(Answered) MBA 699 Milestone One Strategic Opportunity Mgmt

You are a business development manager reporting to the vice president (VP) of business development at one of the largest life sciences organizations in the Midwest. Their latest venture is producing a new cancer drug. The recent clinical trials of the organization’s flagship product have shown great success and the owners are considering their options for the future.

While the organization has shown constant growth and profitability since its inception in 1999, the owners have decided that it is time to sell. Given the current uncertainty in global markets, the board of directors is not convinced that this is the right approach.

While work is underway to find a potential buyer, the VP has called on you to join the strategic planning team to assess the organization’s exit strategy and make recommendations to its board of directors. As part of the strategic planning team, you have been asked to make some initial analyses and help plan for the sale of your organization.

Your first task is to build a guiding coalition; that is, identify the people in the organization who can shape, guide, and sustain the change effort of selling the organization. You will send your recommendations and rationale to the VP.

Identifying people who can effectively lead the change initiative is an important first step. These individuals have the leadership and social skills to ensure that the change effort is communicated throughout the organization; as well, they will report back to the team what employees are saying about the change.
Prompt
Use the organizational chart and the employee personas provided to guide your selection of the guiding coalition for the organization in the scenario. (A text-only version of the organizational chart is available: Text-Only Organizational Chart.)
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

1. Recommendation: Use the organizational chart and the personas to identify people who should be part of the guiding coalition. Review the personas to identify the individuals who have the influence and commitment to make a positive impact while providing guidance for the change initiative.
2. Rationale: Justify your choice of guiding coalition team members. Your responses should address the following for each individual you recommend for the coalition:
   a. What is the person’s title and how many people do they manage?
   b. How long has each person been with the organization?
   c. What area(s) of the organization does this person influence?
   d. What is your rationale for choosing the person? Consider the person’s characteristics for your rationale.
   e. What role will each person fulfill as a member of the guiding coalition?
3. Team-building strategies: Describe activities and strategies you will introduce to build a well-functioning team. Your response should address the following:
   a. What strategies will help the members align with the change initiative of the organization in the scenario?
   b. What steps or actions will you take to establish a sense of urgency within the team?
   c. How do these activities and strategies help build trust?

Guidelines for Submission

Submit a 3- to 4-page Word document, using double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. Sources should be cited according to APA style. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

Milestone One Rubric

MBA 699 Milestone One Expert A+ Answer

Introduction

The success of an exit strategy is often influenced by the coalition team set up by the organization to spearhead the change initiative and deliver results. The most critical part of building a coalition team is identifying key individuals with social and leadership skills to warrant effective communication in an organization and providing feedback to the managers about how other stakeholders feel about the proposed change.

To this end, this paper identifies individuals within one of the largest Life Science Organizations in the Midwest to form a coalition team that will initiate, lead and sustain the exit strategy and provides recommendations to the board of directors on the proposed sale of the organization.

Recommendation

The employee person report provides critical information about different individuals, their position, and the influence they have in shaping the organization. Therefore after reviewing this report, four individuals have been selected to form the guiding coalition. These individuals have demonstrated that they can influence others and are committed to having a beneficial impact while directing the change efforts. When building a team to operate as a guiding coalition, it is important to consider four crucial criteria to ensure that the team is effective. These four qualities are leadership, expertise, power, and creditability. To this effect, the five individuals to constitute a guiding coalition are:

1. Omar Mattsson, Manufacturing Director
2. Elain Hartwick, Acting Director
3. John Martensson, Research Director
4. Chris Bottling, Sales Executive

Rationale

The four individuals identified above have demonstrated through their positions that they have the leadership and social qualities which are integral in guiding the coalition to provide recommendations to the board of directors. The qualities and experience of each coalition team member are described below to justify their suitability.

1. Omar Mattsson, Manufacturing Director
2. Has worked in the Life Science Organization for three years
3. He manages 12 manufacturing plants with  580 employees
4. Has the highest job satisfaction of 4 points.

Omar joined the Life Science Organization due to an acquisition and expresses satisfaction with how the integration has proceeded successfully. Omar is a highly successful manufacturing director who has established the firm’s distribution network in the Middle East, and his strategies have proven successful.

This track record positions Omar as an invaluable resource to the guiding coalition, having experienced the exit strategy before when he joined the company.

(ii)  Elain Hartwick, Acting Director

1. Has worked in the organization for ten years
2. Has high job satisfaction scoring 3 points
3. Managers 18 senior managers

Elaine Hartwick has a reputation for being a strong leader who can quickly adapt to change. Besides, one of Elaine’s many admirable qualities is her ability to recognize and value the unique contributions of others around her. In her position as director of senior managers, she will have the most influence over those who make decisions and will therefore be the power leader in the guiding coalition.

(iii)  John Martensson, Research Director

1. Managed more than 100 scientists in the organization’s research labs in three countries
2. Has worked in the organization for 22 years
3. Has the highest job satisfaction scoring 4 points

John Martensson is in charge of the three different research facilities that the company owns and operates in three countries. Interestingly, John was in the company when it merged with another company in the past; as such, he understands how the exit strategy works.

John is also mainly dedicated to the firm’s scientific research; he will therefore serve as the guiding coalition’s team leader because of his long history with the organization and his ability to influence other employees with his endorsement of the transition.

(iv)Chris Bottling, Sales Executive

1. Manages over 150 sales representatives worldwide
2. Has worked in the organization for ten years
3. Has an average job satisfaction score of 2 points

Chris is a practical leader and has successfully overseen the integration of two acquisitions at previous employers. His background in corporate restructuring positions him to provide valuable insight for the project.

Therefore, Chris Bottling would serve as the guiding coalition’s team resident specialist to provide his vast experience on mergers and acquisitions to the team and help provide recommendations to the organization’s board of directors.

Team Building Strategies

Establishing clear roles and responsibilities is vital to building a well-functioning team. Team members should know their strengths and weaknesses and how they can best contribute to the team. This requirement is that the group have a wide range of perspectives and be fully invested in the effort to change and the desired outcomes.

As a result, everyone on the team will know what they are working toward and how they may affect change (Khan  & Wajid, 2019). Members of the guiding coalition must be reliable and capable of easing the transition to new circumstances for those around them by defining their roles and articulating a common goal. For the team to succeed, its members must feel safe confiding in one another.

They should prioritize change and actively involve individuals who may be affected by the transition to win their support.

Creating a positive and supportive team environment where team members feel comfortable communicating and collaborating is also essential. Besides, regularly team-building activities and strategies can help to strengthen the team bond further and improve team performance (Marhasova et al.,2022).

In the context of the Life Science Organization exit strategy, the guiding coalition team must work cohesively to develop a plan of action and long-term goals. They need a plan specifying the outcomes they want to see from their team development efforts and how to prepare for its eventual sale.

More importantly, the guiding coalition team should think about keeping their most productive workers invested in the company after the sale is finalized.

This will help keep their teams motivated by fostering an environment where employees can look past the sale’s negative implications and instead focus on the benefits of the exit strategy. The best way to keep talented employees from leaving is for the team to work together to gain a deeper appreciation for how each member’s job and department contributes to the whole organization’s success.

Moreover, the staff should have a sense of urgency to prepare everything for the possible sale. The message and the vision must be something that can be imagined, desired, accomplished, adaptable, and shared. It is essential to break down the process of selling a business into achievable steps like customer service and keeping an eye on client turnover to keep all profitable customers (Fredberg & Pregmark, 2022).

Suppose the team has a well-thought-out strategy that incorporates the knowledge of all the specialists on the team. In that case, it will be more cohesive, and its members will be more likely to accept responsibility for the steps necessary to carry out the plan.

It should be noted that creating a timeline for the project will instill a feeling of urgency and will show the team the financial impact of delays which will motivate them to get the job done.

Throughout the planning phase, the guiding coalition can collect observations, assess the risks, and establish controls necessary to deal with the difficulties it will face during the implementation phase.

It will also be imperative for the team to use the company acquiring the firm to its advantage to identify synergies and differences between the present and future states.

References

Fredberg, T., & Pregmark, J. E. (2022). Organizational transformation: Handling the double-edged sword of urgency. Long Range Planning, 55(2), 102091.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024630121000224

Khan, M. R., & Wajidi, A. (2019). Role of leadership and team building in employee motivation at workplace. GMJACS, 9(1), 11-11.

http://gmjacs.bahria.edu.pk/index.php/ojs/article/view/77

Marhasova, V., Maliar, S., Ivanov, M., Garafonova, O., & Kozyrieva, O. (2022). IT Team Building Process Management based on a Competency Approach.

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3188/paper8.pdf

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