Job Specification Sample: Marketing Manager

By Susan M. Heathfie

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

The marketing manager is responsible for the overall management of the marketing department. The following requirements (job specifications) were determined by job analysis and derived from the job description as crucial for success in the marketing manager role. The successful candidate for the marketing manager position will possess these qualifications.

Experience - Marketing Manager:

• 10 years of progressively more responsible positions in marketing, preferably in a similar industry in two different firms.
• Experience supervising and managing a professional staff of seven.

Education - Marketing Manager:

• Bachelors Degree in Marketing or a related field required.
• Masters in Business or Marketing preferred.

Required Skills, Knowledge and Characteristics - Marketing Manager:

These are the most important qualifications of the individual selected as the marketing manager.

• Strong effective communicator.
• Highly developed, demonstrated teamwork skills.
• Ability to coordinate the efforts of a large team of diverse creative employees.
• Demonstrated ability to increase productivity and continuously improve methods, approaches, and departmental contribution. Commitment to continuous learning.
• Expert in Internet and social media strategy with a demonstrated track record.
• Demonstrated effectiveness in holding conversations with customers, customer evangelism, and customer-focused product development and outreach.
• Demonstrated ability to see the big picture and provide useful advice and input across the company.
• Ability to lead in an environment of constant change.
• Experience working in a flexible, employee empowering work environment. Structured or large company experience will not work here.
• Familiarity and skill with the tools of the trade in marketing including PR, written communication, website development, market research, product packaging, Microsoft software suite of products, visal communication software products, and creative services.
• Experience managing external PR and communication consulting firms and contractors.
• Experience in the global marketplace is a plus.

High Level Overview of Job Requirements - Marketing Manager:

The selected marketing manager must be able to perform effectively in each of these areas:

• Researching and evaluating new product opportunities, demand for potential products, and customer needs and insights.
• Overall marketing strategy and execution of plans for the existing products.
• Working with product development teams to manage new product development.
• Managing launch campaigns for new products.
• Managing distribution channels for products.
• Ensuring effective, branded marketing communications including the company website, print communication, and advertising.
• Managing media and marketing staff and external PR agencies.
• Analysis of the effectiveness of all marketing efforts.

Seven Tips for Management Success

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

An effective manager pays attention to many facets of management, leadership and learning within organizations. So, it's difficult to take the topic of "management success" and say that the following ten items are the most important for management success. I will, however, suggest seven management success skills without which I don't believe you can be a successful manager.

The most important issue in management success is being a person that others want to follow. Every action you take during your career in an organization helps determine whether people will one day want to follow you.

A successful manager, one whom others want to follow:

• Builds effective and responsive interpersonal relationships. Reporting staff members, colleagues and executives respect his or her ability to demonstrate caring, collaboration, respect, trust and attentiveness.
• Communicates effectively in person, print and email. Listening and two-way feedback characterize his or her interaction with others.
• Builds the team and enables other staff to collaborate more effectively with each other. People feel they have become more - more effective, more creative, more productive - in the presence of a team builder.
• Understands the financial aspects of the business and sets goals and measures and documents staff progress and success.
• Knows how to create an environment in which people experience positive morale and recognition and employees are motivated to work hard for the success of the business.
• Leads by example and provides recognition when others do the same.
• Helps people grow and develop their skills and capabilities through education and on-the-job learning.

Know a few more characteristics of management success? I'll bet you do. Join other readers in the Forum to discuss management success and people issues.

Change Management Lessons From the Field

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Change is possible; the need for change is increasing; change capability is necessary for the organizations that will succeed in the future. So say the respondents to my survey about change management success.

In fact, internal and external consultants, and organization development, training, facilitation and human resources professionals responded in a fairly consistent voice. (The one underrepresented group was line managers--I’ll find ways to tap their ideas in the future.) Change is not going away; change is manageable; organizations can do change well. I looked for patterns and trends in the responses, and provide them here for you.

Successful change management requires:

• effective communication,
• full and active executive support,
• employee involvement,
• organizational planning and analysis and
widespread perceived need for the change.

These are the big five when successful change is achieved.

Implementing your change in an organizational environment that is already employee-oriented, with a high level of trust, is a huge plus. Understanding and responding to the range of human emotions during times of intense change, is also cited as critical. All of this may sound straightforward, but your suggestions about how to do each of these successfully are priceless.

This article focuses on the key change management actions recommended by the majority of the change management study participants. A second article provides tips for addressing resistance to change. Another provides “voices from the field" and enables study participants to speak to you with their own words.

Changes Experienced

Change management study participants made their recommendations from their involvement in a broad range of changes. These are too numerous to mention and include downsizing; mergers; department and company reorganizations; implementing every conceivable initiative from the 1980s and 1990s including teams, self-directed work teams, quality, TQM, employee involvement, reengineering, management by objectives and matrix management; new compensation programs; changing work systems because of the Internet; implementing a strategic planning process; implementing new technology and software packages including MRPII and SAP; restructuring jobs; doubling production productivity; relocating facilities; adopting new appraisal processes; and changing work requirements, including doing more with fewer resources.

Change Management Recommendations

Now that you have some context for the changes experienced by the study respondents, these are the factors they experienced that increased their organization’s success with change management. Each participant did not cite all of these; I am highlighting those change management factors most frequently mentioned.

More rigorous studies of change management success and failure are required to assess the impact of each of these actions, but, I believe, the results of my change management survey provide you with great guidance as you embark upon your desired change.

Additionally, each of these factors does not occur separately from the others. They do not occur in a predictable sequence. In other words, portions of “Executive Support and Leadership” are usually happening while “Organization Planning and Analysis” is underway. You will also find overlap across all areas.

Communication in Change Management

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

You cannot over-communicate when you are asking your organization to change. Every successful executive, who has led a change management effort, in my experience, makes this statement.

I have never worked with a client organization in which employees were completely happy with communication. Communication is one of the toughest issues in organizations. Effective communication requires four components interworking perfectly for “shared meaning,” my favorite definition of communication.

• The individual sending the message must present the message clearly and in detail, and radiate integrity and authenticity.



• The person receiving the message must decide to listen, ask questions for clarity, and trust the sender of the message.



• The delivery method chosen must suit the circumstances and the needs of both the sender and the receiver.



• The content of the message has to resonate and connect, on some level, with the already-held beliefs of the receiver.

With all of this going on in a communication, I think it’s a wonder that organizations ever do it well.

Change management practitioners have provided a broad range of suggestions about how to communicate well during any organizational changes.

Communication for Effective Change Management

By Susan M. Heathfield

Jobs Vacancy, Job vacancies, Employment Jobs

Develop a written communication plan to ensure that all of the following occur within your change management process.

• Communicate consistently, frequently, and through multiple channels, including speaking, writing, video, training, focus groups, bulletin boards, Intranets, and more about the change.



• Communicate all that is known about the changes, as quickly as the information is available. (Make clear that your bias is toward instant communication, so some of the details may change at a later date. Tell people that your other choice is to hold all communication until you are positive about the decisions. This is disastrous in effective change management.



• Provide significant amounts of time for people to ask questions, request clarification, and provide input. If you have been part of a scenario in which a leader presented changes, on overhead transparencies, to a large group, and then fled, you know what bad news this is for change integration.



• Clearly communicate the vision, the mission, and the objectives of the change management effort. Help people to understand how these changes will affect them personally. (If you don’t help with this process, people will make up their own stories, usually more negative than the truth.)



• Recognize that true communication is a “conversation.” It is two-way and real discussion must result. It cannot be just a presentation.



• The change leaders or sponsors need to spend time conversing one-on-one or in small groups with the people who are expected to make the changes.



• Communicate the reasons for the changes in such a way that people understand the context, the purpose, and the need. Practitioners have called this: “building a memorable, conceptual framework,” and “creating a theoretical framework to underpin the change.”



• Provide answers to questions only if you know the answer. Leaders destroy their credibility when they provide incorrect information or appear to stumble or back-peddle, when providing an answer. It is much better to say you don’t know, and that you will try to find out.



• Leaders need to listen. Avoid defensiveness, excuse-making, and answers that are given too quickly. Act with thoughtfulness.



• Make leaders and change sponsors available, daily when possible, to mingle with others in the workplace.
• Hold interactive workshops and forums in which all employees can explore the changes together, while learning more. Use training as a form of interactive communication and as an opportunity for people to safely explore new behaviors and ideas about change and change management. All levels of the organization must participate in the same sessions.



• Communication should be proactive. If the rumor mill is already in action, the organization has waited too long to communicate.



• Provide opportunities for people to network with each other, both formally and informally, to share ideas about change and change management.



• Publicly review the measurements that are in place to chart progress in the change management and change efforts.



• Publicize rewards and recognition for positive approaches and accomplishments in the changes and change management. Celebrate each small win publicly.