Jumpin’ Jack Flash special assignment: How would Jack like to
head up a team to develop strategies for
Jack Armstrong doesn’t have the cutest little adapting existing company products as new baby face, but he has other qualifications for products for sales in developing countries? It getting ahead despite the fact that he’s still was the perfect opportunity, he suggested, for relatively young. He’s smart and creative, Jack to broaden his skills by working with and he combines a high‑energy approach to managers from every area of the company. Moreover, there’d be a significant bonus if he getting things done with aggressive succeeded, and promotion to a divisional marketing instincts. presidency would be next. It was certainly an interesting opportunity, but it would He’s just 36 now, but Jack can already boast sidetrack Jack’s projected ascent to CEO a wealth of management experience, largely status before the age of 40. He asked for a because he’s been quite adept at moving little time to think over the offer, which, as he around in order to move up. He started out in well knew, would also be a stretch for him. sales for a technology company, outsold his As luck would have it, however, he didn’t colleagues by wide margins for two years, have to make the troublesome decision, and was promoted to regional sales director. because it was then that he was offered his After a year, he began angling for a position current job as divisional president at a rising as marketing manager, but when the job went to a senior sales director, Jack left for a job as consumer‑electronics firm. a marketing manager with a company specializing in travel products. Though a And that’s where we find Jack now—with his little impatient with the tedious process of job on the line. What happened? Jack had sifting through market‑research data, he been in his new corner office for about six months when his marketing department came devoted his considerable energy and creativity to planning new products. His very to him with an idea for a sleek high‑fashion first pet project— a super‑lightweight combination cellphone– music and video player. It was just the kind of product that compact folding chair—outstripped all sales Jack had been looking for, and he ordered his projections and provided just the impetus he marketing people to draw up some needed to ask for a promotion to vice performance specs and get them to the design president of marketing. department. His VP for marketing suggested that Jack assemble a project team to shepherd When the company took too much time to the product from marketing through the make a decision, Jack moved on again, design, engineering, and production stages, having found a suitable vice presidency at a but Jack had heard too many stories about consumer‑products firm. Here, his ability to projects getting bogged down in the endless spot promising items in the company’s new‑ process of team decision making, and if there product pipeline— notably a combination was one thing that he knew from his own oral‑hygiene and teeth‑whitening rinse for experience, it was that the key to a successful dogs—brought him to the attention of upper new product was getting it to market as management. Jack expected to go to the top quickly as possible. Besides, he had a of the list of candidates for president of some reputation for aggressiveness to uphold. division within the company, but instead the president of overseas operations called Jack Determined to take the bull by the horns, he into his office and offered him a yearlong put the project on an accelerated eight‑month schedule from design to rollout. He himself befell his project at the took charge of marketing and launched an consumer‑electronics firm? aggressive promotional campaign designed to capture the attention not only of the market Case Reference but of the company’s investors. Everything went according to plan until the middle of Kerry A. Bunker, Kathy E. Kram, and month seven, when Jack got some bad news Sharon Ting, “The Young and the Clueless: from the production facility in Malaysia. How to Manage Your Bad Boys,” Harvard Tests on preliminary versions of the product Business School Working Knowledge, revealed that the placement of the cellphone January 20, 2003, http://hbswk.hbs.edu on antenna inside the mouthpiece was producing January 25, 2011; a weak cellular signal. The only solutions, it seems, were either to redesign for an external Kirk Shinkle, “Young Managers Take antenna or to provide a kit containing an Bigger Risks,” U.S. News & antenna and adapter. In either case, the World Report, June 30, 2008, product design would be compromised and http://money.usnews.com on January 25, the rollout delayed by months. Electronics 2011; engineers had warned mechanical engineers Nitin Gupta, “A Young Manager’s Guide to of the potential glitch at an early stage of the Taking Charge of Her Own Career,” Wall project, but when news of the problem got Street Journal, October 26, 2009, back to marketing, managers had decided to http://online.wsj.com on January 25, 2011. proceed because the project was such a high priority with Jack.
As it turns out, thousands of orders were
delayed, customers got mad, and when the news got out, the company’s stock price began to slip.
Questions:
1. What management skills did Jack
demonstrate as a marketing manager at the travel‑products company? 2. What management skills did he demonstrate as a VP at the consumer‑products firm? 3. Should Jack have taken the special assignment offered him by the consumer‑products firm? What kinds of skills was the president of overseas operations thinking about when he offered the assignment to Jack? 4. What management skills would have helped Jack avoid the catastrophe that