Henry Tam and the MGI Team

Case Summary
The business plan contest was only three weeks left and Henry Tam alongside his team members, the MGI, were not near the completion of their business plan. Their initial plan and vision was not selected as they expected. The team had extremely strong skills, but that was not making any significant progress in their preparation towards the business contest plan. The team members consisted of very strength and multitalented people, with diverse functionality, enthusiasm, and passion towards their remarkable product. However, conflicts and divisions started arising within the team.

Major problem
There were many factors preventing the success of the team and made it process dysfunctional such as: the cultural differences among the members, poor organization towards the team process, divisions within the team, absence of task allocation and poor working relations. Above all, there were absence of the leader who should help in guiding the team process and working towards matching the goal of the team rather than individuals. The team had the strength in the factor that all members brought the required expertise and skills to succeed
In analyzing the main points in the case, the team had the initiative and elements to make it successful. However, there were various challenges that faced their working progress. We can briefly talk about these major challenges:

• The lack of communication and information exchange
One of the main factors preventing the success of this team was that there was a lacked of communication skills, especially lagging in listening. No one listened effectively, and everybody tried to shove ideas around the meetings, which led the group to fail to arrive at a decision. Moreover, there were pe...

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... he would easily be able take control and lead the team.
Thus, Henry should take the responsibility of leading this team towards success. However, in the future, they may need a neutral person, to lead the group to avoid further internal conflicts.
Finally, there are several lessons can be taken from this case. The most important lesson is how to establish a team and manage it to success. Managing a team needs all members to involve and take the responsibility. Therefore, it is important to set the rules to control the team. Another lesson is that how much the clear definition of goals and roles are essential in order to format and manage a team. Moreover, it also presents lesson on the advantages and disadvantages of having diversity in a team, such as diversity in culture, skills and experience.

JEFFREY T. POLZER, “Henry Tam and the MGI Team”, OCTOBER 20, 2003