The use of the phrase is an example of metaphorical reasoning. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them broadly.
This metaphor for a business is generally a term of derision for an organization where different members are pursuing opposing or contradictory goals.
For Jung, a child’s consciousness at first consists as a number of islands of consciousness and only over time do these islands merge into a final continent of consciousness. The same occurs in daily life in a way that one knows something in one context, but not in another, therefore “the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.”
Persona he defines as how we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world. Therefore metaphorically, we wear different social masks among different groups of people and situations. The Shadow Self is an archetype that forms part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, instincts, impulses, weaknesses, desires, perversions, and embarrassing fears. We are all born pure, like blank canvases. But at some point during our childhood development, we learn knowledge that teaches us to separate things into good and evil. In our cultural socialization process, we begin to sort out those traits within us that are acceptable to society (our Persona), and those that are unacceptable (which are later hidden away – our Shadow). How can you completely and wholeheartedly accept who you are if there are sides of yourself that you’re too afraid to explore? Your persona is unaware of your shadow-self, therefore again “the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.” Generally in history, the left has always been associated with dark, radical or sinister elements. And the right-handed path is what most of us understand to be the pursuit for positive things such as overcoming personal flaws and limitations.