Taran Swan was General Manager of Nickelodeon Latin America and served as Launch Director since its inception. She convinced corporate executives of a strategic opportunity to enter Latin America and subsequently built a team of dedicated individuals to become the fastest growing channel in Latin America. In this case analysis, I will explain the culture Swan created within her launch team and how it was created. I will also explore Swan’s leadership style as well as the challenges she faced and how problems were mitigated.
Long before Swan was charged with the task of building a high performing team, her dedication, commitment and passion for the Nickelodeon brand was evident. She had a passion for Nickelodeons’ vision and was committed to using her talents and abilities to grow the business. This dedication was the foundation of the culture she built within her team. Her actions spoke louder than words as she led by example. We have been taught that actual design of a team is far more important than continued team coaching. The coaching becomes enhanced when you have the right people in place self-managing the team efforts. Swan knew this and made a conscious effort to pick people that would be fully engaged and empower them with a clear direction towards the end goal: channel success.
In choosing her team, she was establishing a culture. She carefully had picked every member of the team to ensure that their individual skills and abilities would by synergistic with the rest of the team. She made it very clear to each potential new-member that this would be a team effort. She set the expectations early on that this would be a well-rounded team that would be able to build on each- others’ areas and share best practices. My assessment of the team is that they had a clear and focused vision. They all seemed to take on Swans passion and vision for the channel’s success. They were all engaged in meeting the needs of viewers and continued to operate with increased...
