You are Mike Jones. Who? Mike Jones. You are thinking of changing your cell phone number to a new area code. To that end, you are also considering a stylistic change from “New Southern� to becoming part of 50 Cent’s crew at G-Unit which is East Coast hip hop. Yet, you ultimately want to move to Compton and eventually fuse styles with Snoop and Dr. Dre. And you want to live.
Because of all these ideologically tug-of-war changes, members (i.e. your gang) that you normally roll in and out of clubs with on a regular basis are losing commitment to fraternize with you. Some have even removed their grills.
Currently, your organization has little vertical differentiation (i.e. is relatively flat) and is centralized between yourself and Michael 5000 Watts of Swishahouse. In addition, the only formal rules are that there are no formal rules – aside from wearing over-sized jerseys and volunteering to buy 40s after a concert.
Aside from your deep philosophical underpinnings which are being questioned by everyone, one of the major qualms from your brothers is that they feel they have little say in the decision making processes for lyrics, tour sites and doo-rag sizes.
Because of this practice, the organization is showing decreased rates of job satisfaction with numerous band members silently protesting by arriving later than usual to practice, in parachute pants and wearing little to no bling. Some have even refused to appear on BET’s 106 & Park with Free and AJ.
To prevent 9-shots in the back, you have hired a group of consultants from Bob & Bob Associates to analyze, disseminate and construct a formalized structure that can guide your organization to the way things were before Runnin’ Da Game was released (i.e. when you went “corporate�).
Below is a list of questions that you want to have the Bob’s answer, and possibly use during a flow:
- If my goal is to keep the group together, should I add outside support personnel to deal with customers (i.e. rim autographs), sales of memorabilia, logistics planning, etc?
- How should I change the number of levels in my organization? Should I create job titles for each of the guys on stage, different job descriptions for different sized bouncers?
- How flexible should I be with regards to delegating lyric authority?
- Will these changes appeal to a larger mass market or will I stay within my current territory?
- How can I legally gain advantages over my competition?
- What other stakeholders am I overlooking in my quest for becoming a contestant on the Surreal Life or as a plastic action figure from Mattel?
- Is Tupac alive?