Nicole and Mark are a team of very different people who need to be able to work effectively in the workplace. The problems we identified in the case study were ineffective leadership, negative personality traits, lack of trust and lack of synergy. The actions of the team members towards each other are very hostile and lack the communication needed for them to work together efficiently. The theoretical perspective we chose was the Behavioral Perspective, which uses employee behavior as a mediating factor between strategy and performance. Since there are flaws in team design, we provided alternative solutions: decrease the levels of secondary psychopathy, develop trust between Nicole and Mark, foster a relationship with Nicole to find mutual benefits of synergy, alternative dispute resolutions to improve synergy, improve intra-team communication and perform personnel changes.
The problem we thought was most critical to solve was leadership style affecting the team design. The factors that limit its effectiveness are that it is not universally applicable to all situations because different organizations have different types of teams with different types of leadership and it also depends on how involved the leaders are with their teams. The managerial implications we gathered from the article were that there may be a resistance to change in Paul’s leadership style, issues with people changing their personality can be difficult, the time lag and effectiveness on bonding between the employees in developing each other’s trust, and the willingness of both employees to collaborate after a confrontational moment.