High-Functioning Business Organizations Are Not Disneyland

I’m torn over this story, Inside the Showdown Atop Pimco, the World’s Biggest Bond Firm. On the one hand, it’s clearly excellent reporting, from top-notch reporters and a world-class newspaper. On the other hand, story implication seems to be Bill Gross is an out of control egomaniac who is going to ruin his firm if left unchecked.

I should start by saying I don’t know Mr. Gross, I’ve never met him, I never deal with him in business, he’s in a totally different domain. But the behavior described is completely typical of any highly successful, high-functioning organization in any field I’ve ever seen.

https://twitter.com/withere/status/438297367075635200

High-functioning business organizations aren’t Disneyland. There’s always stress, conflict, argument, dissent. Emotion. Drama. This exact same behavior or pattern is often found in both the best-performing companies in any space and in the worst-performing.

I often see young people entering business think it’s all going to be patty cake happy land and if not, something must be wrong. So I read this story and I literally think to myself, boy, that sounds like Apple, Oracle, Intel, Cisco, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Moral of the story? Business is stressful. There’s constant conflict, emotion, even anger. Building a company is an intense experience, period. Harnessed properly, this is the crucible out of which high performance and great results emerges. Satisfaction of overcoming challenges.

To quote Jim Barksdale:

This isn’t a family and I ain’t your daddy. But together, we can build great things and make our grandkids proud.

Source: Andreessen’s tweets on High-Functioning Business Organizations Are Not Disneyland: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12