhancing performance through goal setting, engagement, and optimism. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 109 (17), 943 – 956. Deb, B. & Biswas, S. (2011). Stress management: a critical review. European journal of Business and Management, 3 (4), 205-212. Frank K. S. (1990). Barriers to Communication. Journal of Business Strategy, 11 (4), 56 – 59. Locke, E. & Latham, G. (2006). New directions in goal setting. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15 (5), 265-268. Locke, E. (2004). Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 3 (2), 157-189. Read More