Excerpt from WHO says elephants cannot dance (2)

Chapter 7 build a Leadership Team

At the end of 1993, I gradually moved my attention to IBM team building, my senior management team, and our board building. If you ask me today what is the most outstanding thing I think I have done during my tenure at IBM, I will tell you that it is to build an IBM leadership team-that is, when I leave, my successor is an old IBM employee, and all of our main business units must be in charge of IBM.

In my opinion, if I bring a group of people outside of the company when I join IBM and magically do a better job than an old employee in IBM, it may be too naive and dangerous to do so now. I am an external person from another company. Based on my experience, you may also be able to operate a small company in a relatively simple industry and in good condition. Of course I didn't know that I would join IBM at that time, because IBM is a huge and complicated company for me. More importantly, IBM also has many talents and their unique experience. If I don't give these local team members a chance, they are likely to take their talents and knowledge to another level. In this way, I have to find another person who is ready to act in a different way to act as a member of the management team.

We need to make many important business decisions. Therefore, it is vital to select a person that I can trust. However, this is not an easy task. Building a management team is actually a routine task that needs to be carried out individually and individually in the business field. I read the reports they wrote, observed their interactions with customers, and discussed with them at the meeting, they also assess their clarity of thinking, confidence and courage, and the flexibility to act according to my eyes. I also need to know whether they can discuss their business issues with me openly.

In the first month of my tenure, I abolished the "Management Board" system, which was in fact announcing a major change in IBM's management culture. However, I still need a high-level executive committee to work with me to manage the company. Therefore, in November, I created a "Corporate Executive Committee" called "CEC", including 11 members.

In view of the lessons learned by the "Management Board", I announced that the CEC would not be allowed to do the following: it would not be able to accept the commission for problem resolution; it would not be able to exercise the right to represent or make decisions for the business department; it only focuses on cross-department policy issues.

Soon, the company culture regards CEC as an alternative to the "Management Board", that is, the highest honor in the company to become a member of the CEC. I have never considered finding a place in the CEC as a real positive or successful person's value. However, sometimes you have to work in an existing system. If all the competent IBM employees want to work hard to gain a place in the CEC, it will not be good for me in some cases.

At the same time, I also created a Global Management Board (WMC) to encourage communications and exchanges between various business departments within the company. WMC has 35 members and holds 4-5 meetings each year. There is also a two-day branch that mainly discusses the results of the operating unit and the company-wide initiatives. However, in my opinion, the main goal is to make the senior manager team work hard for a common goal. These meeting organizations provide my senior managers with the opportunity to hold the hand of another senior manager at these meetings and say, "I have come up with a good idea, but I need your help."

Create a new board of directors

When I first came to IBM, one of the most revolutionary but least noticed reform measures was the reform of the IBM board of directors. When I first arrived at the company's board of directors, the board had a total of 18 directors, four of whom were IBM's old employees. They were: john ekes, Jack kounler, John Opper (CEO of IBM Before AIX), and Paul rizo. In my opinion, the size of such a board is too large and there are too many Members in the board of directors, especially, these internal staff are also current and former Executive Committee leaders of the company.

Apparently, CEO souk's actions, the media's strict criticism of the company's public, and the sharp and profound criticism at the company's annual meeting of shareholders, all this has caused a severe mental blow to many Board members. During a series of discussions on corporate governance, I strongly agree with some of them, especially Jim Bock and Tom Murphy. I think most directors have a complicated mood about their stay on the board of directors. Some may be willing to have a glorious opportunity to exit. Bock and Murphy put forward a Wonderful suggestion: Every director submits his resignation, and the board of directors will decide the reasonable structure of the board of directors in the future.

As a result, five directors left the board of directors in 1993 and four other directors left in 1994. Murphy and Bock asked for retirement by themselves, a year ahead of IBM's retirement schedule. Their actions are undoubtedly a signal that it is time to give positions to new people. Some people leave voluntarily, but some choose to leave because they find that the current process in the company is so annoying or out of personal difficulties. However, in any case, we successfully resolved the issue of the board of directors. To everyone's surprise, the media shows little calm.

By the end of 1994, we had a board of 12 directors. I am the only person in the company. In the past, only eight directors on the 18-member Board of Directors continued to work. These eight members entered the Board a year ago.

Starting from 1993, we began to introduce new people, first introduced by Chuck knight-Emmerson Electric Corporation, Chairman and CEO. When chuck was a director at Caterpillar, I knew him. He is a pragmatic person and a person who has strict requirements on himself, the CEO, and his board members. He is also honored as one of the earliest CEOs in the history of the United States, and his election is also an important first step to rebuild the IBM board of directors.

In 1994, we invited Chuck vest, MIT leader, and Alex Trotman, chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Corporation, to serve as members of the IBM board of directors. Casia black, president and CEO of the American Newspaper Association, and Lu Noto, chairman and CEO of Mobil Oil, joined our board of directors in 1995; then minorumakihara (one of the top business leaders in Japan), chairman of the board of directors uergen taomun-Hoechst AG in 1996 and president of Mitsubishi Corporation in 1997) ken scherot, president and chief operating officer of American Express (later chairman and CEO), and the Chairman and CEO of the Eli Lilly partnership established in, sidny taoli.

The Board of Directors, composed of these people, earned a lot for our subsequent successes. Strong, invested, and effective, is already the company's consistent and compliant with the strictest standards of governance. In fact, in 1994, the CalPERS Board of Directors managed by the world's largest public compensation fund, list the governance methods of the IBM board of directors as one of the best board management methods. Since then, other organizations have recognized the change in IBM's board of directors.

Communication with employees

While reforming our Board of Directors and advanced management system, it is also necessary to open a clear and continuous channel for communication and communication between our employees. A prerequisite for a company's success in achieving reform is to publicly acknowledge the crisis it faces. If employees do not believe that there is a crisis in the company, they will not make sacrifices to implement the reform. Because no one will like reform. Whether you are a senior manager or guard, reform means uncertainty and latent pain.

Therefore, crisis exists, and the CEO's job is to find out these crises and communicate with their employees to tell them the scope, severity, and impact of these crises. Equally important, as a CEO, you must also be able to tell employees how to end these crises-new strategies, new company models, and new corporate culture-that is, how to end the crisis.

All this requires the CEO to invest a lot of energy in communication, communication, and re-communication. I believe that if the CEO has not been engaged in face-to-face communication with employees for many years and uses plain, easy-to-understand, and persuasive languages to persuade them to take actions, the company will not achieve fundamental reform.

In my IBM career, this means that at some point, from the hands of business department owners who have a strong desire to communicate and communicate with "their own people", they have won the microphone and told them that when they communicate with employees, how to determine their priority, tone of speech, and personal image. In some companies, sometimes such behavior may be appropriate-but in the early 1990s s, it was not appropriate for an IBM company to do so. This is a crisis that we all need to face. To this end, we must first understand our company as a complete company and a company guided by consistent ideas. In this company, the only thing that can communicate and communicate with employees is CEO-me.

In the early stages of my tenure, these communication activities were absolutely crucial to me. The information I want to convey is very simple. I stand in front of IBM employees all over the world-without giving speeches, and said to them: "Obviously, what we did in the past didn't work. We lost $16 billion in three years. 1985 employees have been unemployed since 0.175 million. The media and our competitors call us conservative and outdated dinosaurs. Our customers are also unhappy and angry. We have not grown as our competitors do. Don't you think something is wrong? Shouldn't we try some other methods ?"

I also discovered the energy of IBM's internal information system, so I began to write to employees in the name of "Dear colleagues. These letters are also a very important part of my management system at IBM. On the first day after I took office, I wrote the first example for them:

Chairman of the Board of Directors Office in April 6, 1993: All IBM colleagues theme: Our company

At the beginning, I found it on my office computer. Profs mail is an important tool for IBM communication and communication. I would like to thank all those who sent me a letter of greetings, a letter of hope, suggestions, and comments. I know you can understand that I cannot reply to each of you separately, but I really want to take this opportunity to thank those who mentioned some recurring and serious company issues in the letter.

You have deeply touched me by the sincerity of IBM, and, obviously, you also want to revitalize IBM's hero-the sooner the better, the more IBM leads the computer market. This is the case for people who have left IBM or who want to stay. These strongly indicate that our employees' desire for success is the power of our company.

Some of you have been hurt and angry with this because after years of loyalty to the company, you have been declared "Superfluous ", the performance evaluation results of the media were revealed.

I did realize that I came to the company at a time of sharp decline. I know that this is a painful thing for everyone, but we also know that this is inevitable. What I can assure you is that I will do my best to make this painful period a history behind us as soon as possible so that we can start looking forward to our future and expand our business.

I hope you can also know that I do not think that those who leave IBM must be less important, less qualified, or contribute less than others in the company. On the contrary, we all owe a great deal of favor to those who left the company, because they are amazing people who have made great contributions to IBM.

Finally, you told me in your letter that boosting the company's morale is an important thing for all the business plans we have developed. I fully agree with this. In the next few months, I plan to visit as many business departments and offices as possible, I will meet with you to discuss how to consolidate and strengthen the company. Guo Shina

This letter has aroused strong repercussions among IBM employees. For me, they are undoubtedly a comfort, support, and strength of my original Dark days at IBM.
A reply wrote: I shed tears of joy.

Another one is like this:

Thank you. Thank you. IBM has recovered.
At the same time, IBM employees are never afraid to express their own objections. I once received a very frank, straightforward, and straightforward letter-oh, I can only say that when I was young, I was never afraid to write such a letter to my boss, let alone write to the CEO. He wrote:

Come on! Put away your gimmicks! Do some practical work, shorten the cycle of orders, provide some new products to the market, and find new markets, listen to the voices of customers who are not yet our customers but will become our customers if we have products.

Don't do anything that hurts people. Doing something practical will prevent you from suffering more and more people every six months.

Another employee expressed his welcome to me in the letter:

Welcome! Also, don't worry about how many micro-chips you don't know, as long as you don't confuse them with chocolate chips.

One employee-even when his boss was upset about the success of our competitors, he took the time and energy to satirize my visit:

I think you have three attitudes and opinions that need to be corrected. You are so approachable and willing to accept feedback, which makes it easy and pleasant to exchange comments with you.

1. You have developed an important system for IBM: first, the customer, second, IBM, and third, someone's own business unit. It sounds like McKinsey's hierarchy. I will provide you with a more appropriate ranking of elders and children-and this is also a tradition of IBM, that is: first, someone himself, the second and third remain unchanged. Respecting an individual is the best way for an individual to grow up healthily. This is not only true for an individual, but also for an organization or society. (McKinsey's hierarchy is sorted as follows: customers, companies, and individuals. This type of hierarchy despise employees and their families .)

You said we need to perform self-check and check our operating methods. I also value self-reflection and give the following suggestions for your reference. (They all provide management cases for you .)

2. You seem to want to compete and emphasize the importance of combating competition. I realized that this attitude is a cultural identity, but I also believe that it is also an unnecessary, unhealthy and least productive form of social interaction. For example, IBM's internal competitive thinking (IBM's fight against IBM) is what you are fighting against. You have also stressed the necessity of pleasing the customer. I agree that it is a goal and admit that it is a different goal than "Combating competition. We should also adopt different methods to achieve these goals. If we do not know our goals, we may not find effective methods to achieve them.

Here, we need to point out two points in particular: You mentioned "defeat someone's sharpness" and "refute their face ". Do these sounds like healthy attitudes? These "people" can also be friends with families! They may even be your friends and relatives. Competition with such ideas and attitudes must be a kind of competition that sacrifices others to achieve their own goals. In essence, it is a lack of respect for the individual.

I have sent you a box of audio recordings on this topic (": a case against competition") and attached a brief description with it. Apparently, this tape and text message are intercepted by the Administrative Assistant and are not in your hands. If you are interested, start further discussions on this topic and I will send you another tape.

One of the most important criteria you claim to determine whether we are successful is the percentage point of each of our information technology consumption budgets. In my opinion, this seems to be a sound idea. The percentage point is limited and cannot exceed 100 points at most. Using it as a metric means that any company wants to make a profit at the cost of one or more companies. If we are more open-minded and capable of thinking about how to make a larger pie, then each of us will be able to experience the feeling of success. For example, if we spend more money on information technology to increase value, we will lose a percentage point but at the same time achieve the company's growth and earn more money. (I guess we have lost too many percentage points in 1980s, but at that time we achieved an expansion and a quarterly profit of $1 billion .) On the contrary, how much interest do we have in obtaining 100% of the host market?

Although I am concerned about the "aspects to be improved" in this letter, I would like to emphasize again that I admire you and respect what you have and what you are doing. I look forward to cooperating with you.

[Name omitted]

Also: I don't know if this is true, but I did hear that your visit to the Office in Raleigh, North Carolina was arranged in advance: the route you are going through is arranged in advance; the hall you are going to visit, they have painted the walls and laid new carpets in advance. I want to know, what would you think if you knew it was true and it was true? Sometimes I have to regret what I have said-almost half of it will make me regret. All I can say is that it is a good thing to reply to me, but I am too busy to reply to every email sender!