Leadership and Teamwork Failure: A Case Study of Funkyfeed

This case study examines the downfall of Funkyfeed, an internet media company, due to severe teamwork failures. The analysis reveals critical issues such as poor communication, lack of bonding among team members, power struggles, and ineffective leadership. The case highlights the importance of relationship-building skills, constructive feedback, problem-solving abilities, and effective communication in fostering a productive work environment. The study explores how these deficiencies led to decreased productivity, declining revenue, and a loss of followers. The case further discusses the significance of training in communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making to prevent such failures. Ultimately, the study emphasizes the crucial role of effective teamwork in achieving organizational goals and maintaining a positive work environment. The company's failure serves as a cautionary tale, underscoring the need for strong leadership and a culture that values collaboration and open communication. This case study provides valuable insights for leadership management and organizational behavior, highlighting the critical components of successful teamwork.

Running head: TEAMWORK FAILURE
TEAMWORK FAILURE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Case study:
Title: Team conflict increases, followers of Funkyfeed decreases:
Funkyfeed used to be one of the most renowned Internet media companies, which is
based in Australia. It was mainly specialized as a social news and entertainment company that
had its focus on the digital media. Over the years, it had received a renowned spot in the different
social media platforms like Face book, Instagram, Twitter and similar others. They are
responsible for creating contents that both youngsters and elders like and enjoy. They had many
followers and even subscriptions were done on their pages as well. Mr.Neil O’Brian was the
founder of the company and under his leadership, the company reached zenith of success.
Effective team working was the main strategy of Neil and hence the output was noticeable. The
company received heavy revenue. It was enjoying its phase of success. In the last decade,
Michelle Brown overtook the company where she hoped to make it a more successful brand in
the department of viral content. Unlike Neil, it was not possible for Michelle to maintain the
success that was achieved. With the gradual passing of the days, sponsorship, revenue and signs
of profit began to deplete immensely resulting in affecting the brand value of Funkyfeed as a
whole.
After conducting the interview of the different members of the team, it was understood
that the higher officials maintained no effective teamwork. The managers were ineffective in
maintaining their respective teams and even no proper training was conducted. The research
team was given the duty to research on various interesting topics and accumulates data about the
topics which would make the readers interested. It was seen that no effective bonding was

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present among the team members. One of the employee of the team was also seen to be stating
that she was not aware of the employee who is sitting just next to him. She told
“I have no idea about his work. I have never talked to him. We are not allowed to
talk and we have developed our working style in this way. Often, I face a large
number of issues but there is hardly anyone with whom I can share my feelings and
emotions”.
None of the members of the research team was allowed to talk and hence their queries always
remain unresolved. This affected their productivity. Moreover, their research work not only got
delayed but was also conducted in improper ways many a time. No proper bonding was noticed.
Many of the team members had same concern. As they were not able to bond with each other,
the work was gradually becoming difficult for them
“We get easily stressed in office. The entire work becomes a bore. We feel emotionally
drained. We do not feel like working. Even if I face difficult situations, I have no one to
approach to. I have thought of leaving the job many a times, as it does not give me any
job satisfaction. There is no one to acknowledge your work or help you with your work.
You are alone here”.
Besides the research team, there was the team of the content writers whose main duty was to
write the content on the topics provided by the research teams. Severe power struggles was
observed among the various team members. The senior members used to look down upon on the
junior members and acted very rudely if they used to make any mistakes. Samantha, a junior
member of the team had stated

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“ I never got any help from the seniors. They neither provided me with effective
feedback. In the earlier days, I used to get repeated mails and verbal warning about my
work. As they did not provide me any feedback on my skills or did not tell me how to
develop them, I could never understand where I was making the mistakes.
Moreover, the seniors of my team are rude and never accept feedback from us.
On one occasion, I asked them not to develop a serious content of feminism. I asked
to create a funny content of feminism stating that the young adults would like it. They
did not accept my feedback and embarrassed me immensely stating I have no idea
about the readers, as I am new to the field. After that incident, I never went to them to
provide feedback”.
A very serious issue was observed among the different members of the editing team. The editing
team was mainly responsible for editing the works of the writer so that a short but impactful
content can be developed for publishing in the social media sites. A huge amount of problems
was noticed in the teams. A continuous conflict was always noticed among the team members
regarding taking decisions of what content should be focused on and the type of content to be
prepared. While some of them believed to be developing video content, some believed in
developing theoretical content. Others believed in engaging readers in quizzes and games. No
one trusted each other and never allowed each other to take chances. Time management issues
were present among them as all of them did not work in a coordinated manner. One of the
members named Joe said
“I just cannot tolerate Andrew and his mates. They have no idea about editing and are
always trying to create barriers in my work. They cannot understand which mode of
the content would be better and always answers opposite to what I say. I do not think

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that he has better skills than I do and therefore I cannot accept his decisions. I cannot
trust him at all. I fear that one day, his content will bring our company down”.
Huge number of differences was observed among the team members and the working
environment was quite tensed. This form of work needs intense team working which was not
observed in the working place. Excessive rifts were observed that affected the productivity of the
individual. All these were resulting in unhealthy working environment where none of the
workers were being able to express their skills and knowledge effectively. This affected the
output of the individuals for which the organization was suffering massively. Their team
objective of developing high quality content for the readers were failing massively and the
company revenue was affected as their consumers were decreasing at a first pace and their
frequency of production was also slow.
Questions:
First question:
What are the factors that were needed by the members of Funkyfeed to develop effective team
working?
One of the most important aspect that was totally absent was the proper bonding among
the members of the research teams. Relationship developing skill was absent among the
members and even the mangers did not take initiative to develop proper bonds among the
workers. The better the relations and emotional attachments of the members with each other, the
more coordination and collaborative working can be assured (Han 2017). When a team shares
good bonding, they can open up their fear, anxiety, stress as well as queries to their mates and
colleagues. As these help in releasing their stress and concerns, they remain relieved and can

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concentrate on their work. Moreover, it is also seen that power struggles are present among the
teams which had resulted in exchanging of effective and constructive feedbacks among the team
members researchers are of the opinion that working environments which influence effective
feedback receiving and giving skills. The more the exchange of feedback, the better will be the
scope of development of the skills and knowledge of the employees that will in turn increase
productivity and effective feedback. Providing feedback in appositive and constructive way helps
individuals in developing better bonds and more transparent and open environment is ensured in
workplace. New members get the scope of enhancing their skills and understanding their
mistakes. Old members learn different modern ways of task performance as more the feedbacks,
the better will be their ability learn new techniques and new ways of thinking. Effective
feedbacks enhance creativity and innovative ideas (Wang et al. 2015). This help in developing
high quality and interesting content that keep the readers hooked to their sites. Moreover,
problem solving skills and decision-making skills are also important attributes which were found
to be absent in the editing team. Proper organizing and planning skills were not present among
the members follows which they could not manage time effectively. Effective time management
can only take place when the members are aware about how to organize their activities and
complete them within time. Decision-making skills were completely absent and hence huge
conflicts were found among them. Team decision making often requires compromise and
willingness to give up own point of view for supporting the group decisions (Gomboloy et al.
2015). This should never be taken to egos that may not only hamper the productivity of the
individual but also of the team. Therefore, managers should have conducted training classes to
teach them about these skills.

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Second question:
How communication could have helped in developing proper teamwork in Funkyfeed?
Effective communication skills were totally absent in the organization. Good
communication skills are responsible for the development of proper rapport among the different
individuals. Better the communication among members, better are their chances of healthy
relationship development (Katzenbach and Smith 2015). As the manager of the research team did
not allow talking on the floor, the workers could not get the scope to communicate with each
other. As they could not communicate effectively, they could not get the scope of developing
bonds. Therefore, the different issues, which they faced, had to be tackled by themselves and
they could not share their emotions, feelings, anxiety, stress and emotions with others. Therefore,
they gradually resulted in development of job stress that affected their productivity. Good
communication and rapport building are extremely important among team members to release
stress (Sacks et al. 2015). Secondly, proper communication skills like feedback giving and
feedback receiving skills are necessary for employees to develop the quality for their work and
understand different mistakes properly. It was seen that as constructive feedbacks were not given
and seniors passed embarrassing comments, it resulted in affecting the morale of the juniors.
This also created feuds between them that is harmful for teamwork. Moreover, the seniors were
egoistic and never accepted feedbacks from the juniors. This affected implementation of
innovative and creative idea in the team that was extremely necessary for the nature of working
in Funkyfeed. Effective communication increases interaction and helps in conflict resolution

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(Errikson et al. 2015). Proper communication styles help in problem solving and handling of
internal conflicts effectively. Moreover, the managers had to effectively communicate the
responsibilities of both the seniors and juniors helping them to align with organizational goals. If
proper trainings on effective communication skills would have been provided, the working
climate would have engaged all members and there were fewer chances of conflicts (Almost et
al. 2016). This would have prevented failure of the teamwork objectives that was to develop
proper content for the readers. For this, entire organization suffered.

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References:
Almost, J., Wolff, A.C., Stewart‐Pyne, A., McCormick, L.G., Strachan, D. and D'souza, C.,
2016. Managing and mitigating conflict in healthcare teams: an integrative review. Journal of
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workshop for students to improve communication and collaboration skills in end-of-life
care. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 32(8), pp.876-880.
Gombolay, M.C., Gutierrez, R.A., Clarke, S.G., Sturla, G.F. and Shah, J.A., 2015. Decision-
making authority, team efficiency and human worker satisfaction in mixed human–robot
teams. Autonomous Robots, 39(3), pp.293-312.
Han, J., 2017. Team-bonding and team-bridging social capital: conceptualization and
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Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance
organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
Sacks, G.D., Shannon, E.M., Dawes, A.J., Rollo, J.C., Nguyen, D.K., Russell, M.M., Ko, C.Y.
and Maggard-Gibbons, M.A., 2015. Teamwork, communication and safety climate: a systematic
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Wang, X., Schneider, C. and Valacich, J.S., 2015. Enhancing creativity in group collaboration:
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