Is Goldman really best at making decisions?
Thain wants to mimic it at Merrill, but there are reasons to believe that Goldman's method of making decisions isn't really all that.
John Thain, Merrill Lynch's newly appointed chief executive, is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs collegial management school, which harks back to the firm's days as a private partnership.
Thain's new home doesn't follow this ethos though, and according to the Financial Times he thinks Merrill's bankers aren't chummy enough: "They don't have the same teamwork [as Goldman] at the senior level."
Given that Goldman appears to have sidestepped the sub-prime crisis, emulating its management culture might seem a good thing. But is decision making in the style of a hippy commune really the best thing for a business?
Goldman certainly has a few problems with its methods. The firm is renowned for its laborious recruitment process - sometimes candidates have to go through as many as 10 interviews, simply to ensure everyone has their say. And as any exhausted analyst can testify, assembling a pitch book is no fun when every banker and his dog has a say in the final product.
So should Merrill (and everyone else) be copying Goldman and going down the road of cosy collegiality? Or is it actually ok for one person to make a decision and suffer the consequences?
