Good Sports Generic Benchmarking

Introduction

Leadership role and tactics at the different level of the management ladder is being addressed in Good Sports (GS), a Florida based manufacturer of fitness equipment. To grab new market share and expand the company GS introduced new equipment called the XtendSport, interactive holistic exercise machine. The challenge for the management team is to get approval of the new product from different groups in the company and market it successfully. The simulation presented the leadership challenge and political tactics needed to be successful at different level of management such as a Senior Manager, Vice President of Product and Development and finally CEO. McShane & Glinow (2004) stated, "leadership is the ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute to the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members." (p. 416)

Benchmarking: Good Sports

Issues and Opportunities in Good Sports

Research and Development engineer Frazier O'Donnell of Good Sports has developed a prototype of new exercise equipment called XtendSport. This new prototype requires sales department's approval to get into production level. But are not sure of how market would like this product. To convince the sales department following steps can be taken:

1. Make a presentation of prototype and focus on its user-friendly features, styling and quality of materials that can help to sell the product.

2. Invite VP of sales, Samuel Olsen, for dinner with a few colleagues to discuss the feasibility of the project in a friendly environment.

3. Present the customer survey report to the sales executives. This report collated by a marketing people.

These tactics are aligned with the culture of sales department and would help to convince the salespeople about the future of this new product.

After getting the approval from sales department, new prototype equipment XtendSport needs to get approval from production department. But production executives think this would be a costly product and are not showing interest. Following steps can be taken to convince the production department:

1. Present the prototype with details of all its features and inform that existing technology can be used to produce the equipment

2. Invite inputs from the production department on the various kinds of materials that can be used to manufacture the new equipment. Discuss the production technique that can be used and cost of production as well.

3. Present the creative aspects of producing this unique equipment. Inform the department that none of Good Sport competitors have produced a similar product.

4. Speak to VP of production department to take inputs and convince him of the feasibility of the product.

BENCHMARK ANALYSIS

A. Leadership Styles

When it comes to leadership styles, Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple, Inc embodies a good example of transformational leadership. "Transformational leadership is a leadership perspective that explains how leaders change organizations by creating, communicating, and modeling a vision for the organization or work unit, and inspiring employees to strive for that vision." (McShane & Glinow, 2004, p.14) This kind of leadership with his strategic vision, as a transformational leader and second-time CEO of Apple, Inc. in 1997, he saved Apple by restructuring Apple into an organic company with an adaptive culture. "Adaptive culture is an organizational culture in which employees focus on the changing needs of customers and other stakeholders, and support initiatives to keep pace with those changes." (McShane & Glinow, 2004, p.10)

Under Jobs' leadership, Apple was able to introduce revolutionary products like iPod, iMac, iTunes and now the iPhone to mainstream

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