Performance Plan for the Team in Diploma of Leadership and Management

This article discusses the performance plan for the team in Diploma of Leadership and Management, including objectives, key performance indicators, actionable goals, and support provided to the team for fulfillment of objectives. It also covers issues concerning team performance, recommendations for improving performance, identification of a leader, characteristics of the leader, and evaluation of conflict resolution style. The article provides valuable insights for students pursuing Diploma of Leadership and Management.

1
Diploma of Leadership and Management

2
Table of Contents
Part B...............................................................................................................................................3
Performance Plan for the Team...................................................................................................3
Performance Plan.....................................................................................................................3
Use of plan for fulfilment of Team Objectives........................................................................4
Support provided to the team for fulfilment of objectives......................................................5
Issues concerning Team Performance.........................................................................................6
Overview of the team...............................................................................................................6
Factors contributing to poor team performance.......................................................................6
Recommendations for improving performance.......................................................................7
Identification of a Leader.............................................................................................................8
Characteristics of the Leader...................................................................................................8
Improvement of personal performance....................................................................................9
Evaluation of Conflict Resolution Style....................................................................................10
Conflict Resolution Style of the Leader................................................................................10
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Style..........................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

3
Part B
Performance Plan for the Team
Performance Plan
In terms of serving the role as a Department Manager in a retail format I focused on designing an
effective performance plan outlined as follows.
Parameters Objectives
Purpose Statement To work in a collaborative fashion for enhancing customer
satisfaction and departmental growth.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) -Increase in departmental revenue
-Increase of customer satisfaction
-Growth of repeat customers and traffic flow
-Increase in customer conversions and basket size.
-Team harmony
-Transparency regards to information sharing
-Increase in Team Responsiveness and Accountability
Actionable Goals -To enhance departmental revenues by around 12 percent
-To enhance the level of customer satisfaction by 10 percent.
-Growth in repeat customers by around 11 percent.
-Growth in customer conversions and basket size by 13 percent.
Goals for improving team competency -To carry out weekly meetings for reviewing team performance
-Rotation of team leaders
-Encouraging high performers to share experiences and
guide/train co-workers and new incumbents

4
Customer Feedback -Gaining of customer feedback from customers visiting the
department and interacting with team members
-Effectively responding to queries and customer requests for
creating better customer feedback
-Communicating with customers through use of electronic mails
and telephonic communication responsively.
Use of plan for fulfilment of Team Objectives
The generation of a Purpose Statement ideally contributes in rendering needed clarity to the team
members regarding the objectives for working in a collective format. It thus encourages the team
members to pursue the stated goals collectively. The development of Actionable Goals and KPIs
contribute in setting goals based on identification of stated objectives, competencies of team
members and thereby in measuring or evaluating their performances based on the stated
performance indicators. Similarly, the need fulfilment of the team members are also focused on
being met through reviewing of their performances during weekly meets, encouraging
knowledge sharing and development by experienced and high performing team members
(Williams 2016). Finally, the incorporation of customer feedback in evaluation of the team
performance reflects the level of responsiveness of the team members in addressing the queries
and problems faced by customers. It also contributes in allocation of needed resources for
helping the organisational members carry out needed interactions with the customers. It also
contributes in improvement of team efficiency through enhancement of their listening skills to
issues and queries reflected by customers and also in brainstorming of solutions in a
collaborative fashion (Woodcock 2017).
Support provided to the team for fulfilment of objectives
As a Department Manager my central focus would be to help the team members in fulfilling the
identified or stated objectives. I would focus on first setting of team/departmental targets and
thereby in allocating the same to the team members on an individual level and on a daily and
weekly basis. Further, I would focus on working together with the team leader in taking note of
the stock levels and in helping in the arrangement of needed inventories in an effective fashion.

5
Similarly, I would also need to focus on returning back such inventories that have slow or no
sales to warehouses and thereby helping in generating larger shelf space for storage of items that
account to be hot sellers. Along with inventory allocation at an optimum level, I also need to
generate needed support to the team members regarding the generation of new visual
merchandising solutions. The application of effective visual merchandising activities in the
department through use of colour contrasts would help in enhancement of consumer traffic in the
department. Effective training is also needed to be rendered to the team members associated to
the generation of knowledge regarding new product launches, effective customer servicing and
interaction skills and also regarding increasing of cross selling activities for enhancing the basket
size of the customers. Support is also required to be provided to the team members regarding
information technology resources like personal computer, tablets and Smartphone and internet
connections such that the same would help the customers in effectively servicing the queries and
needs of customers.
Issues concerning Team Performance
Overview of the team
As a Department Manager I have worked with a team of eight team members inclusive of a team
leader for the accomplishment of the department goal. The team included of both new and
experienced personnel and were taken to work in a collective framework for fulfilment of
departmental goals.
Factors contributing to poor team performance
-In terms of poor planning process, my workforce planning process potentially failed in
generating the right quality and quantity of personnel in areas demanding increased customer
flow. Rather, the areas with less customer flow had larger number of team personnel which in
turn failed to generate needed benefits regarding customer conversions and also growth in basket
size. Further, I failed to arrange the needed number of tablets and Smartphones to help the staffs
generate needed information regarding stock availability and movement to the customers. The
same affected the credibility of their customer services and thereby impacted the level of
customer satisfaction (Turner 2016).

6
-Further, lack of needed clarity to customer satisfaction objectives failed to excite the
commitment of the staffs in rendering needed customer services and thereby in enhancing
customer loyalty. The staffs failed to effectively prioritise the activities such that which would
help in render the right quality of customer services. Delay and lack of focus associated to
customer servicing affected the levels of customer satisfaction (Martin 2018).
-I also countered another potential challenge owing to failing to evaluate internal competencies
and abilities of the team members at an individual level and the same happened to increase the
work pressure of the staffs in terms of needing to accomplish overemphasized targets. The staffs
behaved in a resilient fashion to new targets and fulfilment of departmental objectives thereby
bringing about effective dysfunction (Weber 2013). Further, the growth of internal tensions
affected team cohesiveness which in turn affected the interpersonal relationships between the
team members. The team members were observed to be busy in shifting the blame of failure on
one another thereby affecting the social fabric. The team wellbeing was adversely affected which
impacted the accountability of the staffs to work in a committed and organised fashion in
meeting of group objectives (West 2012).
-The team members failed to sustain effective relationship with potential stakeholders like
vendors, customers and also with other staffs belonging to the head office of the firm. Greater
focus was generated by them in addressing team conflicts owing to lack of work and role clarity
which in turn affected their relationship with stakeholders. It affected the team’s customer
servicing standards and responsiveness in addressing inventory problems through sustaining
proper communication with the vendors or suppliers (Zein 2016).
Recommendations for improving performance
Focusing on recommendations, it is quite imperative on my part to decide on targets after having
effectively evaluated the competencies and strengths of the team members. Further, I am
required to continually interact and communicate with the team members thereby understanding
their needs and problems and thereby generating needed solutions thereof. The same would
contribute in creating a healthy work climate in the team and encourage the team members to
work in a committed fashion for meeting of group objectives. Further, I also need to work on
workforce planning for allocating the right quota of team members depending on the priority of
the different sub-departments. The same would help in reducing work pressure on team

7
members, increase customer satisfaction and also reduce tensions within the team. I am also
required to focus on allocating effective information technology resources such that the same can
be accessed by team members for internal training, communication and also in maintaining
effective liaison with potential stakeholders.
Identification of a Leader
Characteristics of the Leader
The leadership qualities of Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group are outlined as follows.
-Ma’s leadership reflects the existence of needed authenticity that contributes in the development
of loyalty with both internal and external stakeholders and also designs a stronger business
foundation.
-Jack Ma’s leadership success owes to the fact that he tries to evaluate the product offerings
made in the e-commerce platform from the viewpoint of the customers. In terms of empathising
with the needs and expectancies of the customers, Jack Ma tends to build effective relationship
with customers.
-Ma focuses on uniting the team members and other stakeholders like investors and vendor firms
based on the firm’s goal rather than endeavouring to govern them. The same helps in the
development of an effective team culture in the firm (LU 2018).
-Jack Ma’s leadership style is visionary in nature such that he focuses on designing vision and
mission objectives for the firm and envisages working in a tenacious fashion in accomplishing
identified objectives.
-Another potential leadership quality of Jack Ma is that he encourages criticism regarding the
decisions and ideas taken and generated by him. Criticism is encouraged by him such that the
same helps Jack Ma in understanding the expectancies of the stakeholders and thereby in
redesigning the business and customer servicing policies (Sattar 2017).
Improvement of personal performance
-The authentic leadership style of Jack Ma requires me to trust and focus on developing my
personal strengths and capabilities. Further, it also requires me in working based on formulation

8
of vision and mission objectives in that the same would help in tracking of accomplishments of
the objectives in future.
-The leadership style of empathising with the needs and expectancies of the customers would
contribute in designing effective product and service offerings before hand and thereby gain on
market leadership in the long run.
-The evaluation of Jack Ma’s leadership style reflects the need of working in a tenacious fashion
for fulfilment of stated commitments. It is thus required to identify the work objectives and
mission and vision guidelines and thereby work tenaciously to fulfil the identified goals.
-I also need to have an open ear to the different types of criticisms that are generated by
stakeholders such that the same would help in redesigning the business processes for gaining
needed profitability and also in rendering greater customer satisfaction.
Evaluation of Conflict Resolution Style
Conflict Resolution Style of the Leader
Jack Ma’s focuses on collaborating with the conflicting party based on understanding of the
other people or institution’s needs and aspirations. Effective consideration is needed thereby for
discussing and arriving at mutually agreed goals and objectives. Apart from development of
mutual understanding the collaborators work in a creative fashion for resolving problems (Sogra
2014).
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Style
The collaborative conflict resolution style is observed to be advantageous in nature in that it
works in an assertive fashion for generating the best possible solution in resolving the conflict.
However, the collaborative conflict resolution style is often criticised in that it requires the use of
greater time, energy, effort and also needed skills on the part of the negotiator than that required
in the case of other conflict resolving patterns. In the event of emergence of an external force, the
collaborative conflict resolution process becomes difficult to be enacted upon (Lussier & Achua
2015).

9
References
LU, Y 2018, Lessons From ‘Crazy Jack’: An Extraordinary Leader In Style And Beliefs, viewed
7 September 2018, <https://leaderonomics.com/business/5-leadership-lessons-from-jack-ma>.
Lussier, RN & Achua, CF 2015, Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development,
Cengage Learning, United States.
Martin, K 2018, Clarity First: How Smart Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding
Performance, McGraw Hill Professional, United Kingdom.
Sattar, SB 2017, Leadership Qualities, Styles and Skills of Jack Ma, viewed 7 September 2018,
<http://www.gotabout.info/leadership-qualities-skills-styles-jack-ma/>.
Sogra, KJ 2014, The Impact of Gender Differences on the Conflict Management Styles of
Managers in Bangladesh: An Analysis, viewed Cambridge Scholars Publishing United Kingdom.
Turner, R 2016, Gower Handbook of Project Management, Routledge, New York.
Weber, C 2013, Conversational Capacity: The Secret to Building Successful Teams That
Perform When the Pressure Is On, McGraw Hill Professional, United Kingdom.
West, MA 2012, Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research, John
Wiley and Sons, United Kingdom.
Williams, C 2016, MGMT, Cengage Learning, United States.
Woodcock, M 2017, Team Metrics: Resources for Measuring and Improving Team
Performance, Routledge , New York.
Zein, O 2016, Culture and Project Management: Managing Diversity in Multicultural Projects,
Routledge, New York.