Henry Tam and Mgi Team

The third founder Alexandra (Sash) Compelling) is a 1987 MBA graduate from HOBS. Other MGM' members include Dana Seaman (HOBS MBA student), Dave Clark (MIT graduate student), and Alexandra Jan Sarasota (Boston Berkeley College Music Business Management and Music Production and Engineering student). The founders are all Russians who are trying to create, produce, and sell a unique computer-based music game where through the game play user can both learn and enjoy music. Within a short time frame these diverse members assembled to compose a business plan for the company. Meg's Founders believe.The product should be marketed as a game and ant to focus on the entertainment market while the HAS student believes it should be marketed toward the education industry. Also, the team struggles to identify their responsibilities, define their roles, make decisions together, and resolve conflicts. Arguments and tension started to build as the team produced a variety of ideas about how to promote their product, but had difficulty agreeing on which ideas to pursue. The team had very little success in working together. Discussion MGM' appears to be an excellent company and their software music product seems to have great potential.In addition, the team is comprised of diverse members who share a strong commitment to the Business, and the founders of the company have a strong passion on their product. To completely understand MGM and provide recommendations as to working effectively, we will start by analyzing the Issues that MGM has experienced. There are numerous issues building within the MGM team from the very start. Provided below is a breakdown of our understanding of MGM and its internal issues. * The MGM founders (Sash Compelling, Igor Toothache, and Roman Yak) are all Russians whose vision is to target their product towards the entertainment industry.The HOBS students believe that the product has a greater chance of success towards the education industry. This indicate s that there is a strong disagreement in terms of the company's vision for the product between the founders and HOBS students. * The product Just missed a Christmas holiday season. The founders believe the product lacked a focus on sales. This is a clear sign the MGM team needs skills to appropriately promote their product. * There are various differences between the MGM founders. Igor and Roman are from Ukraine.They're both creative and established International musicians but lack business skills. Sash is from Russia and is considered the primary business person because he is a college graduate wit n Dustless acumen Ana Tolerance Skills. Mess's student team Includes: Henry Tam (HOBS MBA student with experience in investments); Dana Seaman (HOBS MBA student with experience in banking); Alex Jan Sarasota (Boston Barley College Music student); and Dave Clark Coins the team in the third meeting and is an MIT graduate student with experience in software development and music). Henry and Dana believe Sash has a tendency to Jump from ideas to ideas, and seems unclear. Also, Sash's resume indicated that he has limited accomplishments since he has Jumped from industry-to-industry. * The MGM' founders share a different viewpoint for the HAS students. Igor considers Dana and Henry a critical part of Meg's success while Sash is thinking of the students as interns. Henry and Dana see themselves as creating a business plan. There's a clear conflict with role establishments and expectations. * A new student â€Å"Alex† is added in the second meeting.Alex has experience in music, has worked with Meg's founders in the past, and has an understanding for business. According to Alex, MGM' has a great product UT the company lacks in organization. * As the group continues to meet, prejudices toward one and another are formed. Dana sees Sash as a salesperson and believes that leadership is needed from within MGM'. Roman and Sash believe that Dana has a very broad view of thi ngs. Sash lacks in interpersonal communication skills. Alex sees Dana as aggressive and strong-minded. * Dana and Sash had constants disagreements.Anything that Dana would present Sash would reject. * In the third meeting, Dave was introduced. Dave also Joined MGM' to represent the company at the MIT Business Contest. Dana and Henry were unconcerned by the recruitment of Dave and made them question whether MGM' was using the students to get into the business contest. * At the third meeting, Dana and Henry presented their ideas that outlined the work completed to date. Igor and Roman were impressed by the presentation but Sash expressed frustrations and felt that he is being alienated by the group. Dave believes the group is impacted due to the cultural differences. Alex believes the people are from different experiences and skill levels. * Alex is somewhat a mediator who's got music skills which are similar to Igor and Roman; however, he is close to Dana and Henrys age. Alex views t he major difference or point of conflict as that between the creativity of Igor and Roman and business sense of Dana and Henry. * As the team progresses, issues regarding how to market the MGM' product arise.After compiling a heavy amount of research data, Henry and Dana believe they should market the product to teachers and education market. However, according to Roman, education market is small in comparison to the entertainment market. Additionally, Sash feels that they would set themselves for a failure since they have no interest in the education market or have the experience. But, Henry thinks it would suitable to start off with the education market since Meg's product is in development and MGM' should consider a shorter and long-term viewpoint. There is no clear leader. Per Henry, the leader was that person who at the time had the most energy to give to an issue. Based on our observations of the case, we believe the team had good debates about the direction of the company but they were disorganized, unstructured and did not lead any final result of plan. At the end of the day, the team was surely behind schedule in development of the business plan. Henry and Dana were the mainly contributing to outcome; tender were no Inhalations AT work contributed Trot toner team members. The team did not work well together.They had conflicts, frustrations, and tension among each other. Also, the team members did not share a common goal. Dana and Henry wanted to test their abilities for the HOBS contest, so their goal was to develop business plan in time for the competition. The MGM' founders wanted to develop their vision into a viable business. Alex was assisting MGM' market the game, and Dave was pulled in at the last minute as way to participate in the MIT business contest. MGM' did not divide the task into sub tasks; there seemed to be a main group and subgroups with no integration.Additionally no team leader was officially appointed or nobody was empowered to de fine the role structure, the decision- making process and assessing team performance. We also feel the team did not spend time developing a good working culture from the start. Recommendations After directly observing the company's internal issues and based on our analysis, we provide the following recommendations for Henry and the MGM' team: * The very first thing Henry needs to do is to volunteer to serve as a team leader for MGM'.MGM' is n need of a transformational leadership and this is the style, which is the most appropriate for Henry. A person using the transformational leadership style has competencies such as integrity, sets clear goals, clearly communicates a vision, expects the best from the team, encourages and supports the team, provides stimulating work, and helps people see beyond their self-interests and focus more on team interests and needs (Leadership Styles, 2011). Transformational leaders are exceptionally motivating and they're trusted (Leadership Styles, 2011 ).When your team trusts you, and are enthused by the way you lead, one can achieve great things. Observing Henrys behavior throughout the case and MGM' circumstances, he appears to be trustworthy, enthused about the MGM' product, confident, good listener, highly analytical, and remained calm throughout the meetings. Most importantly, all the members of MGM' team seem to like him and have demonstrated respect for Henry. We believe he would be a suitable leader; hence, he needs to volunteer to serve as the MGM' leader.A leader is an important function of management which helps to maximize efficiency and to achieve organizational goals. Having a leader at MGM' will help in communicating policies and plans to subordinates from where the work actually starts. A leader will motivate the employees, provide guidance, create confidence, and help in building a work environment (Importance of Leadership, 2011). * We strongly advise and recommend that the members of the MGM' team learn about di versity management within workplace since the MGM' team was compromised of people from different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.Having a good understanding of diversity is quite crucial to Meg's success. Most successful teams and managers, deal with multicultural challenges in one of four ways: adaptation, structural intervention, managerial intervention, and exit (Brett, Bear, and Kern, 2006). Adaptation involves acknowledging cultural gaps openly and working around them (Brett, Bear, and Kern, 2006). Structural intervention involves changing the shape or makeup of the team (Brett, Bear, and Kern, 2006).Managerial intervention is setting norms early or bringing in a higher-level manager (Brett, Bear, and Kern, 2006). Exit involves removing a team member when other options have failed (Brett, Bear, and Kern, 2006). Also, it would be extremely Dentally Tort Henry to Locus systematically WI TN Dana now to acclimatize to sauna's style in order to avoid conflicts. Henry needs to identify norms and values for the team. Their decision making process was extremely slow. Someone would always oppose whenever the team was about to come to a decision.This would cause the process to start all over again. Henry would benefit by setting deadlines on tasks, defining each member's role and contributions, and utilizing a voting system for decision-making. Utilizing the egalitarianism value system would be quite beneficial. Egalitarianism is a moral principle. It is the belief that all people should be equal and that values should be split evenly (Importance of Philosophy, 2011). Time management is highly needed. Henry needs to write the meeting objectives prior to starting every meeting.