Groysberg’s metaphor for hiring a star is that it resembles an organ transplant. He adds, drily, that there is no avoiding transplant shock.
Most metaphors in business writing collapse under any weight at all. This one holds, and it keeps holding, which is what makes it worth taking seriously rather than merely enjoying.
Because the thing about a transplant is that the danger is not the organ. The organ is fine. It was working perfectly well in its previous setting. The danger is the host, and specifically the immune system, which is designed to identify anything unfamiliar and attack it. That response is not malice. It is the body doing precisely what it evolved to do, competently and on schedule.
And the immune response has a particular character. It does not attack directly. It isolates. The newcomer is gradually cut off from the informal flow of information about how things actually work here, which is the only reliable guide to what will and will not be tolerated. Cut off from it, they make further missteps, which confirms the original suspicion, which deepens the isolation. The mechanism is self-reinforcing, and from the inside it feels like nothing more than being slightly out of step.
Firms think hard about the organ. Is the book real? Are the numbers robust? Will the practice fit? These are reasonable questions and firms have become quite good at asking them.
Almost nobody plans for the immune response. Yet it is entirely predictable, and Groysberg documented what it looks like: demoralisation among incumbents, infighting, reduced effort, deteriorating team dynamics, and a quiet withdrawal of cooperation. Partners who feel overlooked do not sabotage anyone. They simply decline to make introductions, do not advocate internally, and do not explain how the culture works. Nothing you could point to. Everything you could feel.
Which suggests the ninety-day plan is aimed at the wrong person. The lateral gets one. The twelve partners whose standing has just quietly shifted get nothing at all, and they are the ones who will decide whether the transplant takes.
Source: Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars (2010).
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