09/06/2023
Giving each department a clear focus and the appropriate resources to achieve its goals makes the diagnosis of resource allocations more straightforward and reduces job slip. As an example of how this works, at Bridgewater we have a Marketing Department (goal: to market) that is separate from our Client Service Department (goal: to service clients), even though they do similar things and there would be advantages to having them work together. But marketing and servicing clients are two distinct goals; if they were merged, the department head, salespeople, client advisors, analysts, and others would be giving and receiving conflicting feedback. If asked why clients were receiving relatively poor attention, the answer might be: "We have incentives to raise sales." If asked why they weren't making sales, the merged department might explain that they need to take care of their clients.
