Question

Read the following scenario and rubric carefully. Write 3-4 paragraph response to the questions. Submit your responses in the text box or upload a Word document and submit.

Attitudes and Values, Communication, Conflict Management, Business Professionals, Customer Service

Jill and Eric worked together at an advertising agency. Jill was the director of marketing for the Power Protein account and Eric was the project manager on the account. They both reported to the same vice president. They usually worked well together but sometimes had differing professional opinions. The client, Power Protein, had hired the agency to produce a marketing strategy and marketing materials (brochures, magazine ads, mailers etc..) to promote their new product.

Jill had a lot of experience in marketing and was very good at what she did. She believed in producing a high-quality strategic marketing campaigns. Eric had a different professional background and believed delivering the brochures to the client on time (even if it meant sacrificing quality) was more important than getting them done perfectly.

The client wanted the ad agency to produce the marketing campaign in a very short and unrealistic time frame. Eric agreed to the extremely rushed deadline because Power Protein was a big client and he wanted to keep them happy. Jill felt that Eric had set the team up for failure by agreeing to unrealistic deadlines. To meet the deadline, Jill would have to seriously compromise the quality of the campaign. Jill was frustrated that Eric had put the whole team under a tremendous amount of pressure and did not consider the other team members when he over-promised the client. Jill wanted to make the client happy too but didn’t want to attach her name and the agency’s name to substandard work. Eric thought it was important that the agency delivered the work on time and he didn’t want to be seen as a person who couldn’t be counted on to deliver what he promised. The vice president had heard some grumblings about the project from within the team and was vaguely aware of the issues but she was swamped with her own high-priority projects and had assumed that Jill and Eric could work it out whatever the problem was on their own so she hadn’t been actively involved. The project was behind schedule; the whole department was frustrated and beginning to burn out. As the deadline for the project got closer, Eric and Jill were both upset and frustrated, tempers were running high and the conflict reached a boiling point.

The client was a long standing and well-respected brand that was launching a new product. They had trust in the advertising agency because they had worked with them for a long time and the agency had always produced good, high-quality work that represented the brand well. The he client had asked for an almost unrealistic delivery date without much advance notice but the launch of the product was coming up and they needed the promotional material right away. The client also needed the marketing materials to be excellent quality to maintain the brands reputation.

How do you think Jill and Eric’s differing values contributed to the conflict?

If you were Jill, how would you approach Eric about the situation?

If you were Eric, what would you say to Jill to resolve the conflict?

If you were the vice president who managed both Jill and Eric what would you do to manage this conflict and prevent similar problems from arising in the future?

If you were the client services manager in this situation, how would you handle communicating with the client? What would you do to set and manage expectations, maintain the relationship, keep the problem from happening again while keeping the client’s business?

Answer 1

HOMEWORKLIB POLICY ask me to solve 4 subparts only. Here is the answer

Jill and Erics differing values contributed to this conflict because Jill would rather require more time for a project to produce the best quality they could offer. Eric however did not think in a way that would be positive for the company, by accepting a job that was short notice and was willing to produce lower quality work to the project just to keep the client shows where his priorities were which resulted in Jill and Erics conflict. When working as a team it is best to have the same interest and values and work together to reach the same goal together.

If I were Jill I would approach Eric in a way that would hopefully help him understand my point of view and why making commitments to clients can make or break the whole company. The negative effect it had on the rest of the team working on a project short notice puts tremendous stress on the team and divides them as it gets down the deadline.

If you were Eric, what would you say to Jill to resolve the conflict?
On the other hand if I were Eric I would listen to Jill and have an open mind on her values and opinions. I would let Jill know that I understand the stress that was put onto the team and that my priority was in the wrong place. I would apologize to the team as well as Jill and express that my initial intentions were good although the outcome was not.

As the vice president who manages Jill and Eric, I would manage the conflict by setting up a meeting with both of them to discuss the situation and how we can resolve it. If Jill and Eric cannot work together, I would suggest that they no longer work on the same projects together, but that Eric needs to get clearance by my first before going forward with a short-term project. If I were the client services manager in this situation, I would contact the client myself and clarify that the project would not be done by the deadline. I would express that we appreciate every client we have and work hard to appease each of them, and this is not how we normally work. If we could have more time to give them the best quality work our team can produce, they would not be disappointed. For their troubles we would give a discount to a future project to verify they return to see that we can do great work and have a great team.