Identifying the Client and the Problem

Part One: Overview of the Client 

The client in focus herein is Munoz Electronic Solutions, a small 15 month-old startup solely owned by a budding entrepreneur. The small company operates locally within a small roadside town and is involved in the repair of mobile devices including phones, tablets, and simple internet of things devices. Munoz, the owner is a 25-year-old technician with a post-graduate level education in electronic engineering. He is also a close friend who consults me on business matters, including strategic planning and solving problems. Instead of moving to the city and seeking a job in a large company, he opted to do something that would allow him to assist members of his community, hence the formation of the company. He has thus hired young men and women from his community as his employees in the company. Currently, the company has six employees including two young men and four young ladies. The ladies form the marketing team and carry out duties such as marketing, customer care, and public relations. Conversely, Munoz has trained the two young men to undertake simple repairs on a variety of gadgets which they do under his very close supervision. The small business operates out of a small house within the town center which includes a front office where customers are served and the back office where the technical and repair work takes place. The back office is normally out of bounds for all but staff members. Most of the repair work carried out at the shop involves software upgrades and replacement of damaged parts, mostly screens for smartphones and tablets. On an average day, the entire team will meet. After cleaning and other routine chores, Munoz and his team will commence repair. The three ladies will separate into two, two will serve customers at the shop while the other two will undertake field work. The field work include marketing, collecting items for repair, and delivering repaired items. 

Part II: the Essay 

Running a business is hard and ridden with various challenges and issues. Entrepreneurial competence including the ability to handle these issues and succeed in spite of them, and in some cases because of them is essential. Bearing factors such as internal and external environments can cause problems in a business (Carpenter, 2015). In some cases, the problem may be caused by a combination of these factors or even a false flag where what seems to be the problem is not the actual problem (Sosik & Jung, 2018). In order to effectively solve a problem, therefore, it is critical to get to the root of what is causing it, eliminate the problem and its impact, and then ensure that it shall not recur in future. 

Munoz Electronic Solutions is an electronics repair shop, thus provides a service to its customers in expectation of a pay. In the repair shop, smartphones, ordinary phones, tablets and simple internet of things items such as speakers and watches are repaired, serviced, and upgraded. Such an organization has two major components, the first being customer service and the other being the production segment. The customer service segment of the company has four ladies who serve in two randomly selected groups. One group does the front office work of collecting delivered items, doing the paperwork, and dealing with customers who come to the repair shop. The other group goes out marketing, collecting items that need repairs, and delivering items that have been repaired. Munoz, the proprietor and two young men undertake the actual repair work, which mainly comprises of replacing damaged parts and software repairs and upgrades. Munoz is the expert who does most of the repair work while the two young men are his apprentices and work under his instructions. 

Whereas the business has been picking well and making money, Munoz believes that it is in a crisis. There always seems to be quarrels, arguments, and misunderstandings among the employees. The ladies in the marketing department collectively feel that they do the hardest part of the work and are not being properly appreciated. One of the young men who undertake repair work apparently said that the backroom team were engineers while the marketing team was subordinate staff. The young man, therefore, had the right to send the ladies on errands as he was doing the really important work. A few weeks ago there was almost a brawl in the backroom as the two young men argued over credit for fixing a bug in a smart-speaker. The week after, Munoz arrived two hours late due to a personal issue, only to find that the marketing team was not working as they could not agree on who was to do the field work and who was to stay in the front office. According to Munoz, his team is competent, committed, and hardworking but their personal differences were adversely affecting the business. Work quality and output were already beginning to diminish and the customers were beginning to notice that all was not well. 

An evaluation of the situation above shows that the company has a problem that can cripple its operations if it is not properly solved. The business can be defined as a team and based on the narrative by its owner, there is an extreme lack of cohesion and harmony within the team. It is evident that the team is undergoing the vagaries of the storming stage as per Tuckman's stages of group development (Forsyth, 2018). The storming stage comes to the fore after the forming stage has happened and before the norming stage where group harmony is established. In the storming stage, team members begin to learn more about one another, including strengths and weaknesses and may develop prejudices and presuppositions. Power plays may also come to the fore as team members begin to assert themselves based on where they place themselves in the group’s hierarchy. Most members acknowledge the leadership of the group leader but some will feel superior to the others and may begin acting up (Forsyth, 2018). The storming stage may not necessarily signify a failure in leadership. However, the ability to move the group out of the storming stage into the norming stage and eventually into the performing stage is critical. The social issues within the group, therefore, need to be solved before they either affect productivity or lead to employee turnover which is also exponentially expensive (Sosik & Jung, 2018). 

Challenges, problems, and issues are an integral part of entrepreneurship and a critical test of competence in management and leadership. Munoz took the time to select a competent team for his enterprise and manages to pick the right people for the right jobs. However, no matter how effective the individuals are, the effectiveness of the team is still limited to their abilities to cope with one another. Normally, when issues manifest in the business as reflected above, it is not the issues or problems themselves that get noticed but rather their symptoms. The complaints that Munoz explained relates to constant conflicts among the different employees. These are symptoms that the group is now in the storming stage of its development. It is critical that the issues be investigated and handled correctly, and also the team be trained and coached to alleviate the adversities that storming can visit upon a business. 

References 

Carpenter, T. (2015, March 13). Defining the problem to find the solution. Retrieved from https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/defining-problem-find-solution/ 

Forsyth, D. R. (2018).  Group dynamics . Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning 

Sosik, J. J., & Jung, D. (2018).  Full range leadership development: Pathways for people, profit, and planet . New York: Routledge