HENRY TAM AND THE MGI

TEAM
PROF LEENA CHATTERJEE

STRENGTHS OF MGI TEAM

Diverse areas of expertise and skill

High creativity and idea generation
A good product
Good connections
Passion and initiative

EVALUATION OF THE TEAMS

PROCESS
Ineffective decision making processes
Focused more on generating alternative
solutions rather than identifying and defining the
problem
Disagreement on who has the expertise about
identifying relevant criteria
Unhealthy conflict
Creative abrasion versus personal clashes
Difference in conflict between Sasha and Dana
and Henry and Igor
Conflict avoidance by some members eg. Dav

CAUSE OF PROCESS PROBLEMS

Team Composition: multiple differences
among members combine to cause a fault
line
Functional diversity: different styles of thinking,
methods of time management, approaches to problem
solving

Demographic diversity: differences in age, nationality

and gender

Personality
Differences in prior relationships

CAUSE OF PROCESS PROBLEMS

Unclear goals, roles and leadership
Winning the business plan competition
versus launching the business
successfully
Interns or business partners
Who was the leader

UNDERLYING ROOT CAUSE

Impression formation processes
Threats to identity
Lack of interpersonal congruence

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Launching a team
Importance of kick-off meeting
Establishing shared goals, clear roles, agreed
on decision making procedures, ground rules,
leadership etc

Managing diverse members

Have a shared understanding of each others
strengths and limitations
Instill norms for respecting and learning from
others differences

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Diagnosing team processes
Recognize and manage all stages of group
decision making
Understand distinction between healthy task
conflict and dysfunctional affective conflict
Manage sub-groups and dysfunctional fault
lines that may develop
Intervening to improve a dysfunctional team
Issues relating to changing and managing
structure and norms
Evaluating team effectiveness
Understand different criteria for evaluating team
effectiveness