Conference 7.286::digital

    WW II only lasted 3 years 3 months? Oh boy, I never realised it
    finished in 1942.
    
    Sorry to be nit-picky, but DAMMIT! We're not just DEC/America!
    
    
    /andy/

    
    Re .-1, I would rather guess that an american perspective is that
    WW II started 1942 and ended 1945. After all, internal european
    quarrels can hardly be called a WW. semi-:-)
    
    /Ake

    Well, to prolong the nit, direct participation of US armed forces in WW
    II ran from December 1941 to August 1945. According to my arithmetic,
    that's 3 years and EIGHT months.  Oh, George! Can you help us out here
    with these WW II dates?

    And, of course, there were those individual Americans that enlisted in
    British and French armed forces as early as 1939 (particularly, "air"
    and sea forces).
    
    In a way, WWII may actually only be ending TODAY - as THE WALL comes
    officially down!

    
    You know, the last 4 reply's have been un-believable. I mean, if that's
    all the added value you can bring, well.....Let's just say ....well
    forget it.  You all make me sick. 
    
    
    Rick
    

    re .1-.4, as .0 points out, mistakes are a fact of life.  The analogy
    of WW II is still valid.  
    
    I have been very critical of dec management.  However, the past 2-3
    weeks have proved to me that I was (partially) wrong.  Dec management
    will turn this thing around.  For the first time in my time here, I
    am encouraged.  As Jack points out, there is no cost to small or too
    large, that it can't be looked at and cut, if not mission essential.
    Management IS on the right track.

    RE: .1
    
    >WW II only lasted 3 years 3 months? Oh boy, I never realised it
    >finished in 1942.
    
    >Sorry to be nit-picky, but DAMMIT! We're not just DEC/America!
    
    Hey, Andy, what can you expect from a country whose President thought
    Pearl Harbor was on September 7th?
    

    re: .0
    
    I'm confused.  Who wrote 1213.0?  It claims to be a memo from Jack
    Smith, Senior Vice President of Operations, but it reads like an
    article written by a reporter, refering to things said by Jack Smith.
    I wonder if 1213.0 is authentic.
        John Sauter

re .6
>     As Jack points out, there is no cost to small or too
>     large, that it can't be looked at and cut, if not mission essential.
>     Management IS on the right track.

....now if they would only tell us what the mission (i.e., vision) is....

>                    <<< Note 1213.5 by WJOUSM::PAPPALARDO >>>
>                           -< Do DEC a favor, Quit. >-
>    You know, the last 4 reply's have been un-believable. I mean, if that's
>    all the added value you can bring, well.....Let's just say ....well
>    forget it.  You all make me sick. 
    
    Rick,
		you may not appreciate just how utterly fed up the
    ethnocentricity of DEC's senior management makes a lot of non-US
    employees. 
    
    	Value the difference, chum, or quit yourself.

    /andy/

RE: .8

    It's my  guess  that  that article comes from a "Management Memo",
    and  claims  to  speak  for  Jack Smith. It is interesting that it
    jumps  from  first  to third person, with the first person writing
    sounding more personal and the third person more official.

--David

    So let's all crucify Jack Smith for his horrible sin of 'ethnocentricity' 
    (more like 'americacentric'; after all, the Smith name would seem to 
    trace it's origin from a rather Anglo-Saxonish ethnicity).
    
    The tone of comments in this conference lately is frightening.  We're 
    headed for the falls in a barrel and the only thing many seem to be
    able to talk about is that their hair might get mussed.
    
    C'mon guys (and I don't mean to be gendocentric 8*) ), put aside the
    petty gripes and be constructive.
    
    Al
    

    The crisis in communication in Digital is over content and style.

    When "style" is poor, it's really obvious to all.  As Andy points out,
    gaffe after gaffe happens that shows that top management's concerns are
    greater Maynard area-based and secondarily United States-based.  In
    fact, it's gotten to the point where seeing at least one of these
    errors in sensitivity to the international Digital employee population
    is routine.  Top management can't be excused for not having the
    political savvy to realize this.

    The solution

    Increase revenue, lower cost, and start charging for value-added
    service.  Well, excuse me, what's an example of a valued-added service
    that we don't charge for and could without affecting any other aspect
    of our business?

    Focus on the small stuff

    The criticism that focusing on the small stuff demonstrates a lack of
    concern for the big stuff is a valid criticism.  It'll stop when the
    big stuff is addressed.  Until then it's "reactive" and properly so.

    "Porches"

    The analysis is faulty.  Digital has constituencies that will fight to
    the death to place the label "foundation" on a "porch".  The key to
    solution in the memo was that the porch-builder had no accountability
    to the porch only pride in it, accountability was to the family.  The
    clarity of the _options_ Digital has doesn't exist, nor are we willing
    to let the marketplace decide and cancel the products that don't meet
    the challenge of the marketplace.   Even once once a "porch" is
    identified, who controls the demolition? No, we haven't learned one of
    the important lessons of the Rainbow.

    All this and World War too

    The Allied side had generals who were willing to try things that
    ultimately were errors, fatal errors.  But so were the Germans.
    What was the real difference between the generals?

    Eisenhower had the support of the Commander-in-Chief and Ike was
    delegated real power. Eisenhower in turn delegated to Bradley and in
    turn to Patton and he in turn to division commanders.  Hitler on the
    other hand overrode the generals in the field, issued orders not to
    retreat, meddled in trivial orders and completely destroyed the morale
    of his officers.  His best, Rommel, joined the assassination plot.

    I was encouraged by Jack Smiths 'communication', it was honest and to
    the point, not so common these days.
    
    As a European in 1990 the WWII date arguement is stupid, this weeks
    folks there will a new united Gernmany third only to the US and
    Japanese economies, and in under 2 years there will be a United Europe.
    
    Digital at this moment is a 'Computer Company' and as such, in
    my opinion to really push ahead again will have to produce the
    equivalent of the PDP for years 2000 and beyond.
    
    I hope we are seriously looking at small very powerfull portable
    computer/communication systems.
    
    If we are not we will 'stall'
    
    Salut
    Dom

    re: .12 I *am* very constructive indeed in my approach. Occasionally
    I'm as liable to a knee-jerk reaction as anyone else.
    
    Second, I found the memo in .0 to be confusing in the way that it is
    written and the ideas that it tries to present. As Pat points out in
    .13, Generals that destroy their line of command to 'take charge'
    don't always achieve the desired results.
    
    The problems in DIGITAL today largely stem from 3 things, of which #1
    is by far the biggest problem:
    
    	1) Cost of Sales: our sales organisation is top heavy and confused
    	   by the fact that we are in the business fo selling systems, not
    	   just hardware. Sales just aren't set up for that yet - and
    	   incidentally neither are the vast majority of our Senior Management
    	   many of whom think in hw terms and don't understand that todays
    	   market means that selling hardware makes us little money in
    	   comparison to software and services.
    
    	2) Poor price/performance of our hardware in comparison to our
    	   competition, something that we will begin to address in the 
    	   near future.
    
    	3) The "Open Systems"/U*IX market is one that we make no money on
    	   today. Yet time and again we take resources away from profitable
    	   business in order to look good for the market. 
    
    
    /andy/

The last guy to speak in parables also walked on water, which is one feat
I do not expect soon from our management any time soon. Though, they're
probably "workin' on it".

    
                      "My other veranda is a porch."
    

	re .10,.12:

	I admit that the length of World War II is a rathole
	with reference to Jack Smith's actual subject. But it is a
	perfect example of the American isolationist way of
	thinking in its purest form, as exhibited quite
	naturally by the man who is in day-to-day charge of
	Digital Equipment Corporation.

	Many of us have had occasion more than once to point
	out that it is really bad news for the leaders of a
	multinational corporation to behave as if it was an
	American corporation - especially when the USA is
	less than half of their business and dropping
	steadily. As a parallel, how would the USA fare if
	the President and everyone in the White House
	consistently ignored everything West (or East) of
	the Mississipi?

	My first reaction to the "3 years and some months"
	remark was pure shock. I thought "my 11-year old
	knows better than that - what sort of ignoramus
	is this guy?" Then I got thinking and quickly
	realized what had happened.

	Here's a test question, just to see what all you
	guys think: if Jack Smith is capable of totally
	ignoring a war which consumed the whole of Europe
	(including Russia) for 3 years, and which could
	easily have led to the disappearance of the UK, France,
	Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Austria,
	Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria,
	Albania, Greece, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt (at least)
	from the map...

	...how much attention is he likely to pay to the
	opening of the Warsaw Pact countries to Western
	trade, or the single European market of 1992?

	I have just spent the best part of four days getting
	together a proposal for Digital UNIX(tm) workstations,
	which required collecting information on several third
	party products. My desk is littered with reports,
	directories, catalogues, white papers etc., generated
	within Digital, none of which gives me all the information
	I need. A major reason for this is that most of the
	work was funded in the USA and therefore is US-oriented.

	Here's a simple example. One of these lists refers to a
	C++ compiler sold by Oasys. People have been known to
	search (in vain) for Oasys in Europe, and give up. Yet
	the product is actually written and sold by a company
	called Glockenspiel, in Dublin, Republic of Ireland.
	But because the report was commissioned, funded and
	written in America, it only mentions Oasys - Glockenspiel's
	US distributors!

	Multiply this simple example by several thousand, and you
	have a gross distortion of the corporation's business
	posture. Many person-years are being routinely wasted by
	doing things first for the USA, then for Europe, then for
	each country - and getting things wrong, introducing delays,
	confusing people, at every stage.

	/Tom

    I don't usually pipe in on these kind of p*****g contests, but the fact
    that Jack's memo contains incorrect historical references and is 
    jingoistic is tantamount to the people of Rome complaining about 
    Nero's off-tune fiddling while Rome burned.
    
    The world is tumbling down around us folks.  Getting Jack to choose
    better or more appropriate metaphors or take a history lesson isn't
    going to solve the real problem at hand.

	I agree with .19.  I've read through these replies and am totally amazed
that there has been more discussion correcting the reference to WWII than there
is discussion about what Smith is talking about.

	Where would you prefer for everyone (not just Smith, but every employee)
to spend their time -- worrying about if everything they say or write is
historically impeccable and perfectly internationalized or worrying about how to
make Digital a more profitable company?  We can't ignore international issues,
but come on, we can't look *only* at the internationalization issues to the
detriment of everything else and totally dismiss a memo because it doesn't
meet up with your definition of "properly internationalized".

	Sheeze, sad to say, it wouldn't suprise me to see someone put a reply
in here complaining that Smith's memo was not originally issued in Swahili.

								-craig

    I think the Europeans are correct in their feelings of outrage.  I
    was stopped in my tracks by Smith's statement, and amazed at his
    lack of sensitivity.
    
    BTW, .18, we DO have a President and White House staff, not to mention
    the whole Congress, who totally ignore everything outside of the
    so-called "Belt Way".  (That's a highway system surrounding D.C.)

    You are missing the point entirely. Important decisions have to be made
    in the fullest possible knowlege of how they will affect the prospects
    of the corporation. No-one is asking for "perfect internationalisation"
    here - what worries me (and others) is that the memo in .0 illustrates
    an incomplete and restricted view of the corporation.
    
    As said, lets not get into pissing contests - I've provided my
    suggestions here and elsewhere as to the way ahead for the corporation
    to succeed.
    
    
    /andy/

    re last few
    
    Yep, we don't do a good job of presenting DEC internally or externally
    as an international company.  
    
    Pardon me while I get philosophical. 
    
    I am not surprised.  I suffer from a not-so-rare mental disease.  It's
    called out-of-sight, out-of-mind.  I rarely think of any person I
    haven't seen in the past few days.  My wife thinks I am insensitive,
    cold, and a few other things, but the fact is I fill my life with the
    people and things I live among, not memories of those past.  As
    self-protection against this tendency, I schedule myself to physically
    visit the business units I support on a regular basis. 
    
    Extrapolating from this, I would be surprised by, (and would admire) any
    business executive who can make sensible decisions for a part of his
    organization that (s)he does not physically visit or make direct
    communication with.
    
    Bottom line - Managers must have real contact with their organizations,
    not just the abstract reporting relationships.  Best thing for
    internationalization would be to move the offices of vip's around from
    time to time.  (or move the responsibility to senior managers remote
    from greater Maynard).

    
    Key feedback on DVN:
    
    The majority of call-in questions revolved around the same issue,
    stated in different ways:  There are fundamental problems impeding
    employee involvement, real participation, good ideas and programs
    getting truly implemented, and effective change.  One cause expressed
    by many seemed to be bloated bureaucratic management who did not care.
    
    When asked specifically if MANAGERS "should resign" who do NOT support
    employee involvement programs and encouraging employees to create
    ideas, Jack Smith said, "YES."  He also said management structural
    changes may be weeks away as time is running short.
    
    Jack invited feedback on the DVN and repeatedly said he wasn't real
    sure "what the problem was."  Enlighten Jack, everyone.  Send a memo.
    
    TO: Jack Smith @CORE
    

    
    re: -1
    
    Jack may have been referring to how long the United States was in the
    war, although I would not know if it was indeed 3 years and 3 months.
    
    Anyway, big deal. Everyone makes a mistake. He doesn't get paid to
    be a history buff, he gets paid to be an effective Digital employee.
    
    /prc

I did not see a DVN broadcast yesterday. What I did see was a tape of a
broadcast that took place at some other time. I'm not sure when that was.
I know it was supposed to have been last Friday when I was on vacation,
but when it actually occured is unknown to me. The tape was not dated.

But what's in .0 is quite clearly a transcription of what Jack said in the
broadcast, almost word for word in some instances and I didn't see Jack
reading any script. The only differences I saw in .0 were the grammatical
corrections for the few times that Jack used "don't" when he should have
used "doesn't" or "didn't".

Does anyone know when this broadcast actually was staged?

-Jack

    As far as I know yesterday's broadcast was actually live (someone I
    know was one of the callers); Mr. Smith must have prepared some of his
    answers ahead of time (since it would be easy to guess what questions
    were likely!) and given them to Mgmt Memo or whatever that quote in the
    other note came from.  At least there was more content than the last
    one of these DVN broadcasts, although a lot of us wondered where KO himself
    was!
    
    My husband (works in LKG) was utterly incensed at the WW II analogy;
    most of his grandparents' generation died in the gas chambers in
    Germany and Poland before "the war" started (by American terminology -
    before US involvement started) - his outrage is compounded by one of
    the local radio stations planning to air a program next week where the
    featured speaker is going to be some history-rewriter who claims that
    there was no such thing as Buchenwald... the radio station happens to
    be airing this program on the eve of a Jewish holiday, to boot!  At any
    rate, WW II definitely did not start when the US got involved in it!
    And plenty of US tactical mistakes were made long before this country
    was involved, such as suppressing information about what was happening.
    
    Not that WW II really has much to do with what is happening in this
    company today.  After all, if the average employee is approximately my
    age, most of us were not yet born in those days anyhow!
    
    /Charlotte
    I just hope that whatever reorganizations are going to take place take
    place soon, so the remaining people can get back to work and stop
    looking over their shoulders to see if "the package" is gaining on
    them!  Drawing out the process not only fails to save money, but ruins
    morale.  My friends at Wang and DG all look pretty shell-shocked
    (uh-oh, WW II analogies again) these days; not much work going on in
    those outfits anymore, other than photocopying of resumes.

    re .26, and others.  It is a "big deal" how the #2 man in a major
    world-wide corporation, handles himself in such a public forum.  We
    Americans have a bad enough reputation for our ignorance of the world
    around us, and its history, without having it compounded by such a
    senior personage.  He should have some kind of a PR person to look
    his stuff over.  I noticed the grammatical errors too.

	I can't help but feeling that we're seeing "Europa-centric" views as
being pass off as the "international" views.  Continuing the WWII example, many
historians believe that WWII really started when Japan invaded Manchuria, *not*
when Germany invaded Poland or even when Germany annexed part of Czechoslovakia.
But was Japan or Manchuria ever mentioned in these complaints about Smith's
recollection of history?  No, the complaint is that *Europe's* part was ignored.
If the complaints are that our upper management is too America-centric, trying
to replace it with a Europa-centric view gets us no closer to being truly
internationalized.  Europa-centricity is as wrong as America-centricity.

								-craig

       Well, I was never one for getting all excited about speeches. You
    know, growing up in the sixties, listening to the Viet Nam stuff from
    the Johnson, Nixon and all the other quilty parties. Teaches one to
    wait and see what happens. Not that I'm apathetic, just a bit of a
    cynic that needs to see it in action. Lot of groups around being cut to
    the bone, but on the other hand there are a lot individuals and entire
    groups that keep on spending like nothing is happening. Justified by
    the statement "Hey it will bring is business". Bull, prove it first,
    then spend the money.
    
    Gotta stop, I'm getting to stressed just thinking about it.
    
    Dave

re Note 1213.32 by DELREY::MEUSE_DA:

>     Justified by
>     the statement "Hey it will bring is business". Bull, prove it first,
>     then spend the money.
  
        Is "prove it first" the solution, or the problem?

        There are very few decisions in business that can be proved
        correct beforehand.  Requiring business proposals to be
        proved winners before they are undertaken sounds like the
        equivalent to avoid risk, do only the sure thing.

        Isn't that something of which we already have too much?

        Bob

    re .28
    I'm not sure what you saw on videotape yesterday, but .0 is verbatim
    Jack's opening remarks during yesterday's DVN - or at least, up to the
    part about the porch.
    
    re .6 BAGELS::CARROLL
    I'm curious to know what it is during the last 2-3 weeks that has
    changed your mind about DEC's management.
    

    Damn it, that's not what I meant, and maybe I should clarify it.
    
    This is an example, and is a true story;
     
    Person in marketing, one of the team, flies back east. Spends a week
    and all the parties connected with the account wonder what he is doing.
    Even the customer wonders what he is doing. 
    
    He isn't doing a damn thing, except wasting money. 
    
    Let me make this clear, he keeps doing this type of thing, and nobody
    puts a stop to it.
    
    Another example:
    
    One group is working the account, another groups thinks its their
    business and goes after it. Problem gets corrected but only after the
    customer has screamed "what the hell is going on with you people"
    
    These are only two examples, this is going on all over Digital and it
    is why we are in trouble.
    
    Dave
    

    
    re: .35
    
    It's great that you share such a true story with us, but I think
    jack would be interested in hearing it also.
    
    /prc

    Seems to me that what's being said in these notes illustrates many of
    our core problems ... like:
    
    1. We are a slovenly culture.  Our standards of excellence aren't low -
    they just don't exist.  We think that goodness is something we can
    paint on the outside like an actor paints on make-up.  We don't
    understand that "excellence" starts from the smallest detail out - and
    that includes how we treat each other - manager to subordinate, peer to
    peer, etc.  [Never thought I, a child of the 60s, would ever be
    supporting standards.  But certain standards DO make things go a lot
    smoother - you're not alwaystruggling to have the smallest detail n go
    right.  I've been told many times in Digital to lower my standards,
    often on the easiest standards for an organization to maintain.]  Seems
    we're so afraid of a little discipline or uniformity that we'd let it
    all go down the tubes before we'd give it a REAL try.
    
    2. The old "practice makes perfect" could get us turned around.  Not
    that we'll attain perfection, but that's of little concern.  We are so
    far from perfection that there's nothing to fear.  What we must fear is
    "do as I say, not as I do,"  which seems to prevail at all levels, in
    all functions.  Yes, in our culture is it exhausting and often
    dangerous to DO the right thing - so we often don't.  A few times I've 
    caught myself just going along with the tide when I knew better - but I
    didn't like it then and I don't like it now.
    
    3. Use common sense.  It is really flabbergasting how little common
    sense we exercise.  Perhaps one thing that makes us avoid using common
    sense is that it often doesn't support what we want to hear.  What do I
    mean by common sense?  Lots of things from "if I were a customer, how
    would I REALLY view this" to "if I do this, what else could happen?"  I
    guess what we call stove-pipe thinking inhibits common sense.
    
    Well, yes; these are generalizations.  But they seem to be generally
    true.  I don't see how we can continue to avoid addressing these core
    cultural elements and still succeed through these trying times.  Each
    of us, as individuals, needs to exercise all the common sense, demand
    certain standards of excellence and practice what we preach.  I'm
    trying but it does get exhausting and sometimes painful.  I know some
    of you are in the same boat.  Please keep at it though, it may be the
    thing that saves Digital when Japan really decides to compete with us!

Jack Smith may not be a history buff, but I rather think he knows what's 
happening in Europe. He spent a summer on exchange at EHQ in the early eighties,
and he is a member of the European Board of Directors. I suspect this latter
body keeps Jack very much informed with what's happening in the European IT 
market  and especially the impact of the significant events that surround us 
today.

We are a global company and Jack is not necessarily piloting solo from his 
office. The Area management teams in place have a very large autonomy, for
as long as they do things right. And DEC Europe has been doing things right for
a while now.

(Moreover, Europe has been building the management skills and business acumen to
assure its continued economic success without outside intervention. America must
reassess its relationship with Europe, before Europe takes the iniative to 
do the same in reverse. Already, we Americans have lost considerable credibility
due to a steady decay of quality and values in many spheres. We have much 
ground to recuperate and Europe is not waiting around any longer to be shown 
the way.) 

There are many programs that have been piloted successfully in DEC Europe for
later implementation in the US. In the area of Consulting Services alone I
can name a number of methodologies which were bred here. Yet, thier exportation
stateside has not be trouble free. In the instances where I 
played a role in this "methodology transfer", after the initial enthusiam, 
I did not see much in the way of implementation. (NIH Syndrome?) These Services 
are essential to selling total system solutions in a complex IT environment. 
I can only suggest that the New World takes a lesson to heart from the Old. 
You have the talent - now all you need is a childlike acceptance of new ideas 
which was once so prevalent an attribute of our culture.

Tony (Unabashedly American)

    
    I don't think .30 need feel too ashamed. I have just returned to the 
    UK after a three year relocation in France during which time many of
    my prejudices etc about "the French" were put right, proving just how
    ignorant I was! 
    
    What worries me about J.S. memo was not the historical error itself
    but the insensitivity of using WWII as an analogy AT ALL. Consider that
    the vanquished parties in WWII are now the second and third largest
    economies in the world, hardly insignificant for Digital's business.
    
    The 'French experience' gave me a broader view so I am not so 'little
    England' oriented now. Where I think we (Digital) could learn from the
    Japanese, Germans, French etc is that in their organisations it is
    compulsary for senior managers to have spent some years working
    overseas. I have a German friend working for Bayer, he says that if any
    German from Liverkusen (Bayer WW HQ) aspires to a European level
    management position they MUST have completed a two year relocation in
    another European country. Likewise, a candidate for a corporate
    management job must have worked in USA, Far East as well as Europe.
    
    1992 is forcing us to have a European rather than UK, French or German
    view, US folks have such a huge country they don't get out of it very
    often and they don't have to worry about other languages,so its harder 
    for them to have anything but an America-centric view.
    
    As .24 says, fluency in a language or mind set is at the subconcious
    level, many of our senior (US based) managers in Digital seem not to
    have internalised the fact that we are a multi-national organisation
    and that when they address "Digital" they are talking to people of many
    nationalities and cultures.
    I would like to know how many of our corporate leaders have worked
    overseas (not just a few months, but two or more years) and how many
    of them can speak another language? 
    
    Dave