Dear readers,

The streets are empty; there is a run-on-food and its derivative, toilet paper, and the present battle against an invisible enemy has struck more fear into peoples’ hearts than the very many missiles which have been lobbed at us from Gaza.

During the many attacks on Israel, the major worry of most Israelis has been “where do I find parking”, even though a warhead may be flying at you. But corona has succeeded in instilling fear where Hamas and Hezbollah failed.

How has this impacted me? Well I am seventy years old, and fit as a fiddle except for back pain which I have had all my life. According to the TV medical experts of which there are many, I am in a threatened target group, not only because of my age, but because I had asthma in the past. Of course, fat people, smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts, workaholics appear to be better off than a fit 70 year old-which says a lot about all the expertise that floats to the service during a crisis.

It’s my experience that the number of experts stands in reverse relation to their ability to solve the problem. The more experts, the fewer solutions. Israel has more Middle East experts than a cow has flies near its butt. Back ache specialists are a dime a dozen-and the conflict is a hundred years old and my back still hurts.

My guess is that mass media’s peddling all this fear will backfire. At one point, people are going to say if everything is so dangerous, I might as well have a good time, get drunk, have sex and a good meal before I am struck down. But of course, media has become a source of entertainment, and this is a great story. I am sure that clap or genital warts have infected more people than corona in the last few months, certainly in Tel Aviv. But that’s not the story de jour.

And if you ask me, the government is peddling fear because as long as the public fears, the anger won’t be turned on the government, which has paid for many ridiculous things over the last decade except for health care. We have promoted Jewish education in the diaspora, financed many religious causes, built illegal settlement, purchased a plane for Netanyahu, developed warheads that can kill a mosquito on a terrorists’ bum in downtown Tehran, but our health care lack sufficient bandwidth. So of course the politicians want the public to fear. It’s working till now, because the Israelis know how to complain, but have yet to turn their complaints into action.

The only thing that really worries me more than choking to death is the breakdown of social order. It’s a matter of weeks until mass poverty takes the spotlight; most people need two salaries to survive. Older people need their savings which are being ravaged. Soon, there will be no economic life left at all. So instead of people dying of corona, they may die in civilian strife. A lot of the solidarity I read about on social media is a lot of hokum. In the end, it will take massive force to maintain law and order when there is no money left. That’s my worry-the breakdown of social order, not coughing and a fever.

So my dear readers, no OD today, just the ramblings of yours truly on yet another day of gruesome isolation.

Be well.

Allon

Business Unit Manager Paul Thibadeau has just come out of a meeting during which CEO Stan let off some steam. “There have been far too many examples of not assuming ownership of customer problems, and as a result, all the turds get piled up on my desk. People take problems that comes their way, and by default, transfer the issue to someone else. Get this ownership issue straightened out. I am not your fucking babysitter!”

Clearly, Paul felt a certain degree of urgency after Stan has expressed his concerns in such a cogent form.

Paul’s business unit sells “value adding extra services” to the company’s major products, medical devices. Paul ‘s unit sells to 1200 clients in all continents.

Paul knows all too well that ownership is being shirked even in his business unit. However, his staff does not have a clue that anything is amiss. Here is what Paul’s direct reports think-

Baharat in Mumbai believes that Paul, being business unit manager, must clarify who owns what, and then his own job will be to carry out Paul’s directives loyally.

Sivan in Tel Aviv believes that she herself owns all problems that come her way, but also expects her own team members to own all issues, even if it means confronting someone in another department who is not doing their job correctly.

Aimi in Japan believes that doing what the customer wants is synonymous with ownership of problems.

Som from Thailand believes that the lack of ownership belongs to HQ for releasing immature products, and she will never express this opinion.

Stephanie from Taipei thinks that Paul Thibadeau should protect her from such pressure and deal with corporate politics on his own, without dragging her into the fray.

Marvin in Australia believes that anyone who assumes ownership gets shafted, and until the company changes its culture things are not going to change.

And US based Nick thinks that planning is chaotic and if “we planned better we would have less ownership issues”.

Paul set up a 20 minute call to “get the ownership issue nailed down”. During the call, Paul repeated Stan’s message. Everyone on the call expressed their willingness to improve, except Marvin and Aimi who fell asleep since it was the middle of the night local time. And true, Sivan did argue with Paul all through the call, but assumed that she would be the first to comply, albeit in a sloppy fashion.

Remember Aesop’s Fables? There is always a moral to the story. In this case, the moral of the story is that “assuming ownership” means different things in different cultures. It may mean obedience, assuming the position of an advocate, following the rules, or doing whatever the customer wants. Thus, the assumption of ownership is so vague and means so many different things, that it is useless to talk about it unless operationalizing “ownership” behaviourally,  factoring in and adapting the relevant cultural assumptions.

During my long career, I am lucky to have been asked to facilitate 12 major mergers/acquisitions.  Each project lasted between one to five years; nine were successes; two were total failures (I was fired twice)  and one is still far too early judge.

Lots of myths exist in the domain of mergers/acquisition.  Mergers and acquisitions are a nightmare, filled with power struggles and severe anxiety.

The prevalent myths about the boundless opportunities of a merger remind me of the “happy happy fun fun” times promised around holiday time, when families get together, people get depressed , fat and/or drunk and trauma rooms fill up with attempted suicides.

In this brief post, I will share my lessons learned about the fascinating area of organization development in mergers and acquisitions.

• There are no mergers-just acquisitions. One company becomes dominant and in a Darwinian struggle, the acquired company is partially digested. Even in the best of cases, the acquiring company remains with a case of mild indigestion whilst the acquired company is dominated.
• It is impossible to take the best of two cultures and form new improved culture. The very claim that this can be done is pure alchemy, fake news and charlatanism. What does occur is a protracted Darwinian struggle between a stronger and a weaker culture which fizzles out about 10 to 15 years later, or when people from legacy companies leave or die.
• Interpersonal trust is the most important glue that was ever invented. Trust is built in face to face meetings, intensive travel and lots of informal quality time together. Building trust in conference calls or on-line chats is like using a shower curtain as a condom.
• For about a year, everything is a struggle: budget codes, travel policy, nomenclature, titles-it becomes a fucking bloodbath unless decisions are taken early. The more buy-in and agreement one tries to establish, the longer it takes to make decisions and the worse the fighting becomes. Fast authoritarian decisions taken quickly work best.
• Managers who cannot build relationships of trust and transparency across geographical borders should be axed if they cannot adjust with 3 months.
• If things are broken in the senior management team, the merger will fail. The senior management team is where most OD effort is needed.
• Mergers and acquisitions are very painful for a long time. Expectations must be adjusted accordingly.
• Cultural differences are important, but far less important than competency of senior management who manage these differences. Too often, poor management will blame cultural differences for problems that management could have solved if more brain power was available.
• Many people who were competent in their legacy companies become incompetent because their former skills are not scalable or relevant.
• Due diligence before mergers/acquisitions is highly flawed and tainted.  After the ink has dried, those who lied and/or misrepresented need to be pardoned or removed

Natalie believes that transparency is foolishness; it betrays human weakness and weak people get screwed. So she always keeps her cards close to her chest. She is seen as non cooperative and “needs some training in communication skills”.

Nir believes that all systems are corrupt and or inefficient, and the only way to be effective is to bypass the system. Nir is labelled a cowboy who needs to be coached on being a game player.

Ngai is certain that emotions need to be hidden at work, especially if there is a conflict. The best way to deal with a conflict is to wait until it goes away, or ignore it so that it does’t get worse. Ngai keeps all her emotions to herself and she has been given feedback on her introversion in team meetings. She was told to “better advocate” her departments agenda.

Anil  believes that his boss should be consulted on any deviation however minor from procedures  otherwise he is showing disrespect. Thus, he often says to his peers that “I need to consult my boss”. Anil is seen as a shirker.

My claim is that OD does not accept or respect any of these deeply cultural-related behaviours since OD efforts will always focus on changing these behaviours. We all agree that conversion therapies for homosexuality are both evil and nonsensical. But there is no agreement that OD’s non acceptance of cultural differences is any better. So yes, OD is the very first not to show respect to more than half of the world population.

Truth has many adversaries. W Somerset Maugham’s classic The Moon and Sixpence tells of Charles Strickland, for whom beauty is more important than any other human value, truth and integrity included. Thus, the shock value of the novel, both then and now.

Of course nowadays, fake news is the number one public enemy of the truth. Yet fake news is but one of many. 

Yet truth has another adversary: the preference of harmony in social relations; this presents a huge challenge for fast moving organizations which need to transmit accurate information quickly to get the job done and remain one step ahead of the competitors.

Let’s meet Eddie Yu. Eddie believes that social harmony is more important that telling the “so-called” truth, because harmony is Truth, for Eddie.

Eddie is VP of Asia based in Taiwan. He  thinks that Sandra, his peer and young US-based  VP of Strategy should not meet with a certain Mr Ocampo on Sandra’s next tour of Asia Pac. Ocampo serves as a potential clients’ Manila-based CEO, who known is to be very conservative. Eddie firmly believes that much more harm than good  will come from such a meeting.

Yet Sandra asked her  CEO (Stan) to meet with Ocampo, and Stan told Eddie to set up the meeting.

When asked by Sandra what messages she should emphasize when she meets with Ocampo, Eddie stated that “your message should be low tone and understated, because of the complex nature of such meetings”. Sandra thanked Eddie for his input and promised to “send you my PPT slide pack for your further comments.”  Eddie reviewed Sandra’s ppt; he was shocked and said nothing.

Eddie is not “afraid “to tell Sandra or Stan the truth. But Eddie thinks that there is no value in doing so. Quite the opposite; Eddie believes that telling Sandra or Stan “the truth”  will destroy harmony and upset the smooth chain of command, which is far more mission critical than any bothersome fact. 

Sandra met with the client in a short and tense meeting, during which the 69 year old Ocampo felt very uncomfortable with 31 year old Sandra. Ocampo also made sure that young Ms Sandra waited one hour and 45 minutes in the waiting room.

Eddie is ok with this. He thinks he has been a good corporate citizen. No harm done; Sandra will go home and Eddie will nurture the dialogue with Ocampo over the next few years until he gets a deal.

Sandra told Stan that “Eddie screwed things up, because he thought I was treading into his territory”.

Next month, Eddie to going to a course on Authentic Communication, which has been commissioned by VP HR Gloria Ramsbottom, to enable better alignment between corporate and field organizations.

Ethan, the common  boss of Mark (USA) and Eddie (Taiwan), asked me to work with these two highly talented yet chronically uncooperative executives on “better aligning” themselves to get things done without bogging Ethan down.

Mark (Corporate Strategic Account Management) told me that Eddie (Taiwan Sales CEO) refused to enter account information into the SCDB, the sales control data base. Mark emphasized that data entry is not “elective”, and Eddie is in breach of discipline. Eddie, according to Mark, does not follow process- how can I trust that he is not withholding information and other forms of local monkey business”? To Mark’s credit, the SCDB has been extremely useful all over the world, except in South East Asia, China, Russia and Taiwan.

Eddie claims that Mark is hounding him and :”throwing a book of rules at me”, rules with do not make sense because of the manner that deals are done in Taiwan. Eddie told me that he will not waste his time on secretarial duties of data entry, “but if Mark trusts me, he will know everything he needs to know, and more”.

Eddie and Mark have both been coached before, and the coach gave them 3 rules* to follow- which they did not, although they claim they did.

After speaking with Eddie and Mark, I referred back to Ethan who had a hard decision to make-does he want to sell in Taiwan or not? Because if he does, corporate process, not individual behaviour, needs to change.

Ethan dropped the mandated use of the SCDB, Mark received guidance from me on effectively managing Eddie while Eddie consulted with me on what to tell, and not tell, Mark. I back channelled all this information to Ethan, who made all the decisions, using me as a channel.

Project concluded a month ago. Sales in Taiwan flourishing. Mark was moved out of his role, which was split in half, with a dedicated Asia executive being appointed.

*3 rules

No surprises. No backstabbing. Consult one another before making decisions.

I followed the Israeli elections on local media as well as on foreign media. Many reports expressed dismay about the tactics used in the last few days of the campaign during which many parties called out to their supporters: “vote for us, we are losing”. This type of campaign is called “Gevalt”, and implies impending doom. The use of this tactic shocked foreign media.

This blog of mine is not abut politics, yet the lessons to be learnt from the use of the Gevalt tactic merit a short focus on  its underpinnings , since Gevalt is so applicable in organizational life.

A “gevalt” campaign rests on two pillars-fear and compassion.

Fear

Fear of impending doom serves as a massive motivating factor in Israel, internally and externally. If “they” win, “we are finished”. Israeli society is post traumatic, both from the holocaust, the periodic wars and the constant threat of terror. What separates us from them is very often a myth, but fear is real and fear ignites, augments and enhances the survival instinct. The post traumatic symptom which is most common is the survival instinct, which serves as a magic trigger for action.

So if you manage a project in Israel, a statement like, “if we fail, HQ will close us down” is much more effective than a detailed plan on how to succeed. Or, if a product fails on first try, the panic mode of 24/7 will be more effective than a detailed fix-it process which may take longer yet solve the root cause of the problem.

Compassion

When an Israeli politician admits that he may be losing, what he (or she) may be saying is that “I am like your father; I make mistakes but I care for you. Show me compassion when the going gets rough, because I busted my ass to bring you up/take care of your interests.

So if you manage a Israeli team, an appeal for help is far more effective than promising a bonus or a weekend in an resort in Cyprus or Greece. “We take care of each other” works far better than using a formal system such as compensation to harness people in tough times. Btw, when push comes to shove, Israeli organizations do not generally fire people at the drop of a hat, unless the downsizing comes from a global company which needs to chop a given number of heads from each geographical site.

Summary

Using a survival motive and appealing for compassion are great motivators in Israel. There is no such thing as an overdose of either. Our society is post traumatic and emotionally high strung.

Meetings in Israel have many unique characteristics: loose agendas, going out on a tangent most of time, argument, reopening of decisions, debating for debating sake and yes-but-ism.

There is yet but another challenge (for the non Israeli) in our meetings, and that is the frequent coming and going in/out of the meeting room.

The latter is the subject of this post.

Today, I stood outside the Lord Balfour Room and asked those coming in/going out of the room what their story was. The meeting in Balfour was scheduled to start at 1000 AM. It started at 1017.

At 10.22, Alisa and Fatima came into the room. They were both on the same train that ran late; both mentioned that the air-conditioning on the train was malfunctioning and thus, they had stopped  to get a bottle of water with ice before entering the room. The ladies asked me to carry in the ice bucket.

At 10.27, Maor left the meeting room, because his son had called him to ask if he could have the car in the afternoon, and if so at what time. “And Dad, by the way…” Maor went back in at 1040.

Sivan left the room at 10.42 to take a call from her Dad’s doctor,  for which she had been waiting for  3 weeks.

Miki, Simon and Iggie had a double booked meeting and arrived at 1045.

CFO Riki left the room 3 times: once to speak to a supplier who had not been paid; once to field a call from a board member and once to smoke.

The meeting which was supposed to end at 1130 ended at 12.30, so lunch was ordered in and the discussion went on for another hour, even though a third of the people invited had left.

Why does this happen?

1 Personal issues can be dealt with on company time.

2 Immediate responsiveness is more valued than keeping to the plan.

3 People multi task all the time as a way of life and if there is a gap, they retro fix it.

4 Keeping to plan/schedule has some espoused importance but other things are “equally important” and everyone  must  decide his/her  priorities. Besides that, shit happens.

5 Some of the decisions that were made in the meeting can be revisited by people who were not in the meeting when the decisions were made, so  lack of discipline is complemented by lack of consequence-all of which is compensated by deep commitment and willingness to do everything to get the job done! 🙂

Is this chaos? Yes for the outsider; No for the local. Why? That’s another post. 

Barry has just raised 15 million dollars from investors by promising  to deliver a product within 2 years that will detect pain in canine and feline pets in order to advise the owner whether or not a trip to the vet is necessary.

Barry knows that 2 years and 15 million dollars are not enough. More likely, he will need eight years and  triple the amount of money. It may even be necessary to purchase another company which specializes in canine ophthalmology at a hefty price.  Only Barry knows this.

As CEO, Barry will provide unachievable goals to his staff. Milestones that need 9 months will be planned for 3 months; each staff member will be burdened with the work of 4 people. There will be no link between the plan and the do-able.

Barry will burn out most of the people who work for him. They will be replaced and the board will probably accept the derivative delays that stem from employee turnover. Every single plan and budget will only serve one purpose-managing the investors’ expectations. 

Employees will bitch, morale will be low, many engineers will suffer from insomnia and digestive problems. Barry will divorce, see a shrink and age. Ten years later, Barry will be a very wealthy man, and his company’s history will appear in almost every business magazine.

Classical Organization Development has no added value in such a situation, because transparency and a healthy work environment are building blocks of our outdated profession, which is geared to a world that is almost disappearing before our very eyes.

What can be done for start up? That is a different post.