Henry Tam and MGI – Common Purpose Problem Katzenbach and Smith define a team as “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”1 Per this definition the four main elements which make team process to function are: common commitment and purpose, performance goals, complementary skills, and mutual accountability. Though MGI team had a great complementary skills, it lacked common purpose, performance goals, and mutual accountability which was the root-cause of poor team process.
The MGI team’s failure to agree upon common team goals resulted in team segregation and meaningless meetings. The divided team failed to agree upon the target market (Education vs. Entertainment) to choose for the business plan. As stated in the case “The main point of contention revolved around the marketing of MGI’s product… MGI founders had thought of their music puzzle primarily as an entertainment product.”2. As noted by Henry “but given the nature of the product and its stage of development, Dana and I saw very little chance of success in marketing it as ‘entertainment.’ From a competition and capability standpoint, it seemed that ‘education’ was the way to go.”3 This indecisiveness also explains the MGI team norm of constant brainstorming without progress. As noted by Dana “The brainstorming sessions were great at first, but they went on too long, and there was no implementation. The founders kept raising lots of ideas and wanted to pursue all possible avenues. Henry and I tried to establish a 1 Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, The Discipline of Teams, page 3 2 Jeffary T. Polzer, Henry Tam and the MGI team, HBS Case 9-404-068, page 11 3 Jeffary T. Polzer, Henry Tam and the MGI team, HBS Case 9-404-068, page 12
process for choosing one alternative out of eight or ten divergent visions”4. Without a clear sense of goals and direction, the team could not function cohesively. This contributed to the delays in completing the business plan. Because of this dysfunctional team process, MGI team didn’t have an initial draft of business plan that was due in just three weeks. Henry can still rectify the MGI’s team process by addressing the root causes of the team’s problems. Per Eisenhardt, “Focus on facts”5 encourages one to debate critical issues, not argue out of ignorance. Henry should re-enforce the “Focus on facts” tactic to support his stance on Education target market and to obtain consensus with the founders. Henry must establish clear short-term and long-term goals for the team. The short-term goal must be to complete the business plan for the HBS contest, while the long-term goal must be to successfully launch and grow MGI’s business. He should realign team efforts toward these common goals and encourage collaboration. As noted by Heath “To solve the coordination problem, organizations must divide a task and then integrate the components”6 in the Coordination neglect research paper, task division and integration is important to achieve coordination. To make fast progress, Henry should bring in some structure and break the business plan into the following sections: • • • •
Target Market analysis and estimated market share; Market data based on customer research and customer response analysis Operations model; Marketing strategy;
4 Jeffary T. Polzer, Henry Tam and the MGI team, HBS Case 9-404-068, page 10 5 Kathleen M. Eisehardt, How Management Teams can have a good fight, page 2 6 Chip Heath, Coordination Neglect: How lay theories of organizing complicate coordination in organizations
• Financial projections; • Growth plan; • PowerPoint or summary of the proposed business Henry should have Dana, Roman, and Dav complete the market analysis, Financial and Growth plan sections. Sasha, Igor, and Alex should complete Operations model. Henry should complete the marketing strategy, PowerPoint summary, and consolidate the business plan.
As noted by Katzenbach “Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose. Compelling goals inspire and challenge a team, give it a sense of urgency. They also have a leveling effect, requiring members to focus on the collective effort necessary rather than any differences in title or status"7, setting performance goals is an imperative for team process. “Team (rather than individual) accountability” practice is helpful to achieve team coordination. By setting performance goals for the team members and having team accountability in place, Henry should be able drastically improve the team’s effectiveness.
7 Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, The Discipline of Teams, page 2
