Conference 7.286::digital

RE .0:  This is something that I've been occasionally thinking about myself.

How do you preserve the DEC culture in the face of large-scale growth, and
the importation of  personnel who have had no exposure (and potentially, no
sympathy) to it or something like it?  In the past I've seen a few
imported managers, who required a rigid, dictatorial structure in order
to run ("control"?) their groups.  These kinds of managers were not
successful (at least within Engineering) in the older DEC (of 2 who come
immediately to mind, one resigned precipitously and one was fired after
suffering a full-scale group insurrection).  My fear is that managers of
such persuasion are likely to be more successful in the new DEC.  And 
that's a shame ...
    

    I have seen some unfortunate indications of changes to the DEC culture.
    For example, I am finding more and more that I have to account for
    my time and what I'm doing (I still work 60+ hours per week, but
    now I have to document it or be in the office!)  I also can't just
    get things with my badge any more.  Even a user's guide has to be
    justified.

    Since I'm one of the 'new breed' (a supervisor, hired from the outside
    within the last 2 years), I've got the opposite perspective.  It's
    good to get new blood into an organization, as long as they don't
    try to take over.  We're not burdened by the `we tried to do that
    X years ago' syndrome.  However, we also don't have intimate knowledge
    of `the DEC way of doing things' (one long-time DECcie in my group
    pointed that out to me).  I realize the frustration all of you with
    low badge numbers feel; but give us new folk a chance!
    
    Bruce
    (who would have been here earlier if DEC `had been hiring')

Re .0:

I consider perpetuation of our corporate culture to be one of the purposes
of this conference.
				/AHM

    This concern seems to always be around.  I have been with Digital
    for exactly ten years, today.  When I started, there were roughly one
    third the number of employees as today.  Many things have become
    worse in those ten years but more things have become better.
    
    Digital was founded with a complete sense of trust in its employees
    and it has an incredible amount of trust in it's employees.  The
    previous reply points out that the network and conferences such
    as this are important in enhancing the Digital culture.  They are
    evidence of the trust that has been given us all.
    
    It is the responsibility of all of us to enhance the culture of
    Digital through all of our actions.  We need to welcome the new
    employees and teach the importance of trust and freedom.  We need
    to use their talents to make Digital more and more strong.
    
    Keep the faith(s),
    
    Don

    I for one am looking forward to the NEW Digital. One that drags
    the OLD managers kicking and screeming into the 21st century. Why
    do all of us "TRUSTED" employees need to get into cars, drive on
    over crowded roads burning non-replenishable fuels to sit in over
    crowded building that Digital builds at an ever increasing rate,
    only to sit at a computer terminal and do "WORK"? If I walked down
    the halls in any DEC site, I could only find about half the offices
    in use. Let's move forward. I for one would like to sit in a house
    in ASPEN, Colorado, and to my work from there.
    
    I realize all jobs can not be converted into this type of format.
    But consider the NEW Digital with it's TRUSTED employees that have
    5 people to an office. That's one person in the office each day
    of the week. The others get phone lines payed for by Digital and
    there VAX workstations site at home. In return for not driving to
    work, you pay the electric bill. A fair exchange in my book. Let's
    build more conference rooms and less offices. VMS has accounting
    for those managers that need it. We all have projects to do, if
    their done, you have done your job. How many people are reading
    this conference after work hours? You would find the employees working
    on the project at all hours when needed. Yes, and you would find
    some employees out skiing when the project was ahead of schedule.
    In the long run, MORE would get done, not less.
    
    Enough of this... Let's use the tools we have today to make DEC
    the company of tomorrow.
    
    P.S. I've been around since 1973, I've seen a lot of change and
         I see room for a lot more.

RE: .-1
  > The others get phone lines payed for by Digital and
  > there VAX workstations site at home. 
    
    I don't know of anyone who gets a VAX workstation at home.  The folks I
    know who are now piled up 5 to an office have to beg, plead, and
    promise their firstborn son to get a 1200 baud modem and a VT100 at
    home!
    
    							Pat 

>    I don't know of anyone who gets a VAX workstation at home.

Sorry your group doesn't have the resources of some others.

< Note 409.5 by GATORS::VICKERS "Customers are why we exist" >
>Digital was founded with a complete sense of trust in its employees
>and it has an incredible amount of trust in it's employees.  The
>previous reply points out that the network and conferences such
>as this are important in enhancing the Digital culture.  They are
>evidence of the trust that has been given us all.

    re trust..
    
    Go ahead, mention an unannounced product. See how much trust there
    is in the security of the Easynet and how much trust there is in
    Field personnel not to spill the beans.
    
    karl moeller sws TUO

    RE: .9 Trust in EASYNET security and trust in people are not
    the same thing. I trust field people (Don was a field person
    and I trusted [still do :-)] him) and so do most people. Field
    people at DEC get more early information that they do at some
    other companies I could name. They also get more information then
    they did 10 years ago when I was in the field.
    
    		Alfred
    

< Note 409.6 by SSDEVO::EKHOLM >

>    do all of us "TRUSTED" employees need to get into cars, drive on
>    over crowded roads burning non-replenishable fuels to sit in over
>    crowded building that Digital builds at an ever increasing rate,
>    only to sit at a computer terminal and do "WORK"? If I walked down
  
  Telecommuting (spending work hours at home using a terminal) is a good idea.
I read about a new town in the mountain wilderness of Calif. that was built
especially for telecommuters. In New England it would save a lot of gas and
possibly reduce traffic on some roads used mainly by high-tech commuters.
  I have thought of another alternative. DEC could lease many small offices
in small towns and set up "telecommuting centers" where people could get away
from home (and home distractions) but not too far away. This would also make
it easier for someone to monitor people to discourage them from goofing off
when they are supposed to be working. A facility such as this could be class-
ified as a 'professional office' for zoning purposes and located in towns where
a large DEC plant would not be welcome.

< Note 409.11 by PLDVAX::MORRISON "Bob M. LMO2/P41 296-5357" >
>DEC could lease many small offices in small towns and set up
>"telecommuting centers" ... A facility such as this could be class-
>ified as a 'professional office' for zoning purposes ...
    
.. sounds like a Field Branch office to me ..
.. complete with Easynet link ..
    
    k moeller sws     

    .6  (REAL equipment at home) wins bigtime over .7 (Nothing at home)
    as there are many of us with the situation described in .6 and .11
    or even better.
    
    GATORS is a �VAX-II with more memory and devices than you want to hear
    about and he's gonna be a VAXstation soon.  He was the first E-net node
    in Florida as he lives with me in the swamps of Florida.
    
    It makes me sad to think of my peers in the field in Florida who don't
    even get a system in their OFFICE while I have all this power at home.
    But, I need it, deserve it, and use to Digital's great benefit (no ego
    problems here (-; ).  I sacrifice a lot to have this 'benefit'. I spend
    an enormous amount of time away from GATORS and my home in order to
    work for Digital.   I 'work' in the engineering center in Charlotte, NC
    where I go physically fairly often to see my close teammates.
    
    I have been VERY lucky in my years at Digital.  Of the six managers
    I have worked for at Digital only one was poor (and he was VERY
    poor) while the others were excellent.  My current management is
    incredibly good and enlightened as .6 wishes all of management
    were.  John (.8), Alfred (.10), and I all were in the field and
    understand the unfairness of it all.  You guys in the field are
    THE most important people in the company because you ARE Digital
    to our customers yet you are given less trust than most of us in
    central groups.  To add injury to insult the field is judged so
    closely relative to margin that even great management is unable
    to provide you with the proper equipment that you NEED.

    I agree fully that Digital isn't fair.  I don't believe that Karl
    (.9) deserved the pain he received for an innocent remark that he
    made.  Just because there is unfairness doesn't mean that we should
    stop trying to improve Digital.  None of us believe that Digital
    is perfect and I believe that, together, we can make it even better.
    
    I believe that Digital is getting smarter and better.  I know that
    I cannot really understand the pain of those of you not fortunate
    enough to have the benefits I and others have.  I urge you to keep
    the faith and provide your management with constructive criticism
    to help improve your lot and, more importantly, the effectiveness
    of Digital.  Flaming here may serve a good purpose in that it MAY
    help you release some of your feelings but you cannot solve the
    problems here.
    
    Trust in the trust,
    
    Don

    The problem is not with fairness towards us hard-working software
    specialists and software engineers, but with accounting techniques.
    
    To get a product created, an engineering group starts out with an
    equipment budget and get the equipment and then creates the product.
    Revenues from the product offset the expense of the equipment, in
    fact, the expense of the entire project.
    
    For a services group to get equipment, it basically has to be offset
    by new incremental revenues in the same quarter.  This is a staggering
    challenge, which is why a lot of equipment comes to field for "special
    projects" with someone else's money.
    
    When District Software Managers get a budget line for "hardware",
    then we'll see some changes.

    
>    When District Software Managers get a budget line for "hardware",
>    then we'll see some changes.

  When pigs fly, we'll also see some changes !! :-(

    Just a general comment on this topic.....
    
    As a long term (12+ years), and a recent return'ee from "another
    big computer company" (whose name begins with U and ends with S),
    and being a former manager for DEC for 7 years, I can safely say
    that "yes, DEC has changed" and "yes, DEC has grown up and become
    a big computer company".
    
    BUT.....
    
    It still has it's own unique culture that hasn't changed since 1975,
    when I first hired on.  And, it still cares for the individual,
    which is why I'M BACK.
    
    Just call me stupid and sentimental.....
    
     Can't you see my face as the DEC Poster Child?
    

<moved here; perhaps a WRITE rather than REPLY? /mod>

================================================================================
Note xxx.0                         dec culture                           1 reply
HJUXB::GREEN                                          2 lines  31-DEC-1987 14:05
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    	DEC culture outside of Mass. is a myth.
    
================================================================================
Note xxx.1                         dec culture                            1 of 1
SDSVAX::SWEENEY "Patrick Sweeney"                    22 lines  31-DEC-1987 14:57
                         -< Corporate Culture Vulture >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I wouldn't go that far.  I'd say that for the most part, among most
    hourly employees in the field Digital is just another Fortune 500
    employer.  There's no special feeling that companies such as IBM,
    Chrysler, or McDonald's are able to create in the field. 
    
    Among salaried types like software specialists and sales reps, the
    idea of an engineer at the top of the company is quaint.
    
    The critical difference among the business press treatment of Iacocca,
    Sculley, and Olsen is that the first two are asked questions about the
    future and they have clear ideas in response.  The future of Digital is
    always hedged against the business climate which made Digital successful
    changing again and leaving Digital unprepared. 
    
    The DEC culture isn't lived any more as much as it is explained by
    people who were part of Digital in the 70's, or better yet, the 60's.
    And I doubt very much if there's any employees outside of MA/NH with
    experience from the 50's.  If anything it's closer to folklore and
    oral tradition than myth.
    
    It's slipped by.  It's like my Dad telling me what it was like when
    he was a boy.

    We're apparently not the only company with these complaints:
    
    reprinted without permission from _Computer Systems News_
    
    Apple Computer Inc.'s plans to add some 1700 employees over the
    next year are causing some concern among "old-timers", according
    to a recent report...  At Apple's fall sales meeting in Hawaii,
    analyst John McCarthy overheard a number of current Apple employees
    grumble that newcomers hired from IBM, Digital Equipment Corp.,
    and Xerox Corp. do not understand the "Apple culture and procedures,"
    and dilute the company's aura...

    Even in within DEC, there are several interpretations of the 'culture'.
    
    My first four years with DEC were in the Aguadilla, Puerto Rico
    manufacturing plant. All the plant staff management were always
    referring to the 'DEC way', 'culture', etc.  It was a very unique
    experience for me, especially learning the 'DEC way'.
    
    It turned out that the 'culture' was explained to the local management
    by managers on contract from New England. The local managers
    enterpreted  that to their direct reports, and then passed down
    with their interpretations to the rest of the plant. Even though we used
    the same Policies and Procedure manuals as the states, interpretations
    were sometime completly different (they were still all in English).
    
    When I transferred to the states, I had to learn the DEC way completely
    over again. From the 'DEC culture' standpoint they could have been
    different companies.
    
    After being here for four years, I am starting to think about going
    to Atlanta. Will I have to learn a whole new 'DEC culture' again?
    
    - John
    
    - John
    

    I agree with .17 it HAS slipped by.  It is not the DEC it used to
    be in the seventies when we had a centralized manufacturing system.
    De-centralization has brought about changes, the one product, one
    way philosophy has brought about changes, the Chief Financial officer
    from FORD Co. has brought about changes.
    
    BUT, these changes have put us into a better competitive positions!
    We are into markets we never looked at in the seventies.  We are
    selling solutions to business problems, not hardware. It is a better
    DEC to work for in the eigthies than it was in the seventies.
    
    From badge 42142.

I received this in my mail and thought it was appropriate to this topic...

(Posted here with the permission of the author.)

<... Many forwarding headers removed ...>

From:	CELICA::SUSSMAN      "Corporate Personnel, 251-1277" 26-JAN-1988 18:40

May I share some thoughts on DECulture:

All peoples think of themselves as the original People.  That's
good for their survival, for the development of their collective
ego structure, their skin toward the outside world.

A culture that is stable is one thing, but even that is increasingly
rare.  The Tasaday tribe in the Philippines was a hoax.  The Amish 
are being developed out of existence.  In the movie "The Gods Must
Be Crazy," the arrival of a Coke bottle disrupts the life of the
Bushman.

It may be instructive, if a bit startling, to use these examples.
Those are some of the parallels I see to our discussions of
Digital's culture.  DEC, the culture, is spoken of in tandem
with Core Values, in the same tone as one might speak of Moses 
coming down from the mountain carrying the stone tablets or in the
same way Australian aborigines chant about Dreamtime.

This tells me something about where Digital is, historically, in its
cultural self-reference.

We are at a time when the precepts of the Founders are harder to 
discern.  There was a time when everyone heard, shared, and created
the precepts at the same campfire, so to speak.  (In this case,
it was the same parking lot, the same bar, and the same woods
meeting.)  Then they were transmitted  by word of mouth, oral tradition, 
legends, parables, folklore, (memos) that served to elaborate, refine
and reinforce the Message.  This was the culture.

And fewer of us are carriers of the culture.  There are the elders of
the tribe, those of the First Generation, who have known no other way
of life than the one of Digital.  They are the Original People.  There
are the people who were close to them, like those who went on the Long
March with Mao.  They lived it and lived to talk about it.

There are those who don't know if they lived it or heard stories so 
vivid and appealing that they might as well have been there.  At any
rate, they have joined their history and memory to those of the 
Original People, and by extension they have perpetuated the stories.

This went on for some years.  I don't want to overdo it, but I don't
want to minimize it either.

But something happened, as it does to any culture that cannot remain
self-contained.  Its points of contact with the Barbarians increased,
and it became subject to the influence of forces beyond its control.
Its culture became a hybrid as other influences intermingled.

This is precisely the juncture at which psychic, political, 
institutional and social strain begins to show, and is reflected in all the 
artifacts of the culture--its music, its architecture, its religion, its
crafts...its products and processes.

When someone comes into Digital, we have an initiation rite.  We 
tattoo them: we give them a Badge.   This is like knowledge of the
secret handshake: it gives them Access to the Network.  I believe
this is the most coveted perk of belonging to Digital.  It is what
we guard most jealously.   It is what we defend with all our might.
It is our most valuable asset, the Ring (as in Wagner and Tolkien).

It is this that marks someone as part of the Society, the Brotherhood,
the Family.  Everyone else is Other, the outsider if not the
Competition.

It used to be, I surmise, that there was a more efficient process of 
bonding.  (Stories abound of encounters with KO.)

Be that as it may, for the past 3 years or so, Digital has been 
making new Badge-holders of some 25,000 people a year, or 100 a day.
I call these people immigrants.  I am one of them.  And it is increasingly 
the luck of the draw as to whether these newcomers subscribe to the
tenets of the Original People.

What this means is that the culture is not being transmitted in any
particular way.  The transmission is increasingly two-way.  It is my 
contention that Digital's culture (taken as the Founding Way) is subject 
at least as much to the Other Ways of the immigrants as they are subject 
to it.

This means that there are more people very new to Digital than there are
who were part of the Long March.   For an increasing number of Digital
employees, the clock-tower is unintelligible.  Some deeper things follow from
this:

* The culture is an amalgam.  It may be up for grabs.  
* There is no systematic, conscious, method of indoctrination/orientation.
* There are more people who might know the words, but not the tune.
* The self-presentation of Digital as a little New England mill town
  company is quaint, and also perhaps counter-productive.
* We do not have a grasp on our own reality any more.  (For example,
  there is no common knowledge of how many countries Digital operates in.)
* Digital HQ and Corporate functions can no longer get away with the
  worldviews, mindsets, career perspectives that once served them.
* Because there is less internalized acceptance and agreement on the
  precepts of the culture, we cannot count on them being exercised.
* The company cannot get away with its official assertions and levels
  of expertise going unchallenged, either by those who don't know the
  unwritten rules and pecking order, or by those who know different,
  and know better.
* Digital's culture is rapidly becoming a polyglot combination of its
  suppliers', customers', temporary and part-time employees', cultures as well.
* Digital's culture is increasingly taking on some of the characteristics
  of its competitors' culture.
* Digital's culture is increasingly not that of a little New England
  mill town company, and there is no way of cycling enough people through
  the Mother Church (the Mill) to inculcate in them the feel, and
  the spirit, of bygone days.

All of this adds up to a review of Digital's culture that recognizes
its new reality. Some would say the culture has been
watered down, that hallowed traditions are in danger of being lost.
Some would say it is more dynamic and pluralistic, which is a
fancier way of saying the same thing.
 
Many of the cliches about Digital no longer hold, and yet we hear 
people saying them. 

I happen to believe in some of the features of Digital that are parts
of its culture and I want them preserved and perpetuated.
I put it in different ways perhaps, but you must allow for my immigrant
dialect.  I think Digital (the collective super-ego) fosters what 
I call distributed autonomy.  This is, as most of these precepts are, a 
statement that operates on many levels.  Some people call this 
peer-to-peer communications.  It suggests a degree of self-direction, 
initiative, ability to contribute to an interdependent relationship, honesty, 
openness, trust, mutuality, self-knowledge, self-respect, generosity: it is 
a projection of the Founders' ideal.  

Not everyone is ready for this, or the consequences of it.

Digital has made a virtue out of necessity.  It makes people responsible 
for managing their own careers and for defining their jobs and for 
understanding the contribution of their work to the whole--as if that 
were knowable.  

Nobody, no institutional mechanism, is in place to do it for you.  This 
is unnerving for some people.  Most simply burrow into their cost center
of the moment and mind their own local piece of business.

People who can't function effectively in a setting of distributed
autonomy are dysfunctional to basic premises of the company, not only to the
premises of its internal organizational behavior, but also to the premises
of its external product strategy.  Yet there are such people.  

How are they acculturated?  And how do they act, dialectically, to 
acculturate others?

There are many examples that could be used.  My point is that this is
a two-way street.  What rubs off is a reversible equation.  The culture 
needs to figure out how to preserve itself even while it is changing.

    I think that .21 is beautifully expressed, but some exception might
    be taken.
    
    One of the most rewarding qualities of what is called the DEC culture
    is that it is not dogma.  So if times change, and if the "immigrant
    population" as you so felicitously call it serves as a
    cross-pollenator, it also is cross-pollenated, and what evolves
    is something that will continue to evolve.  But the central qualities,
    revolving around the individual being responsible for him/herself
    will, I believe, remain.  Of course, room must be left for hypocracy.
    DEC values are, in my opinion, estimable; the procedures by which
    they are often circumvented, detestible (but transparent, arrogant,
    and cowardly).

    I also would like to commend .21 on the eloquence of his response.
    To adequately address the points he makes, I need some time to digest
    the material, but let me make a few brief comments now. 
    
    I believe the DEC culture lives and endures. During the past 3 years,
    I have had the unique privelege of studying the DEC culture with
    one of the foremost authorities in the field of Organizational
    Behavior." His contention is that people often mistake culture with
    the surface manifestations of culture, i.e., the observables, the
    artifacts,etc. To really understand culture, you need to dig below
    the surface and get to the level of "fundamental assumptions" or
    "root values." It is really this level that determines culture.
    It is also true that fundamental assumptions do not change very
    easily.
    
    At the level of fundamental assumptions, I maintain that the DEC
    culture is the same as it was 10 years ago when I joined, and I
    suspect, it probably has the same fundamental assumptions as it
    did 30 years ago, as best I can tell from researching the literature
    from that period. 
    
    At any rate, the Digital culture endures and remains strong. Do
    we see it changing over time? Probably, but more likely in surface
    manifestations than in root values. 
    
    That's all I have time for now. I invite your comments.

    From a cursory glance of the directory listing this
    topic seems to be the best one to put my note in.
    
    1988 Salary & Opinion Survey�
    
    From Electronic Engineering Times October 17, 1988 Issue.
    
    YOU AND YOUR COMPANY
    
    COMPANIES YOU ADMIRE MOST 1988
    
    HEWLETT-PACKARD      51.4%
    IBM                  39.8%
    DIGITAL EQUIPMENT    16.5
    AT&T/BELL LABS       12.1%
    APPLE                10.8%
    GENERAL ELECTRIC      7.5%
    MOTOROLA              6.4%
    INTEL                 4.6%
    TEKTRONIX             4.2%
    TRW                   4.2%
    
    � (My comment) This survery was of the readers who responded 
      to them.  It should be read with a grain of salt.  For more 
      see referenced source.

    re: .24
    
    There seems to be quite a gap between the top two (HP and IBM)
    and Digital. Oh well, I guess that just means we still have
    a lot of room for improvement.
    
    Geoff

        Re: .25 - Re: .24
        
        	I wonder what DEC was in 1987?  We were probably where
        HP is this year.
        
        Times, oh how they change...

�            	I wonder what DEC was in 1987?  We were probably where
�        HP is this year.
�        
�        Times, oh how they change...
 
    The article mentions that ever since 1984 HP and IBM have been
    head to head.  They have shown a bar chart of that.  I will
    try to reproduce it here.  Only the numerical data will be 
    accurate due to limitations.
    
           HP VS. IBM 1984-1988
    
              * HP   o IBM
    
                                  11.6%
      LESS    LESS   LESS         *
      THAN    THAN   THAN  3.8%   *
       1%      1%     1%   *      *
        o     *        o   *      *
      * o     * o    * o   * o    *
      * o     * o    * o   * o    * o
      * o     * o    * o   * o    * o    
      * o     * o    * 0   * o    * o    
    _____________________________________
     1984    1985   1986   1987   1988