The Next Next Common Sense
Even within supposedly unified companies, the tension between corporate standardization and local adaptation creates role conflicts for employees. The store manager who must implement a corporate-wide promotion that doesn’t fit local market conditions, or the HR professional expected to enforce policies that clash with regional cultural norms, ex- periences firsthand the stress of artificial unity. Consider the recent break-up attempts at Andersen Worldwide, a global accounting firm married to a management and technology consult- ing firm whose mission is “to help its clients change to be more successful.” Such change was not accomplished within the two halves of Andersen. Formed from a common base, the consulting and accounting arms each went their own way, bonded by a common name, a revenue-sharing ar- rangement, and little else. Andersen Consulting was supposed to be a spin-out a la Thermo Electron, but it was a spin-out without communication and without strong parental ties. Employees had little sense of what Andersen Worldwide was, while they did have strong identification with their unit. When push came to shove and there was a fight about money, all that was left of the unity was a hollowed-out name. This pattern has played out repeatedly in professional services firms, where the tension between specialized practices and integrated service offerings creates ongoing role conflicts. The consulting partner who must simultaneously maintain deep expertise in her specialty, generate new business, manage client relationships, develop junior staff, and contribute to firm-wide initiatives experiences this multiplicity directly. Firms that deny this complexity by insisting on artificial unity (“we’re all just one firm”) typically underperform compared to those that acknowledge and manage the inherent tensions between different roles and practice areas. From a different domain, witness the evolution of the large for-profit hospital chains and HMOs (health maintenance organizations). While there is constant pressure for cost savings from patients and insurers, there is also a sense of place that attaches to the local hospital and doctors’ offices. The large chains saw the local “niceties” as an easy answer to higher
133
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease