Business leader profile: MICHAEL DELL

Group assignment
Team development
After Dells establishment in 1984, its primary purpose was based on a simple yet prolific
concept: selling computer systems directly to customers. Michael Dells effective
transformational leadership skills helped him elaborate a complex structure applicable in many
of Dells research and creation fields. His organizational chart is pretty basic: he practically
narrowed down five categories (forming, storming, norming, performing and adjouring).
Imagine that you are put in a position where you have to manage an
undeveloped/underdeveloped team. The members have a sum of hidden weaknesses, poor
listening skills and unclear objectives. The improvement rate is low and the leader makes most of
the decisions for you. Lets suppose the team gains some experience from this stage to the next
one, where riskier issues are being debated due to the challenge of experimentation. The team
starts to explore wider opinions and increase their listening skills. Lets not forget that nowadays
Dell has a perfect job segmentation which allows employees to have wider opportunities and
empower them. When the initial team is consolidated, it begins its methodical working due to its
former experimentation levels and agree to certain procedures with fixed norms. Now you have a
fully grown team, working for an exact purpose, with vision and preestablished goals, heading
towards the area called adjouring, or dissolution of the group (defragmentation). Most of the
teams set off as tight groups, just to reach managerial maturity. Now, when need meets priority,
the individuals flexibility shifts rather radically, technological and personal development being
his no.1 priority.
Presently, Dell focuses on its high-performing teams, which share a sense of common
purpose and make an effective use of individual talents and expertise. What we truly appreciate
about Michael Dell is that he accepts differences of opinion and expression and sets high
performance standards with the help of appealing incentives. The best a person of his social
stature can do is to identify himself with the team, the same way Napoleon identified himself
with his state. This approach has a positive effect on people, wheter they play the role of the
suppliers or that of the demanders.