70 THE INVESTMENT TEAM
now a team” has no more significance than handing four people
musical scores and saying, “You are now a barbershop quartet.”
Teams depend on leadership, processes, experience, agreements, and
trust. They don’t just happen, any more than functional families
just happen. This is particularly interesting when you remember
that Patrick O’Donnell from Putnam (mentioned at the outset of
this book) says that the investment business “has a critical short-
age of people who enjoy managing people.” In O’Donnell’s effort
to fill that gap and become more expert in managing investment
professionals, he turned to the research in the field—and found
that it is virtually nonexistent. Even the few leaders, like O’Donnell,
who do enjoy managing people have had to create their own pro-
cesses and tools. (O’Donnell calls it “nurturing” and makes no
apology for a male in the investment business relating to his team
members in this way.) Doesn’t this dearth of information seem odd
in an industry that is full of people touting the benefits of team-
work? That’s why I suspect much of the ado about teamwork
consists of lip service and buzzwords; there’s little evidence of any
serious involvement.
Another oddity? A company called Interaction Associates (IA),
masters at training teams from all industries to work collaboratively,
has no money management teams as clients. IA has been working
with many of the leading investment firms: Fidelity, Morgan Stanley,
Oppenheimer, and others. The clients have been delighted with the
results, which have involved various teams from around the com-
pany, but—importantly—no money managers. What invisible force
is keeping collaborative skills training away from the money man-
agers? If we’re to believe the people quoted earlier, money manag-
ers are all giddy for teamwork.
Here is another piece of evidence from personal experience.
My colleague, Brian Muldoon (author of The Heart of Conflict,
Putnam 1996), and I conducted a workshop in Chicago on the
topic of creative collaboration for investment professionals. The08-13 ware 70 1/19/01, 1:10 PM