Write a reflection report discussing and analysing the group work process undertaken during the simulation project. Students should refer to team work theory, and explain how well or poorly it operated in their group, and in their own specific performance. Students should conclude with at least three actions points that can improve their future group work performance, now that you have the benefit of experience and hindsight.
Introduction
This reflective report is based on a team activity that involved simulating a business to demonstrate and test decision making skills as would happen in the real world (Rooney & Witton, 2016). The activity entailed forming a team and working in groups, with people given different roles, in order to obtain the best results and outcomes from the simulation exercise. The simulation exercise is of great importance because doing the simulation mimics decisions one would have to make when running a business. In this paper, the activities undertaken and the lessons learned are discussed, in the context of team work theory. The team work theory was developed by Tuckman as having four distinct phases that include forming, storming, norming, and performing. (Kornspan, 2009) This self reflection report will also be based on the eight rollover sessions, when decisions were made, resulting in the observed performance outcomes.
Rollover One
Before undertaking the first rollover where we had to make decisions, we set down our objectives during our first meeting. We decided that we wanted to attain the best possible outcomes in terms of added shareholder value and profitability of the business. During the meeting, we discussed issues such as how we would do the pricing, public relations, and budgeting. This meeting was particularly poignant because we understood the performance of the team during the simulation depended a great deal on this first meeting. I made the first suggestion on pricing, suggesting a slightly lower entry price of below $ 735; my thinking was that this aggressive pricing strategy would help the company gain market share at the initial stages by attracting more customers based on a lower price. Of course being the first meeting, the team had not yet understood each other well, despite having had gone through the manuals and learning videos. There were disagreements on what strategies we should take, with myself proposing the medium price and the medium advertising strategy. The disagreements was natural and expected; based on the teamwork theory, this was the initial stages of the team coming together (the forming stage). The forming stage is the initial stage when individuals within a team have not yet gelled together very well, and everyone is sizing each other up, trying to find their position and direction within the team (Egolf & Chester, 2007). I, for instance, was of the idea that we should put in more expenditure in advertising and public relations (PR), informed by the reasoning that an aggressive marketing strategy also requires an aggressive advertising and PR strategy to go with it. If we were going to use the medium strategy on pricing, then we needed to go all out to advertise that strategy. The pricing strategy was informed by us knowing that mountain bikes exhibit medium sensitivity to pricing. Nonetheless, we had competitors who probably had the same reasoning and sought the same market as we did
As shown in the Fig above, the results of the first rollover confirmed my fears; that we had put way too little into advertising and PR. The results showed that we were trailing all the other teams in terms of sales, market share, and awareness. Clearly, the strategy to think that the price would attract customers, without a strategy for letting the customers know about the price through effective advertising, promotion, and PR set us back significantly, when compared to the others. With sales lower than for the competitors, the firm was less profitable, leading to lower shareholder value created or added; further, the share price was lowest compared to all the other companies.
Second Rollover
Because of a low share price and the lowest net sales, we figured that we needed to fight for greater market share. My idea was that we spend more on PR and advertising and promotion, and aggressively advertise our new price strategy which would be reduced further to $ 725 from $ 730. Still, there were disagreements, others felt that increasing advertising spending would only led to higher operating costs, and not necessarily add value to the sales and subsequently, profitability and value added to shareholders or even the share price. However, there was some agreement that we needed to inform the market in a better way about our product and the product pricing. However, the challenge was the best way in which to advertise and promote the brand and the company. The way in which people began to agree and look at the situation follows upon the team work theory of storming (Halverson, 2008); storming is a stage in which people within a group start to see themselves as being part of a team. While there was agreement on the need for awareness of the product, the team had not gelled together fully, there were still power struggles on who would be the leader (natural leader), and who would hold more sway. There were still conflicts though, as differences emerged between and among the group members. There was especially a problem on effective communication and interpersonal skills; conflict resolution was also a problem bedeviling the group, resulting in problems with cooperation and unity of purpose within the team. Deep inside, I knew such issues were going to cost us, and believed poor communication and how to resolve differences in opinion without offending any party lay at the heart of the company’s poor performance compared to the other competitors.
Third Rollover
The team maintained a reduced price of $ 725; however, there was no significant increase in advertising and PR spending, which means the market would not know, in a manner that is effective, that we were selling at a lower price. This was manifested in the results for the end of the third rollover, when our market share continued to shrink, with awareness for our company being the lowest. Another problem that even I had not thought of was distribution; our score on distribution was low, at 0.27, which was against lowest compared to the other players. These resulted in our company further losing track to the other companies that had agreed to advertise more and use even more aggressive pricing strategies. The findings from the decisions made in the third rollover are shown below;
Clearly, there was something we were doing wrong, and the fact that people were disagreeing on many aspects was cause for worry. Deep down, I felt that we needed to do something differently, and yet time was running out. My hunch at the beginning had told me that advertising and promotion, as well as an effective distribution channel were the secrets to success for our business.
Fourth Rollover
before making a decision for this phase, I told my team members that we needed to seek a new and better strategy in order to achieve our goals and objectives. I told my team members that almost every decision we made resulted in bad or less than expected performance of the business and changes were needed. The past performances were a concern to everyone, and there was unanimous agreement that we needed to make some significant changes in undertaking the project. I proposed a better distribution model, involving departmental stores and sport goods shops, as well as an online portal for making retail sales directly to consumers. The unanimous agreement was somewhat a surprise to me, although I knew it was also consistent with the team work theory that after a certain time, norming occurs within a group. During this period, the group begins to come together and ground rules are established, along with processes and roles are given (Wheelan, 2016). I had made such suggestions before we did the simulation, and everyone was in support of us building certain ground rules, including on how we would resolve conflicts and also develop a systematic way for making decisions. The team agreed that we should learn form the mistakes and the subsequent performances experienced after the preceding rollover, because we seemed to be doing worse at every subsequent stage. The team decided to use an expanded distribution model, involving retail shops, discount stores, and bike / sport equipment shops. We decided to also diversify the media we used for advertising and the PR strategies. The results, as shown below; shows that we did not fare any better than during the previous rollover decisions. We still had the lowest market share, and our awareness was still the lowest, along with our PR. It was unanimously agreed that we needed to reduce wastages and idle time in order to enhance profitability. The past performances was placing a strain on our cash flows, leading to the company having the lowest cash reserves. This ultimately meant that we could not significantly raise expenditure in the crucial areas of advertising and PR
Fifth Rollover
The decision to use a wide distribution network led to the sales improving slightly, as was the profitability of the business. However, we were still far behind the leaders with the shareholder value dropping even further to $ 7.73 and retail sales falling at less than half of some leading competitors. The team increased expenditure on PR and advertising; however, the team could not spend as much as we had wanted because of limited cash reserves due to continued poor financial performance in terms of sales and profitability, as well as low market share when compared to the competitors. As a result, the performance achieved, as shown in the table below, was below par. Everyone was I agreement that a mistake had been made form the very beginning and something drastic needed to be done. The team looked at each marketing medium carefully, as well as our pricing and that of the competitors, and based decisions for this and the next rollover on these.
Sixth Rollover
At this stage, the team had matured, based on team theory, and had become a performing team. The performing stage is where people place n increased focus on the task at hand, and the relationships are much better and cooperative; these combine to create synergy within the group Altman, 2013). Everyone was focused on doing the best for the subsequent rollovers, and all ideas shared were discussed at length, a common agreement reached by the team. We decided to continue with the strategy of an expanded distribution channel; we did not want to reduce prices further as this would result in reduced profitability and cash flows, something we could not afford at the moment. The results of those actions are shown below
Product diversification led to better performances from the road segment; we had decided to diversify the product offering as a way for becoming ore competitive and offering customers variety. Continued poor financial performance resulted in the shareholder value dropping as shown by a share price of just $ 4.80. the profits made and net profitability also continued to decline, as depicted below;
Seventh Rollover
The team made efforts increase efficiency while reducing costs, and focus more on the road segment for the bikes, while increasing advertising expenditure to try and catch up. These efforts bore a little fruit, with a marginal increase in the share price to 7.46%, with profitability also increasing. There was a significant improvement in the retail sales, although the debt ees stayed high as borrowed funds had to be used to plug cash inflow limitations. The results of the performance are shown in the table below;
Eighth Rollover
The team decided to continue with the strategy of enhancing efficiency, diversifying the distribution networks, and using the most effective advertising and promotion mediums. The increase in profitability and shareholder value (share price) had given us greater confidence going forward. The efforts bore fruit, as the shareholder value then rose to $ 13.62, with profitability and sales also rising. The company managed to reduce its debts as well as reduce wastage to just 8% and idle time as well (to 7%). The efforts adopted from the sixth rollover helped rally the company in terms of performance with the team being united and having a unity of purpose, having reached the performing phase of the team work theory. There was a late rally, although we did not overtake other teams, likely because we kicked in with focused decision making a little too late in the day
The three areas the team need to improve on include communication and interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, and effective initial planning.
Interpersonal relations and communication: The first through to the fourth rollover periods were sometimes characterized by near anarchy among the team embers. There were many disagreements, and we never came round to finding a suitable formula on how to communicate. Effective communication and interpersonal skills are essential for successful group dynamics to achieve set goals and objectives (Lussier & Achua, 2010).
Conflict Resolution: Al teams will inevitably face conflicts because people are different within group settings and exhibit different behaviors. Going by the team theory, there are bound to be conflicts at the initial phases of the group coming together, especially in the forming and storming phases. Effective conflict resolution mechanism help the group gel together faster and help them in achieving their objectives (Lencioni, 2013).
Effective Initial Planning: From this project, I have come to learn that failing to plan is like planning to fail; having studied the videos and done some mock simulations, everyone thought this would be easy, so there was no effective initial planning, beyond just setting some objectives. Had we planned effectively at the start, and looked at all factors, we would have done better, given the evidence of our late rally from the sixth week/ rollover. Particularly, we underestimated the value of strategic pricing and advertising and promotion, devoting a small budget than competitors that led to reduced/ small market share and a high (second) entry price point (Phillipson & Phillipson, 2014).
References
Altman, S. (2013). Organizational Behavior. Elsevier Science. https://www.myilibrary.com?id=665037.
Egolf, D. B., & Chester, S. L. (2007). Forming, storming, norming, performing: successful communication in groups and teams. New York, Iunverse.
Halverson, C. B. (2008). Effective multicultural teams theory and practice. Berlin, Springer.
Kornspan, A. S. (2009). Fundamentals of sport and exercise psychology. Champaign, Ill, Human Kinetics.
Lencioni, P. M. (2013). Overcoming the five dysfunctions of a team: a field guide for leaders, managers, and facilitators. San Francisco, Calif, Jossey-Bass.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2010). Leadership: theory, application, skill development. Australia, SouthWestern/Cengage Learning.
Phillipson, S., & Phillipson, S. N. (2014). Developing leadership in the Asia Pacific: a focus on the individual. New York : Routledge
Rooney, P., & Whitton, N. (2016). Game-based learning and the power of play: exploring evidence, challenges and future directions. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Wheelan, S. A. (2016). Creating effective teams: a guide for members and leaders. Los Angeles : SAG
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