Product Sales Issue - Essay Example

For instance, Atkinson (2005) suggests utilizing inter-office communication tools such as e-mail to distribute the basic agenda of the business meeting. CEOs and other management officials are under increasing pressure to multi-task and exceed performance expectations, making the pre-meeting communication an important method of illustrating respect for management time schedules and to allow the group to pre-determine any questions they may wish to ask. Such an electronic agenda communication could show a brief outline highlighting a potential sales issue so that the leadership team is aware that this topic will be included as part of the meeting.

The purpose of this pre-meeting communication is to avoid CEO perceptions of wasted time and link strategy with customer-related issues. The communication does not necessarily have to outline the details of the problem. During the meeting, at the point where widget issues are at the top of the agenda, no blame should be placed on specific individuals in the business but only highlighting that it has come to the CSD manager’s attention that the business faces a sales and short-term strategic problem.

Placing blame in communications such as these only make attendees resistant to further communications and they may reject any suggested plans if the attendees feel they are being singled out without appropriate evidence (Landy & Conte, 2006). The purpose of the meeting is to identify business issues, not determine who is responsible at the current time. One specific course of action recommended would include a risk assessment of the areas of business involved in widget sales (production, quality control, sales/marketing and shipping).

As the CSD manager, I would bring highlighted portions of company policy which illustrates procedural activities and suggest areas of potential risk where oversight or quality control procedures might be absent. How can