conditions for transformation (ibm)

 • create the conditions for transformation.
 • management doesn't change culture.
 • Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., Who says elephants can't dance? : inside IBM's historic turnaround, 2002

pp.185—186
The pursuit of excellence over time became an obsession with perfection.  It resulted in a stultifying culture and a spider's web of checks, approvals, and validation that slowed decision making to a crawl.  When I arrived at IBM, new mainframes were announced every 4-to-5 years.  Today they are launched, on average, every 18 months (with excellent quality, I might add).  I can understand the joke that was going around IBM in the early 1990s: "Products aren't launched at IBM. They escape."

p.187
Stepping up to the challenge

    Frankly, if I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture head-on, I probably wouldn't have.  For one thing, my bias coming in was toward strategy, analysis, and measurement.  I'd already been successful with those, and like anyone, I was inclined to stick with what had worked for me earlier in my career.  Once I found a handful of smart people, I knew we could take a fresh look at the business and make good strategic calls or invest in new businesses or get the cost structure in shape.
    In comparison, changing the attitude and behaviour of hundreds of thousands of people is very, very hard to accomplish.  Business schools don't teach you how to do it.  You can't lead the revolution from the splendid isolation of corporate headquarters.  You can't simply give a couple speeches or write a new credo for the company and declare that the new culture had take hold.  You can't mandate it, can't engineer it.
    What you CAN do is create the conditions for transformation.  You can provide incentives.  You can define the marketplace realities and goals.  But then you have to trust.  In fact, in the end, management doesn't change culture.  Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.

p.188
    It was counter-intuitive, centered around social cues and emotion rather than reason.
    Tough as that was, we had to suck it up and take on the task of changing the culture, given what was at stake.  I knew it would take at least five years. (In that I underestimated.)  And I knew the leader of the revolution had to be ME——I had to commit to thousands of hours of personal activity to pull off the change.  I would have to be up-front and outspoken about what I was doing.  I needed to get my leadership team to join me.  We all had to talk openly and directly about culture, behaviour, and beliefs——we would not be subtle.

p.77
    ...  The sine qua non [Latin, without which not; an essential condition; indispensable thing; absolute prerequisite] of any successful corporate transformation is public acknowledgment of the existence of a crisis.  If employees do not believe a crisis exists, they will not make the sacrifices that are necessary to change.  Nobody likes change.  Whether you are a senior executive or an entry-level employee, change represents uncertainty and, potentially, pain.
    So there must be a crisis, and it is the job of the CEO to define and communicate that crisis, its magnitude, it severity, and its impact.  Just as important, the CEO must also be able to communicate how to end the crisis——the new strategy, the new company model, the new culture.
    All of this takes enormous commitment from the CEO to communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.  No institutional transformation takes place, I believe, without a multi-year commitment by the CEO to put himself or herself constantly in front of employees and speak in plain, simple, compelling language that drives conviction and action throughout the organizaiton.

    (Gerstner, Louis V., copyright © 2002, HD9696.2.U64 I2545 2002, 004.'068——dc21)
(Who says elephants can't dance? : inside IBM's historic turnaround / Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., 1. international business machines corporation——management, 2. international business machines corporation——history, 3. computer industry——united states——history, 4. electronic office machine industry——united states——history, 5. corporate turnarounds——united states——case studies, )
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