Friday, April 28, 2017

Putting It Together: How Organizations Handle Conflicting Goals

Airlines want to be safe, friendly, and profitable. Maybe not in that order, but all three are important.  Luxury brands in cars, clothes, bags, and watches all want to be exclusive and high-selling. Both at once, of course. These combinations involve conflict among different goals, which means that at some level there has to be a compromise. Saying that compromise is needed is not enough to understand it. How and when will United Airlines make a compromise between friendly and profitable without, for example, compromising the friendly part? And how does Rolex make a compromise between exclusivity and high sales?

The answers to these questions involve both a final outcome and a process of reaching a compromise. Now we know more about the process, thanks to a paper in Administrative Science Quarterly by Carlo Salvato and Claus Rerup. They look at product development in Alessi, the Italian company making all those household items that either you or someone you know has purchased. They make products with great designs that are inexpensive relative to the price of many comparable products, and at least in principle it is pretty easy for other makers to produce legal (or illegal) variations of them.

How does Alessi combine the goals of artistic design and effective manufacturing? We can see the results – egg holders, for example, that are wonderfully playful and well designed but obviously inexpensively produced. The process is harder to see, and that is exactly why some firms like Alessi can put these goals (and products) together very well, but most competitors cannot. The process involves three steps, which function to blend goals and routines in a way that creates a balance between them. First, splicing means connecting routines associated with different goals – like bringing a visionary designer in contact with how things are made. Second, activating means using routines that make people take each goal into account and consider how they can be balanced. Third, repressing means using routines that simplify tasks that benefit some goals while drawing people away from other goals.

Splicing, activating, and repressing are actions that can be taken any time, one by one or in combination. That is not the way to create consistency in how an organization puts things together, however, because if they are done through improvisation the results will differ every time. That is exactly why routines are involved in splicing, activating, and repressing, because routines mean that the same or similar results can be expected every time. Managers can help design and redesign the routines so that employees handle goal conflicts well. 


The results are easy to appreciate. Alessi is consistent in how they do things, which means that every new product is an artistic surprise, but we know it will be economically made too. United Airlines is inconsistent, so flights don’t always avoid dragging passengers off, nor do they always involve passenger dragging (fortunately). We all understand that conflicting goals involve compromises.  As long as the compromises are consistent, we know what we are getting and can make informed choices. In the long run, the consistency is more important than the goal resolution itself.