People moves: Us and them

There’s nothing like building a team out of a group of disparate individuals. And it seems fair to say that what’s currently going on at Bank of America is really nothing like building a team. The bank is staggering from one PR crisis to another following the take over of Merrill Lynch, and while it does, it seems to be doing its best to demoralise the BofA veterans. Last week, while waiting to see if they still had a role in the newly merged entity, they had to contend with the news that Merrill had rushed through bonus payments to its staff. This week, reports suggest that they have been told that any bonus they might have been expecting has been deferred until 2010. The bank won’t comment, but if management adopt the usual Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing approach to team building, I’ll wager that the bit that includes going down the pub for a few sherbets will require former Merrill staff to get the beers in.