Introduction
MedisSys is a US-based medical device manufacturing company, which develops IntenseCare medical systems to monitor patients. The organization is based on entrepreneurial culture practices, which foster innovation among its more than 1,750 employees. The organization designs, manufactures, and sells medical monitoring systems for the hospital segments. Its IntensCare department has recently embarked on creating health monitoring devices, which provide detailed patient information and post them on an electronic database. From the databank, patients, nurses, and doctors would be able to access these details, reducing the amount of paperwork and time wastage. However, MediSys’ board of management has been able to identify early signs showing slow growth in the company. Two main sponsors later announced their desire to join MediSys key market with a product designed to pose competition with IntensCare.
Background
Apart from the production of medical apparatus, MediSys Corp company is applauded for the promotion of innovative culture in the region. The organization’s entrepreneurial culture gave an edge over its competitors as it encourages creativity and innovative ideas from its employees. This phenomenon has enabled MediSys’ employees to gain much experience, skills and expertise required in developing new medical equipment.
And with numerous health challenges attacking human race, such innovations would greatly make a difference especially during this period of covid-19. However, due to its entrepreneurial style of management which does not conform with the current market, the organization started to exhibit poor growth rate. It has resulted in slow product marketing and overall sales of products. Therefore, to remedy this, MediSys’ board of management resorted to adopting new production techniques to keep them competitive in the market. Art Beaumont was hired as a company’s president to restore its lost glory as of the best medical equipment producer.
Effectiveness of Different Leadership Styles within Teams and the Organization
Under Art Beaumont, an executive team was created to implement new strategies established by the company. It adopted different management styles, which prompted different departments to emphasize their performances without focusing on the overall company goals. An executive committee was established and mandated to report directly to the president. The company structure promoted supervision while discouraging autonomy, resulting in a significant impact compared to the entrepreneurial management style.
Despite the implementation of parallel team idea among departments, reporting and evaluation processes remained unchanged. According to Wong et al. (2017), this approach can result in an organization’s success so long as specific principles are followed. The employees’ evaluations were based on their performance in their functional areas, but their work in the team product development process was not considered.
Beaumont’s tight timeline to launch the IntensCare was considered aggressive owing to the difficulties the department was undergoing. Challenges such as modular design, delay in hardware engineering, and delay in software development were faced continuously. The team members were not entirely honest, and the collaboration was not maximized, leading to numerous arguments among team members. This kind of team culture negatively impacted the performance and motivation of the team members. Confidence was lost among team members as they could not trust each other’s ability and competence to work.
The Impact of Team Dynamics on the Successes and Challenges Encountered by the Intenscare Team
Several factors impacted the team’s success, including competency, administration, innovation, individual level-motivation and attitude, group level-communication, and organizational productivity.
Competency
The team members were competent in marketing and sales, research, product engineering, software development, supervision, and production. However, Mr. Beaumont did not perform a thorough assessment of the organization structure or personality compatibility among the employees. According to Donnellon and Margolis (2009), Beaumont should have established teams with their group leaders to actualize the methodology, which was already identified for developing business. It was apparent that MediSys’ entrepreneurial and administration styles were bound to change for positive results to be realized and Beaumont could have recognized and effected the changes.
Administration Innovation
MediSys’ innovative culture has been crucial towards its development, owing to the prevailing dynamic and challenging business environment. The organization adopted an order and control approach and accentuated specialized greatness. There was a need to have serious opposition to the leadership style used in the company. The mental ability and optional exertion of most team members had deteriorated, warranting the need for cross-useful groups in which employees could share their experiences (Donnellon & Margolis, 2009, p. 3). consequently, new forces tried to create better ways, including providing reports to help change practices in directing the business’s operations. Additionally, the management developed patience, openness, and trustworthiness.
Individual Level-Motivations and Attitudes
Each colleague had his or her inspirations for taking a shot at the project, and such lack of teamwork proved as the most company’s undoing. Bret O’Brien zeroed in on his concept of a non-particular plan for the team and was depicted as inactive. Jack Fogel was a project manager who worried about booking ordinary gatherings, however not as business-engaged as Art Beaumont would like. Dipesh Mukerjee headed the programming plan and quickly re-appropriated the project to India (Donnellon & Margolis, 2009, p. 3). There is a sense he was pompous in his arrangement. Valerie Merz took care of advertising and needed the module-based item, which clashed with O’Brien’s plan vision. Her forceful character made her clash with various team members.
Group Level-Communication
Communication plays a critical role in the operation of the company, either between peers or different employee levels. According to Darics and Koller (2019), there is a need for understanding between teams to ensure that the organization can succeed in its operations. Effective communication among colleagues and departmental diminished across the board. Issues and concerns could only be addressed among individuals as structured and procedural dispute resolution was lacking. Some individuals developed unbecoming characters that undermined relationships among their colleagues. For instance, Valerie Merz had troublesome characters. Colleagues kept burning issues to avoid strife with others, but this proved ineffective as poor relationships within the working environment were witnessed.
Organizational Productivity
Everyone became more concerned with the deadline and failed to work out challenges as a team appropriately. The group became progressively fragmented due to varying dreams of what the item should have been, and clashing mentalities forestalled satisfactory correspondence, which can fail the team’s productivity (Bayanova et al., 2019). Before the finish of the case, India’s advancement issues, a settled item plan, and a general make way toward the cutoff time stayed uncertain.
Recommendation
- Given the examination discoveries, the organization needs to urge IntensCare individuals to fill in as a group. It should let them haggle about time they have to spend on their capacities and assemble all colleagues to report the standard prize and open up discussing their issues. The leadership should enhance a culture of collaborative attitude by ensuring employees understand their roles and those of others. Such will help everyone to understand the big picture and enable them to fit into the larger puzzle.
- MediSys’ management needs to develop motivational practices by awarding the best performers to encourage team members to work hard towards organization’s objectives and goals. It can also be achieved by observing every employee’s skills and then placing them in a setting where they can add the most value.
- They need to research team members’ cultures, likes, and dislikes to develop methodologies that work for all. Employees should be allowed to have their input on any solution to any potential conflict.
References
Darics, E., & Koller, V. (2019). Social actors “to go”: An analytical toolkit to explore agency in business discourse and communication. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 82(2), 214-238. Web.
Donnellon, A., & Margolis, J. D. (2009). Medisys corp.: The Intenscare product development team. Harvard business school briefcase.
Bayanova, A. R., Vodenko, K. V., Sizova, Z. M., Chistyakov, A. A., Prokopyev, A. I., & Vasbieva, D. G. (2019). A philosophical view of organizational culture policy in contemporary universities. European Journal of Science and Theology, 15(3), 121-131.
Wong, W., Pepe, J., & Englander, I. (2017). Raising the bar: Challenging students in a capstone project course with an android and mobile web parallel development team project. Information Systems Education Journal, 15(6), 27-42.