Introduction
The overall team process of MGI seems dysfunctional and ineffective; members forming the MGI team brought a variety of skills set resulting from the multi-talented compositions, diversity in ethnic backgrounds, close personal relationships and a shared desire for the product. The main task for the team was to launch a product at the Harvard Business School (HBS) business plan contest, however, the team has failed in delivering such product for the lack of group roles, defining objectives and facilitating communication among themselves.
The MGI lacked a manager to lead the group assignments and making sure every task is performed for the best interest of the group; which is completing the task in the given time frame. There was no structure and clear role assignment for members, this led to having more and more conflict among team members that affected the communication process as well as the outcome of the group. Not only ineffective communication was created in such team forming setting, but also a misunderstood perception for each member’s role was generated. One given example, when Dav joined the group, Henry and Dana did not know the intentions for the team founders as to themselves, as they had no idea what Dav’s role was in the team, which affected the team work as a whole. Also, as Henry thought they were very clear in respect to each member’s role that’s been placed initially, each member played a facilitator, moderator, task manager, and strategic thinker. (Polzer, 2003)
Post failure in effective communication, the team collaboration hindered to result for the incapability of the team to reach its consensus, especially in decision making. Interpersonal conflicts flared up as a result to informal norms within the team interactions, instead of taking an advantage of the diversity of each member’s background and exceptional experience; whether educational or business, the team developed poor communication skills that sooner than planned started to create conflicts in development of the process to achieve the task with lack of collaboration and integration.
Overview of the group
The team consisted three founders of MGI and two HBS students. Both two founders were from Ukrain and were very close friends and in culture as well, the third founder was from Russia and also was close in terms of culture to the very first two founders. The two HBS students were younger than the other team members which also played a role in initiating conflict within the group dynamics. Below is a brief description for each group member: 1) Igor Tkachenko (co-founder), is an award-winning composer and pianist, he appeared in many major concerts within Europe and United States. He produced 7 cd’s of his original music. 2) Roman Yakub (co-founder), he is an internationally acclaimed composer with extensive experience in electronic compositions and traditional compositions. He performed concerts in Europe and United states. 3) Dav Clark, is a graduate student at MIT in the brain and cognitive science. He leads teams of graduate and undergraduate students to develop softwares on waveform data. He is a members of the Voice Institute organization that dedicates music in creative ways to serve the Boston area. 4) Alexander Jan Sartakov, is an experienced musician and a successful business man. He is a music engineering dual major student at the Berklee College. He also received several awards and scholarships that include the NAMM scholarship award. 5) Dana Soiman, is an MBA student at HBS with extinctive international corporate experience. 6) Henry Tam, is an MBA candidate at HBS, he has a BA in economics from Columbia university and he was a Fulbright scholar. He has previous work experience in finance with several big corporates in New York and Washington.
Even though the team members came from different diverse backgrounds and experience, conflicts and issues kept on arising as the team progressed to what they thought, towards achieving the task. The overall climate in the group was competitive and that affected the group communication process and openness to suggestions and improvements. A competitive climate in a group creates conflicts and negative energy towards certain group members depending on each individual. For example, the relationship between Sasha and Dana; Sasha always thought Dana did not know what she was talking about, also Dana always disagreed with whatever Sasha had to say. (Polzer, 2003)
Analysis of team
Introduction of teams
A team can be defined as an organized, task focused group. While a group is defined as two or more people together connected via social relationships. Teams have specific goals in a focused task setting, specialized roles and it is a part of a larger organization. (Dainton, 2014)
At the MGI team case, the group knew exactly what they wanted but they did not know how to do it. They had a task focus and a specific goal, which is to launch their product. However, there were too many conflicts to perform the task. They have gathered themselves as a group from the beginning with a shared interest, but when the group started to perform as a team, the conflicts rose and created miscommunication among the team members that affected the outcome of the tasks to be achieved.
Based on the definition of teams as given by Dainton, 2014; there are three different types of teams: * Problem solving: in this type, teams tend to use the thinking approach, be more thoughtful and brain storming to solve the issues. * Creative: This type of teams, members tend to think outside of the box in order to achieve the goal and for the best interest of the group. * Tactical: in this type of teams, members are specialized in certain tasks to achieve the overall goal of the team. There are several individual variables that affect teams, in this case, MGI team; each member had a distinctive background and almost a different culture that was a benefit to the team. Professor Dainton explained in class several variables, such as: * Sex/Gender: This is mainly how you define your sexuality vs the natural biology birth. * Culture: which is values, beliefs, ways of belonging that are passed from one generation to another. * Individualism vs collectivism: this leads to another sub-variable that is horizontal individualism or vertical individualism. * Masculinity vs feminine: a feminine personality does not have rigid roles and orders. * High vs low power in the community. * High vs low uncertainty in following the rules and regulations.
These individual variables lead to another section, which is personality traits, and they come as follows: 1- Cognitive complexity 2- Self-monitoring 3- Apprehensive, “fear of speaking” 4- Assertiveness/ non-assertiveness
At MGI team, each member had a certain personality trait that clearly affected their interaction with other team members. In relation to that, the conflict created constantly between Dana and Sasha. Both members have different beliefs and personality traits that led to creating a conflict.
Also, not having a defined leader in the group to organize tasks and monitor performance created conflict and participated in the ineffectiveness of the team.
Analysis of leadership
Introduction of leadership concept
Leadership is the constant activity of leading a team in an organization or even just having the ability to do this. In leadership, leaders establish a clear vision in sharing the tasks with other team members and assigning roles for them to follow willingly. While doing so, leaders also have to provide the required knowledge, information, and methods to support that vision and also coordinate conflicts as they may arise through members during performing that task. Another expectation from a leader is to step up in front of the line at all times when there is a crisis. A leader should be able to act and think differently and creatively in difficult circumstances. Unlike management, leadership cannot be learnt or taught, it is a natural instinct in a person to lead, although it might be trained and enhanced but certainly not taught.
Leadership in MGI team
In the MGI team case, one of the biggest failures they had was the lack of a team leader, every member was acting solely with no role assigned which created more conflicts with no one to solve them or take lead and assign roles. In fact, conflicts kept on arising until they have failed in the outcome for the initial purpose of the team, they never achieved their goal.
Each individual member at the MGI team was acting solo, no mentorship or a confirmation that the process is being followed by everyone else. As they met on a weekly basis, frustration rose as well as conflict between several team members.
MGI should assigned a team leader to focus on making sure roles assigned for everyone, to be there in case any conflicts arise, and also to have a clear vision for the team and always know where they are headed.
There are six ways that leaders can help team members move through the stages of team performing: * Form the group: leaders tend to be able to form the group, while having certain amount of knowledge and experience, leaders can form a group. * Define member’s responsibilities: Leaders have to assign roles to members and monitor performance as well as support the team. * Focus on results: by that approach, leaders keep on reminding their team members about the results which helps motivating the team and build synergy. * Give regular feedback: Leaders should constantly give feedback to team members as they progress in performing the tasks. * Manage emotions: Leaders should always be there and ready to manage different emotional waves throughout the team members. * Maximize your time: This is a very important step, leaders should always meet up on a regular basis “depending on the tasks for each group”, to give feedback, support, and to know how well the team is doing.
Not only MGI team did not have a leader, but this also resulted in the fact that there was no one responsible for any failure in the group. Even though Henry felt that he had to assign a person or himself to take the lead, but the team failed in achieving their goal.

Firstly, Henry should caution to the team of the looming time line ahead and advise the team to appoint an effective leader immediately to align the team and integrate their works together. Noel M. Tichy, a professor at the University of Michigan Business School and the co-author of The Leadership Engine (1997) says: "Leadership is about change. It is about taking people from where they are now to where they need to be”[21] .
Understanding that the decision-making process is slow or non-existent within the group, Henry could stepped up and appointed himself as the team leader. Although he could not create a high performance team overnight, as the first step he should try to establish a healthy relationship between himself and the rest of the team. Following this, he should specify the short term and the long term goals and these should be specific and realistic. Long-range goals set through strategic planning are translated into activities that will ensure reaching the goal through operational planning. The fact that the Christmas holidays had already passed, Henry could convince the MGI team to follow the educational market for its short term goal and chose the entertainment market as its long term goal and planned in advance for the next Christmas holiday.
Subsequently he should define each of the member’s roles, duties, team work norms and delegate the responsibilities. He should meet each of the team members individually and in group setting to determine the best fit. These decisions made should base on what a team member had produced in the past, and according to his/her work experiences. Jason Hiner, in his 10 tips for leading a team in 2007 states that an effective leader should make sure that the right people are at the right desks[22].
Henry should then keep a close watch in the next two weeks to ensure the team members communicate smoothly with each other. He should monitor the socio-emotional need of the team members to ensure that they were happy and were being productive.
The other alternative that Henry could do to increase the team's effectiveness was to look for a neutral third party as the leader. Henry believed that a neutral leader with the industry expertise and teamwork leadership skills could help the team to move ahead much faster. Dana had also commented, “We need one more person to make the whole thing work: someone with seniority and a deep knowledge of the market…”[23] . We observed that most of the team members were in deep conflicts with each other and they sometimes did not respect each other so a neutral party would be worth looking. But the time crunch meant that they would not have enough time to find a leader from outside. And the new leader would definitely not have the luxury of time to understand each team member's skills and abilities. In conclusion, Henry should appoint himself as the appropriate team leader for the group.

References
Dainton, M. (2014). COM 616: Group and team communication [Class notes]. Communication Department, La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA.
Llopis, G. (2012, October 1). 6 Ways Successful Teams Are Built To Last. Forbes. Retrieved August 10, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2012/10/01/6-ways-successful-teams-are-built-to-last/
Franz, T. M. (2012). Group dynamics and team interventions: understanding and improving team performance. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub