er, and wireless businesses. Plus, he said, Zeglis would still have responsibility for the company's so-called consumer franchise, integrating offers wherever it made sense. Casting Is Everything 143 It could also be that Armstrong didn't believe he could afford to have Hindery bolt. The flack he had taken over the TCI acquisition had convinced him that his reputation hung on the merger's success, which in turn depended on meeting aggressive goals for upgrading TCI's cables. Ironically, although Armstrong didn't want Hindery to leave until he had completed the cable upgrade, he was becoming SO irritated at Hindery's increasing independence that he told the board that Hindery would be gone within a year. Whatever the reason, a seemingly expedient staffing decision had far-reaching strategic impli- cations. Instead of a single consumer services business that could optimize its distribution networks, AT&T had three consumer busi- nesses, all competing for the same customers. Little Boxes It's a management axiom that an organizational design cannot guar- antee success, and it's a mistake to seek a silver bullet in the arrange- ment of little boxes on an organization chart. On the other hand, the right organization design can correct unproductive behavior. Bob Al- len's move to business units in 1989 uncovered the true sources of the company's profits and helped each of its businesses better under- stand its costs, especially compared to those of its competitors. Of course, every organizational design introduces its own behav- ioral problems. Once Allen had organized AT&T into business units and paid their leaders based on their individual units' performance, it became much more difficult to get the business units to work to- gether. Armstrong did little, if anything, to change this. On the con- trary, treating the cable, consumer long-distance, and wireless businesses as separate units almost ensured that they would consider each other toxic viruses. Everyone up and down the line took their cue from the people at the