Henry Tam and the Mgi Team

Henry Tam and the MGI Team

        The Harvard Business School (HBS) Business Plan Contest required the submission of an official business plan in only three weeks, but Henry Tam and his team were no where close to completing the task. The group was composed of the Music Games International (MGI) founders, Sasha Gimpelson, Igor Tkachenko and Roman Yukab, as well as college students from HBS (Henry Tam and Dana Soiman), MIT (Dav Clark) and Boston Berklee College (Alex Sartakov). The group was diverse and clashed in a variety of ways, drastically impeding the progress of creating a successful business plan. After almost six weeks of meetings, the team had minimal work to show, with no determined plan of action regarding the business plan.

The group had several issues to address. First and foremost, the team failed to meet Bruce Tuckman’s five stages of group development. Consequently, they had not determined who was the leader or who maintained which particular role. Without a leader, it was difficult to determine a vision, and the goals needed to fulfill this idea. The last issue to address was the constant conflict between the clashing personalities and cliques. Before significant process can be made, one member, specifically Henry Tam, needs to take the reigns and develop an organizational culture.  After inserting himself as the leader, Henry’s first focus should be forming a vision for the group, and developing a strategic plan to meet the team’s goals. After defining the goals, Henry should help the group improve their camaraderie by creating a mentoring or accountability program. By making these implementations, the group could unite to their common cause and create an award-winning business plan.

As a whole, the group has several strengths that could allow them to be successful after implementing an efficient and effective business plan. An abundance of musical experience between the MGI founders will help them continue to develop and expand their product. Both Igor and Roman developed an international reputation as composers, helping expand the potential market for their product.  As page three comments, “MGI [could] commission first-rate performance and recordings at a much lower cost than would have been possible in the United States.”^[1] Since Sasha and Igor have been friends for over twenty years, they have a better understanding of their personalities and abilities. Their friendship has prevailed through other ventures, and they recognize the importance of each person’s strengths.

Because Sasha was a graduate from Harvard Business School, he should have obtained skills that would help him manage and market a product, an asset that Dana and Henry should also possess or be learning as current students. Each student has the motivation and desire to perform well and create a plan that will succeed over time. Although the Russian and American cultures create conflict at times, it also brings different ideas and views to make their product as well rounded as possible. Although their team consists of only seven people, “studies show that financial performance was higher when the organization’s top management team was diverse and collocated in the same location”^[2].  Unfortunately, even with all of these strengths, the group has struggled to perform primarily due to the poor formation of a unified team.