The ‘romance of Teams': Toward an Understanding of Its Psychological Underpinnings and Implications

Analysis of the problem

The main problem of this case is the joint passiveness of both new management team and the founders of the organization. Instead of working together to solve the relationship problems of the new team they all are playing camp wars with each other. Furthermore, Karen is being the person responsible for this type of questions seems to be unresponsive and let the two groups on their own. The founders team seems to have no understanding that by going with the big venture capital money they will need to pass on some of the control over the organization. Also, they seem to ignore the fact that the new members are very knowledgeable in business and instead of fighting with them they need to concentrate on learning from them.

The two teams lack the understanding of their roles and responsibilities within the organization as well as they do not have the strategy, mission and values of the organization set up. Knowing the answers to these questions would allow them to clearly define the responsibilities within the organization and to understand who should be performing them. The founders seem to be concerned over the retention of the new members, but they do not seem to grasp that if the latter is to leave they might lose all the venture capital. Lack of any communication, skipping weekly meetings and unclear direction of the team are really at the source of most of the problems here (Coutu, 2009). There is a degree of mistrust that created a communication wall between the two teams and if not solved it will just keep growing. This will eventually cost this organization its prosperous existence. Finally, founders should learn to separate their friendship from their business.

Evaluation of Alternatives

There is a number of different solutions that will solve the problems faced by the founders in different ways.

Alternative 1

This alternative is fairly simple for the founders and does not require much of commitment. Founders can sell the organization by pulling their money out. The organization will be able to function on its own and the founders will be able to get their heads together and start another organization that they will be able to as they please.

Alternative