All Posts in Business Ethics

|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

One of my clients is a newly merged company. To prepare for the engagement, I did what any self-respecting consultant would do: I called people who have been through a merger themselves.

One related this bizarre story: The leaders of one of two merging companies organized a formal “war school” to game out ways to end up in control of the new company. My source was quite angry about this, considering it unethical and subversive, not to mention sneaky.

Conducting a formal war school is certainly over the top (and made my source’s life quite difficult for a year or two as well). The underlying motivation, though, is predictable, and perhaps even laudable, the result of intense desire to beat the competition.

In the case at hand, one company’s executives considered the merger an opportunity to create a new company with enhanced capabilities and economies of scale. The executives in the other company considered it a stratagem for beating a competitor, albeit not in the marketplace. This might make them untrustworthy; it doesn’t make them unethical. “Untrustworthy” is predictive and therefore useful; “unethical” simply moralizes — a hollow luxury in the executive suite.

The odds are high you’ll go through a merger or acquisition yourself. What should you do? Let’s write some code (it’s going to look like PL/1 — it’s been a long time since I’ve written real code, I’m afraid):

IF [Your future in the merged organization is secure] OR [You’ve been guaranteed a generous severance package] THEN [Concern yourself entirely with making sure the merger succeeds] ELSE;

IF [You expect those leading the merger to reward those who help make it happen through promotions, bonuses and continued employment while making other arrangements for those who resist it] THEN [Concern yourself entirely with making sure the merger succeeds] ELSE;

[Don’t be a schmuck];

Those leading a merger are responsible for aligning the personal best interests of managers and employees with the merger’s success. What’s your role in helping the process?

Don’t ask anyone who works for you to be self-sacrificing..

IF [You want everyone working for you to help the merger succeed] THEN [Make it worth their while to do so] AND [Make sure they know it will be worth their while];

What — you expect them to be loyal to a new employer they don’t know, who shows no interest in being loyal to them?

Don’t be a schmuck.

Comments

|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

In the end, technique can’t substitute for courage.

Take, for example, brainstorming. By now, most of us in business have learned how to brainstorm properly. We sit at the table, politely waiting our turn while the facilitator asks for our ideas in strict rotation, writing them down verbatim while we all take great care to avoid offering even the slightest appearance of criticism lest it intimidate the flow of creative thought.

Then we get our milk and cookies and take a nap.

Not only can’t technique substitute for courage, but it can prevent the very benefits you’re trying to achieve. Brainstorming, or at least the form of brainstorming most of us have been taught in facilitation school, not only doesn’t work but can’t work.

Let’s start with the standard practice of presenting ideas in strict rotation. The reason for doing so is to make sure everyone gets a chance — important among children; ridiculous among supposed adults who by now ought to grasp how to converse in public. Forcing adults to take turns in a brainstorming session is a superior way to drain the energy out of a group. Jill makes a point that Fred wants to embellish. Fred, however, has to wait until three other people have presented entirely different ideas, not because they especially wanted to, but because it was their turn. By the time Fred’s turn arrives, any remaining shred of continuity has fled the room and the effort Fred must expend to restore it greatly exceeds the value of the embellishment, so Fred doesn’t bother.

Nor does Fred bother to do anything else. His mental energy has been used to repress the expression of his idea.

Meanwhile, Ralph has made an off-the-wall suggestion. Rather than offer her critique, Kayla bites her tongue because it isn’t time for critiquing right now. That’s too bad, because had she been allowed to do so her comments would have caused a mental light bulb to turn on in Zack’s mind.

So here’s a suggestion on how to make brainstorming work: Rather than spend a lot of time and energy preventing the flow of ideas so as to cater to the timid, why don’t we spend a small fraction of it counseling the timid on the nature of professionalism.

My parents’ generation charged pillboxes on Guadalcanal. Compared to that, is asking someone to speak up in a team meeting too much courage to ask for?

Comments