Culture eats strategy for breakfast (unknown author but often attributed to Drucker).<p>Boards often ignore this wisdom and install people based on their previous job elsewhere, long term inside knowledge in a different role or whatever. When the leader of the company is not standing behind the values and defending them the company starts drifting. People become cynical about what unites them and that uniting includes management up to the CEO - or now divides them. In these cases official company values imho. can even become liability as everyone is constantly reminded of double-speak from the top.<p>Reading "The HP Way" is a reminder on how much business is about people and the society - often forgotten these days.
As someone who worked in the HP company during the Carly, Mark, Leo and Meg eras, I’ve heard some old timers say much better things about the company.<p>Even when I started, The HP Way was known and alive at least in some pockets of the company. It was what inspired many to give our best despite the changing environment.<p>After Carly, things only got worse with Mark Hurd. Cutting costs was the one and only trick he knew.<p>Now the company remains a tiny piece of its former self, having been split and sold to others in pieces.<p>Any company that looks up to and wants to emulate The HP Way would be good to be employed in.
I think something else is missing here, though. HP had <i>great</i> products, so I don't think that you can necessarily do the "HP Way" in a company where the products that the company makes (or their services) are not seen as valuable and/or worthwhile by the employees.
The article links to the HP corporate culture booklet from 1980 written apparently by Hewlett. It's worth reading.<p>Can't fail to notice how successful a <i>well-engineered</i> company culture might be. The booklet gives pretty rational reasons for things like profit-sharing, stock sharing, company-sponsored medical insurance, management by objective and lack of micro-management, etc, all introduced by HP very early.
Both parts are relevant and recurring.<p>A small company starts and through unconventional business culture — treating employees better than average, and putting quality over short-term profit — grows exponentially. Then they bring in MBAs to turn things around.<p>In HP the second phase didn't occur until H & P retired, but SV today likes to move fast and wreck things.
Strange article. The author's company does <i>advertising analytics</i>. The HP Way was for a company that worked on hard problems and insisted on quality products.<p>I was once told by an HP employee, pre-collapse, that they did not use the term "bug" internally. They use the term "defect". One does not ship products with defects.
I read the blogpost and I was wondering what I was missing. Then I looked to the left of the page, and saw it was categorized as 'Growth'. So this is like a little advertisement for Brandwatch?<p>I'm sorry if I got it all wrong, James.
Considerably more relevant than what is left of HP-the-company. Every time I use my trusty HP-12C I feel a little sad for what was lost in the slash-and-burn era of Fiorina. Swiss Micros keeping the dream alive!
The HP way died with Carly Fiorina. Her audacity for thinking she could be a viable candidate for presidency after gutting one of the hallowed institutions of Silicon Valley made me very livid every time I saw her on the screen. I hate Trump and think he’s ruining our country but Fiorina would have been worse.