Improving Communication and Leadership in the Online Marketing Department of TopTravel SL

Background

TopTravel SL is a company dedicated to high quality online hotel reservations. It operates internationally and its customers are large hotel groups that offer luxury services.  With more than 10 years of experience, TopTravel SL has been among the top 5 websites used to choose accommodation. A large percentage are business trips, however, there is also a significant number of leisure trips, which seek an accommodation with the most favorable conditions. 

In the last 5 years, prestigious competitor companies have launched very strong marketing campaigns that have forced TopTravel SL to make an important investment in the Online Marketing Department. This department is physically located in Amsterdam, the city where TopTravel SL was founded, although there is staff distributed in the US, Singapore and Spain.

This department has undergone major changes in the last year, as they had to hire a new Social Media Manager, since the previous one left the company for personal reasons. Until then, the company had a very efficient team of analysts, designers, web/SEO programmers, content manager, social media strategist and community manager. However, with the arrival of the new manager the team was affected; There were some team members who also decided to leave, and those who stayed did not have a good working environment. Due to the flight of employees, new hires were made; young talents keen to learn. However, most of the veteran staff is demotivated given the situation, and a few months later the results of the last campaign they had launched were significantly affected by this.

The new Social Media Manager, Marc Blumer, is considered to be the best in the world in his field and has won several awards as best international publicist. However, despite being very good in his field, he has great communicative difficulties that directly affect his leadership ability, which makes it very difficult to manage a new team that has recently lost its leader. He has a leadership style with a high authoritarian component, tending to adopt a loud and somewhat aggressive speaking tone at meetings, he has trouble listening to opinions from group members other than his own, and he does not handle constructive criticism well. Something similar happens when he has to communicate the results with General Management, his communication issues mean that the information does not always arrive in the best way, and this leads to misunderstandings. This situation has made Marc feel blocked.

The Challenge

In a meeting between Marketing Management, Sales Management and Human Resources Management, it was decided to hire the services of a specialized Coaching Consulting firm. This consultancy assigns you the project to intervene in the Online Marketing Department of TopTravel SL. Marc Blumer's communication skills must be improved, and at the same time, his skills and abilities must be strengthened so that he has a wide range of resources, in this way he will be able to effectively lead the team, and will redirect the work towards the company’s goals. On the other hand, it is necessary that employees go back to working as a team, because until now they worked more like a group. As a coach of this consulting firm you are given two options to choose from; apply an individual coaching process to Marc Blumer, or apply a team coaching process to the Department.  

Develop

Before starting, you must choose the option you want to solve; individual coaching or team coaching. You must solve only one option, as we will only evaluate one of the two options. Individual Coaching

1. Analyse the starting situation of the Online Marketing Department:

a. To provide context, explain what the starting situation is, from an analytical perspective.

b. Explain the importance of carrying out a coaching process; what could happen if you do not act quickly, and what benefits would be obtained after the intervention. 

2. Establish some goals: Formulate at least 3 goals to achieve with the executive coaching process.

3. Plan a complete individual coaching process for Marc Blumer: In this section you should design the entire coaching process, and frame the sessions within the Coaching phases. This planning must be very detailed and precise, explaining step by step the entire process. You must bear in mind:

a. Structure of the Coaching phases: plan how many sessions to perform in each of the phases, and what actions or techniques to apply in each one. 

b. Include "powerful questions", use the Grow Method to lead the questions

Deparment Coaching 

1. Analyse the starting situation of the Online Marketing Department:

a. To provide context, explain what the starting situation is, from an analytical perspective.

b. Explain the importance of carrying out a coaching process; what could happen if you do not act quickly, and what benefits would be obtained after the intervention. 

2. Establish some goals: Formulate at least 3 goals to achieve with the executive coaching.

3. Plan a complete team coaching process: In this section you must design the entire coaching process for the Online Marketing Department.
Bare in mind:

a. The structure of the phases: plan how many sessions to perform in each of the phases, and what actions or techniques to apply in each one.

b. Include five “powerful questions” per session.