Chapter 13 beauty against beauty

"The most beautiful CEO in the world" Carly Fiorina spent her days at HP like this: In July 1999, Hewlett-Packard announced that it hired Lucent female player Carly Fiorina as CEO with a high salary. In September 2000, HP's board of directors named Carly as chairman, president and CEO. Subsequently, HP's stock price rose from $70 per share to more than $100.Fiorina herself has also been selected as "the number one business woman in the United States" and "the most beautiful CEO in the world" by magazines such as "Fortune" and "Time" many times.

In September 2001, Carly announced that HP would acquire PC giant Compaq, aiming to surpass IBM. In March 2002, HP's global shareholder referendum, the supporters narrowly defeated the opposition, and the new HP was born. In May 2003, the performance of the new HP "one year old" exceeded expectations, and Carly announced that the merger was completely correct. In August 2004, Hewlett-Packard's quarterly performance continued to fall below expectations, and Carly fired three executives immediately. In February 2005, HP's board of directors urgently dismissed Carly from all positions.According to reports, "when HP employees learned of his departure, they actually raised their glasses to celebrate."

There are many internal reasons why Carly and HP parted ways, and the most worthwhile dissection is the gains and losses of Carly's transformation of HP's culture. HP is known as the "evergreen tree in Silicon Valley".Since the establishment of the company in 1939, the company has been known for its steady development. In 1942, the company only had more than 60 employees, and its sales performance was also very flat. By 1991, the sales volume reached 14.541 billion US dollars, the profit amounted to 755 million US dollars, and nearly 90,000 employees, ranking No. 1 in the "Fortune" 500 81 bits.What makes Hewlett-Packard so unique in its operation for more than half a century? A business book called "Build to last" made it clear: the company instills a core value in its employees, and the lasting A strong corporate culture is the magic weapon for HP to participate in global competition. In other words, it is HP's culture that has contributed to the company's sustainable development.

HP culture is often referred to as The HP Way.Specifically, it is reflected in three aspects: 1. HP's culture is strong and harmonious, with the beauty of harmony. The harmonious beauty of HP's culture can be described from both internal and external aspects.Internally, HP has a friendly and easy-going atmosphere with little pressure. Employees trust each other and cooperate sincerely. themselves and how fulfilling their work is. In 1979, an international survey and research company interviewed 7,966 employees of Hewlett-Packard to investigate their views on the company. As a result, the evaluation of Hewlett-Packard was so good that Hewlett-Packard felt embarrassed.Starik, president of the survey firm, wrote to HP: "Employees are very optimistic about HP, especially their sense of belonging and happiness, and their willingness to recommend the company as the best place to work. Over the past 25 years, we have surveyed 1,000 Among the research done by other American companies, it can be said to be unrivaled." From the outside, the harmonious beauty of HP's culture is reflected in the coordination between the company and the external environment.HP insists on maintaining honesty and integrity in its business activities, treats external customers honestly, and relies on each other as lips and teeth, while insisting on giving back to the society.Just because HP's culture is in harmony with the external environment, the reputation of HP's culture continues to improve.

2. HP culture values ​​human nature, is people-oriented, and has the beauty of goodwill. HP trusts and respects individuals, and firmly believes in any situation: as long as employees are given appropriate means and support, they are willing to work hard and will definitely do a good job; Start work at 6:00, 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning, as long as you complete 8 hours of work; the company's instrument room is not locked, employees can use the instrument at any time, and even take the instrument home; HP encourages the flow of talents, and also Does not discriminate against employees who leave HP. Some people who leave HP for other companies can still return to HP. This does not affect the company's opinion of him, because the company believes that job-hopping does not mean betrayal; HP has no "office politics" and their employees can Never need to please the boss, the company will call him by his first name; HP can even spend 100,000 dollars to train an employee without any conditions attached; HP's employment policy is also touching: provide you with permanent jobs, As long as you perform well, the company will hire you forever!This kind of people-oriented and friendly beauty in HP's culture has made HP glamorous in its growth career of more than 60 years, and it has also enabled HP to win a broad "people's heart" foundation.

3. HP culture cultivates people with the beauty of motherhood. HP has a big theory. Among the newly recruited employees, only about 50% of them will stay after 5 years; after 10 years, only about 25% of them will stay.For example, 4 people were recruited 10 years ago, 2 people were left after 5 years, and 1 person was left after 10 years, but the person who stayed must have firmly believed in the HP culture, and his behavior is also HP-like. Such a person can certainly help HP make a lot of useful contributions.In fact, HP not only cultivates people who are useful to HP, but also objectively cultivates many excellent talents for other companies because HP culture does not restrict or discriminate against talent hopping (such as maternal tolerance and selflessness).Of course, objectively speaking, HP's motherly selflessness did cause HP to lose some immediate benefits, but in the long run, HP's culture has enabled HP to win extensive respect both internally and externally. Among the most admired and best companies selected by Happiness magazine, HP ranked 5th and 10th, respectively.

Based on these, HP's culture was once regarded as "the most beautiful company culture" in Silicon Valley and even in the United States. It has made HP, but it has also become a barrier for HP to excel.Since the end of the 1990s, with the increasingly fierce competition in the IT field and the acceleration of industrial upgrading, the moderate HP culture has encountered unprecedented impact and doubts. "Customers" and "shareholders" are very different from the typical American corporation.It has been accused of being the most conservative, dull and costly old man in Silicon Valley, and the company's performance has also declined for several years.

It was against this background that Carly Fiorina, known for her beauty and toughness, was parachuted to HP. On the first day at HP, Carly announced that she would "completely transform HP's culture." She said in her inaugural speech, "My role is to help HP move into a new era."At that time, almost everyone believed that HP's culture had to be reformed, and Carly was undoubtedly the most suitable operator. In fact, Carly did exactly that. First of all, Carly actively promoted the name change of Hewlett-Packard, compressing the original English logo "Hewlett Packard" (the names of the two entrepreneurs Hewlett and Packard) with obvious entrepreneurial imprints into two meaningless letters "hp ", trying to dilute HP's family color.Then, she made drastic changes to the core values ​​of the original HP.This all shows that Carly does not agree with the "HP way" in her heart.However, changing the core values ​​of an enterprise is not only sensitive, but also easier said than done?What's more, what Carly wants to do is the "HP way", which is highly respected by all walks of life?

Secondly, Carly tried to completely change HP's values ​​and way of doing things, replacing the original "stable", "collaborative" and "people-oriented" with "speed", "change" and "market", and as the original core "respect for employees" ” was ranked last.In this regard, Gao Jianhua has a vivid but bitter metaphor: "She is trying to make a 60-year-old person practice the 100-meter sprint!" But the facts have proved that Carly's reform is more destructive to HP's culture than constructive. Thirdly, Carly treats herself and changes the old HP's "civilian" and "low-key" style. She is like an acting star. For the first time in the history of HP CEOs, she bought a special plane for herself and made a publicity. Namely... it all caused a lot of discontent within HP.Carly has only been in charge of HP for more than a year, and many employees have begun to miss the time of eating working meals with the former CEO, and like to recall Wheelett's smile.They don't want to meet the CEO just by videoconference because it lacks realism.

But only out of the expectation of Carly's improved performance, a large number of HP people chose to wait and see, but only wait and see. So, the problem arises.Carly finds herself making change slow and with a lot of resistance.Why?Because although everyone does not "oppose" Carly's preaching, they "do not believe" in their hearts... This is the power of culture.Especially in an enterprise like Hewlett-Packard, which is dominated by white-collar knowledge workers, when an employee looks at the computer, the only thing that can determine him to think about work actively instead of distracted is the culture he deeply believes in. "Because of the power of culture, at the old HP, such things as: unfairness, untrustworthiness, and backbiting were not tolerated and the employees themselves were ashamed of it." Gao Jianhua, who left HP in the Carly era, was full of pride recalled.

At this time, Carly, who had initially experienced the powerful power of the old Hewlett-Packard, realized that she was alone.She also hoped to "brainwash" everyone through training, hoping that everyone would take the trouble to "change" (change) with her.But it is clear that reform ideas that are not "believed" cannot be refreshing, let alone produce practical results. "Carly underestimated the staff's allegiance to the 'HP Way', and underestimated the group of people she faced who had accumulated a culture of 60 years." Gao Jianhua concluded in this way. A few years later, the internal "brainwashing" effect is not good, so Carly is determined to put all her eggs in one basket: with the help of external force - to acquire Compaq.Public opinion believes that Carly hopes to use Compaq culture to "dilute" the strong way of HP just like diluting shares through share expansion.Furthermore, a situation that is not widely known in China has occurred: In the Asia-Pacific region of the new HP, except for the China region where the original HP dominates, the other regions (including the Asia-Pacific region itself) are all from the original Compaq!A senior executive of Hewlett-Packard China recalled: "At that time, our boss (referring to Sun Zhenyao, President of China Region) had a very difficult time." , I look like an outsider who has been separated... This is quite different from the impression that HP "eats" Compaq in the impression of Chinese people. People change, and everything naturally changes.It used to be that in HP, if someone's performance was not good, the supervisor would appear as a helper, but now he asked: "What's the matter with you recently?!" Then, there were old HP managers who could not agree with the new culture. resign. Carly clearly hopes to use the new culture to drive performance growth.Especially after the first anniversary of the merger in 2003, both Carly and the shareholders are looking forward to the rapid growth of New HP, which is what Carly has repeatedly promised: 1+1>2.But as a result, the "Way of HP" was indeed impacted, but the performance growth was not realized, and the market share was shrinking instead.It turned out that Compaq alone could overwhelm Dell, but the new HP, which acquired Compaq, gave up the championship to Dell the year after the merger was completed.The observation of an industry researcher is quite concise: "You say 1+1>2, but the result is that it is the 1st+2nd, and it becomes the 3rd!" The crux of the problem is that the old HP's culture is consistent with its solid operational innovation mechanism, but the new HP's culture cannot find the foundation of hard work in management, and what it presents is only a kind of "seemingly tense inefficiency" state".At this critical moment, instead of self-criticism, Carly chose to attack the executives of the subordinate group one after another.And the "then" who changed blood again, the performance is still the same!Everyone, including Carly, was helpless... As a result, the cultural conflicts accumulated over the years finally began to heat up rapidly at the end of 2004, and there was a general outbreak at the beginning of this year. Looking back, a person from Hewlett-Packard joked: "I think Carly is very similar to Chinese entrepreneurs. She is keen on capital operations and public relations shows. She 'buys' when she is young, but turns out to be 'fat'." However, I am full of 'sickness'. In short, I just don't want to do technology and management in a down-to-earth manner." It seems that hard indicators such as performance and stock price have defeated Carly. In fact, the root cause is her impetuousness in forcibly transforming HP's culture, which has led HP as a whole to a greater confusion. In addition to mergers and acquisitions, another aspect that makes HP culture confused is Carly's frequent organizational restructuring.First, nearly 80 business units of HP were reorganized into four major groups: enterprise system (ESG), personal information system (PSG), printing and imaging system (IPG), professional and support service system (HP (market forum) S), Then at the end of last year, there was clamor to merge the printing and imaging system with the personal information system. Since the birth of the new HP, the "special period" has never stopped. "Tossing every six months, no one can bear it!" In the eyes of many HP employees, Carly's frequent reorganization has produced great destructive power: First, it completely disrupted the original clear and steady career promotion direction .Everyone doesn't know what they will get after working hard, and they lose their sense of belonging and security.Second, it completely kills the enthusiasm of employees for long-term planning of work.Because in the face of Carly's elusive "Change", all plans lose their meaning, and even excellent employees can only complete the work of "today" without considering "tomorrow".The pride that the old HP employees felt when they visited the HP lab and saw that the company had already prepared high-tech products 10 years later was gone... As a result, the "short-sightedness" of the entire group was accumulated bit by bit, and its disadvantages began to appear after a few years.Especially for a technology company like Hewlett-Packard, when it loses its foresight, the consequences will be disastrous. Carly left HP, the dilemma has not been resolved, but seems to have just been solved. To this day, everything is still at a loss. There are many discussions from all walks of life about how to choose the future of HP, and the debate on whether to spin off is raging.Old HP employees, including Gao Jianhua, still hope to return to the "HP Way" and look for a new CEO from among the old HP managers.Because these people have at least 10 years of HP "working experience", and most of them started as grassroots engineers, they can really comprehend the essence of "HP's way" from their own blood.Some people even ideally expect that one day HP will be able to take back Agilent, which has been split off but best represents HP's culture... This is the deep complex in the hearts of many HP people. After Carly was fired, "Fortune" published a comment titled: "With the resignation of CEO Carly, I hope HP can return to its tradition."The article believes that after Carly joined HP as CEO, HP's corporate culture of respecting people gradually deteriorated rapidly, the company's internal environment and interpersonal relationships deteriorated, and "HP's way" completely became "HP's politics."The multiple adjustments of high-level personnel have caused many conflicts among the company's managers at all levels. Personnel struggles and queuing have become an important part of their work. The HP we see now is no longer the HP of the past.I hope that HP can take this opportunity to return to its own tradition and reshape its corporate culture, so that it can become a truly great company that is "built to last", rather than an ordinary company governed only by tactics. But, the problem is—— If HP can be saved by returning to the way of HP, then why did the scene of Carly airborne appear in the first place? In other words, if Carly just chooses to add a little connotation to the original foundation (rather than hurt the muscles and bones) when changing HP's culture, and carry out continuous optimization and gradual "Chinese-style" reforms, the effect will definitely be much better than it is now. ? "There has never been the best culture, but only the most suitable culture." For today's HP, what is the most suitable culture? Mark Hurd, now HP's CEO, has declared that he will create an execution-oriented and performance-oriented culture at HP.So, is the so-called "execution and performance-oriented culture" a continuation of Carly's style, or a return to the old HP? Everything is a mystery, and the discussion returns to the starting point.Obviously, the 66-year-old IT veteran Hewlett-Packard has reached the most dangerous crossroads in the company's growth. (1) How should the cultural transformation of an old company be cut in and implemented? (2) When the company's new strategy conflicts with the company's culture, what is the optimal choice? (3) After firing Carly, should HP return to the HP way, or continue to make bold changes? "If you don't change, you are waiting for death, but if you change, you are looking for death." This is a very common description of the prospect of corporate culture change.Indeed, which entrepreneur does not want to be Jack Welch of GE or Gerstner of IBM.When HP’s board of directors airborne Carly Fiorina as CEO in 1999, why didn’t they hope that Carly would be HP’s Welch and HP’s Gerstner, expecting her to strike hard and attack HP’s core culture, so as to restore Revitalize HP; HP's employees have high hopes for their beautiful new boss, and they have endured years of company changes for this reason.And Carly Fiorina herself did her best to fight for it until the last moment.Yet so far they have not been successful, and for Carly Fiorina, this is indeed a personal tragedy. In Schein's view, corporate culture is the sum of the values ​​that the company relied on for success in the past and shared by employees. Such values ​​can be passed on from generation to generation by new employees of the company.But what we must understand is that corporate culture is actually a highly refined survival rule in the market competition and development, not empty slogans and good wishes.HP's corporate culture built on the basis of stability, collaboration, and people-oriented in the past has been adjusted over time, although it seems to be more "harmonious", "human" and "maternal".However, there has never been a place for "beauty" in the laws of the market. It only believes in the strongest of the times.This is why Carly Fiorina was determined to change HP's corporate culture when she took office.In her view, HP's traditional culture has become a huge obstacle to the company's development, the speed, change and customers that the market needs.Since the needs of market competition, why do we not do it?That's why the stock market went from $70 to $100. However, the difficulty of cultural change has never been a question of whether to do it, but how to do it!Theoretical circles have always had two views on this.One view is that cultural change should be a "bottom-up" process. Since culture is a shared value, if employees generally do not understand, agree with or even support it, how can the change be successful!There is also a view that corporate culture change should be a "top-down" process. Since cultural change is based on a far-sighted management process, how can the leadership and determination of leaders be excluded from the change!Academically, it is necessary to have a clear point of view, but in management practice it needs to be considered comprehensively.For example, in terms of corporate transformation, people seem to see more of Welch and Gerstner's drastic top-to-bottom reorganization, down-sizing and divestiture measures, and then reshape GE and IBM.But they did not notice that they strive for excellence in every detail of enterprise management, especially in inspecting and appointing management personnel, which are more meticulous and thoughtful.In fact, the so-called "details" management and "executive power" management recently pursued by the management practice circle actually come from the summary of the management experience of Welch and Gerstner. In my opinion, Carly Fiorina's cultural change at HP was not successful during her tenure. Apart from not being meticulous and sophisticated, another key reason is that her change has not been recognized by the market, so it is difficult for the change to attract HP employees After that, Carly Fiorina began to make bigger moves, and the old HP employees in turn responded more strongly, and the market performance further declined, thus creating a vicious circle. Carly Fiorina precious time Exhausted, the only thing waiting for her is to be dismissed by the board of directors.But it is still too early to draw conclusions on Carly Fiorina's change management, because her change management impact on HP is still there, and her successor Mark Hurd can only follow this path go down.But in any case, for her personally, the vigorous corporate transformation she led is indeed a beautiful tragedy. Every entrepreneur or manager is transforming the corporate culture in his own way, but some are gradual, some are revolutionary; some are subtle, some are significant.In essence, culture is created by people, and it will be changed and developed by people, and of course, will also be alienated or destroyed by people. The essence of cultural change is a revolution in people's ideas. The completion of this revolution requires the traction of a new idea that is recognized or followed by people. Carly's failure lies in the fact that the ideas she hopes to shape are not consistent with HP's deep-rooted ideas. Ideas are incompatible, or even run counter to each other. Whether a culture can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people mainly depends on the value elements contained in the culture, and the basis for the success of changing the culture is the need to "replace" some of the original culture with a cultural element that is more valuable to employees ingredients.At HP, people are used to enjoying the value brought by the "people-oriented" culture, and if they want to change, they must provide more and better value.Judging from the process and results of Carly's transformation of HP's culture, she obviously failed to do this. Carly's failure to change HP's culture leads people to look for more effective ways to carry out cultural transformation, and also leads people to think about the relationship between strategy and culture: when there is a conflict between strategy and culture, how should one choose? In general, strategy and culture are two closely related element systems that influence each other profoundly.Strategy is a bridge connecting the external environment and internal organization of an enterprise. Through strategy, an enterprise reorganizes all resources, including cultural resources.In this sense, once the strategy is established, the culture will change around the strategy, and the culture at this time will show more support and adaptation to the strategy.Conversely, from the perspective of the process of strategic decision-making, corporate strategic choices are deeply influenced by corporate values ​​and thinking patterns.Among the two elements of culture and strategy, strategy is the key link for enterprises to respond to and adapt to external changes. When there is a contradiction between culture and strategy, it is still necessary to choose a strategy. Only by choosing a strategy can it connect with the real world and adapt to changes. But choosing a strategy that conflicts with culture will imply huge risks, because cultural conflicts may lead to people's departure. Carly's defeat at HP is an example.An important way to avoid violent conflicts between strategy and culture is to use "self-trained managers", because when a company introduces a CEO from outside, the formulation of strategy will also be affected by the new CEO. The pursuit of value and the mode of thinking are often inconsistent. At this time, the strategy formulated at this time is likely to conflict with the cultural system of the enterprise. After firing Carly, HP should start from the reality (industrial environment and its own situation) and continue to seek the path of change and development.If someone insists that HP must return to the "HP Way", then I can say that the connotation of the "HP Way" itself needs to be changed and developed.