Doing Deals and Leading Teams at XAF Partners Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Question 1 and 2

Teamwork and delegation challenge:

The trust within the team and management is key to the success of any firm; there is mistrust within the XAF partners. The problem is the minimal sharing of the information between the partners this is may be due to the thinking of jealousy among the partners and preventing one another to be successful in getting many deals. There is no any credit recognition among partners as pointed out in the case there is no discussions like “this is your achievement and this mine”. This lake of collaboration has made the firm to suffer, as many opportunities have been gone waste due to lack of sharing of the information and selfish behavior of the partners.

Secondly the pressure of getting new deals has made it difficult for the senior partners to give the opportunities to the younger partners in dealing with the new cases as the senior partner feels the risk regarding the failure of the deal if he delegates it to one of the young partners of the firm, this has created the time management issues for the senior partners of the firm.

Solutions:

The management of the firm must initiate the counseling of the senior partners to build their behavior to act for the success of the firm and not become personal in the course of business in the firm, in other words if a partner feels that if an information he has, will be useful for another partner in acquiring new deals than he should deliver this to him, thinking that the firm will get benefit not that partner. Secondly, the young partners should be provided with effective training and development opportunities by the firm in order to make them efficient in getting new deals and make them able so that senior partners can delegate them easily.

Feed back problems:

There is no proper feedback system in the XAF as mentioned in the case the people do not know how they are performing, whether they should change themselves and what thing they are doing wrong they think that they are doing well and carrying out the tasks properly but after many time when they are informed that they are not doing well, it make them completely shocked. This may result the new partners feeling bad about the firm’ feedback management and become de-motivate, this may also result constant bad performance by the partners. Poor feedback system has made reluctance within the XAF firm.

Solutions:

XAF partners should re engineer the process of feedback operating within the firm, for example making the feedback committee which assure everyone is getting effective, efficient and timely feedback, and it should be problem solving for the new partners and help them to analyze their performance in the firm. This will help seniors to rely and to delegate more to the young partners of the firm.

Talent development issues:

The young partners are feeling difficulty to become a good deal maker;this result may be due to inefficient feedback process and the lack of professional development training within the firm. This has resulted less number of deals carried out by these young partners and failure to make mini deal making teams from the side of young partners. On the other hand, the senior partners have been reluctant to invest their time in making the young partners to become productive as they feel by investing their time, they will not be able to produce their personal new deals and this will result in reduction in compensation of the partners.

Solutions:

New partners should involve the young partners when they carry out conversations with the clients regarding deals, so that they learn the deal producing techniques so that they can increase their number of deals per year, secondly, every young partner should be given with the professional development opportunities offered through trainings, conferences and other activities.

Question 3

Managers and leader of the XAF can play crucial role in developing the new the talent within the firm, as they have enough experience in producing new deals and the young partners may find helpful for themselves if the managers and leaders carry out the mentoring of the young partners of the firm. Seniors should devote their time in developing the market and client knowledge in the young partners and help them to be independent in the deal making process and to rely least on the senior partners..........................