Conference 7.286::digital

>1.  Do we dare take this information at face value and exploit it at
>every opportunity to improve our own position?

How can we answer this question without knowing what was in the article?

2.  How would WE react if the actual contents of this conference or
a similar one was ever sent right to the media?

Some of us would be p*ssed, some would think it might cause some of the more
bizarre problems to be fixed, and some would ignore it and get on with things.

3.  Are we at risk of any of the same problems?

What problems?  See #1 above.

Bob

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            -<  IBM EMPLOYEES RESPOND TO JOHN AKERS' CRITICISMS >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright � Dow Jones & Co. 1991
Source: Press Release News Wire
Headline:  IBM EMPLOYEES RESPOND TO JOHN AKERS' CRITICISMS
Time: JUL 26 1991 1523


Story:

  MANHASSET, N.Y., July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Only weeks after an angry talk 
given by IBM chairman John Akers on the company's performance was publicized, 
IBM employees held an electronic "town meeting" to discuss his comments.  A 
digest of those comments have been obtained by InformationWeek and excerpts 
will appear in the publication's Monday, July 29, issue.

  While a few of the participants in the electronic meeting - ranging from 
veteran executives to rookie programmers...believe IBM is making good 
progress, a great many more are disappointed with their employer, according to 
the story, titled "Backlash."  IBM, the employees say, is made up of employees 
who are frustrated, middle managers who are too ambitious for the company's 
good, and senior executives who are out of touch.  They say IBM's products are 
high in price and low in quality. Cooperation between divisions is rare, it 
not nonexistent, and management's attention drifts far from customer concerns. 
 More than a few employees believe the root of IBM's problems is Akers himself.

  As the magazine reports, the electronic conference - or "forum," in IBM 
lingo - was started by an IBM manager in late May to give IBMers a chance to 
comment on Akers' talk.  Akers had made remarks earlier to an IBM Advanced 
Management Seminar; a manager who attended the class took notes and 
distributed them electronically to a group of colleagues. Those notes were 
later removed from IBM networks, but not before they had been publicized.

  Akers, the notes reveal, scolded employees for allowing IBM to lose market 
share, for missing deadlines, for being "too damned comfortable at a time when 
the business is in crisis," for traveling too much and wasting too much time 
in meetings, and for producing low-quality work.

  Akers would not comment directly on the employees' electronic forum. 
According to a company spokesman, he has already replied to the concerns 
through comments he made in a recent issue of Think, the company's in- house 
magazine.  In that article Akers said, "Many IBM employees are executing 
perfectly, but I think there are some people who are still working what they 
perceive as a `business as usual' environment."

  Following is a selection of comments IBM employees made in their electronic 
forum that will be published in InformationWeek:

  On John Akers:

  -- He has resorted to laying the blame for IBM's predicament on the 
shoulders of others.

  -- He has abandoned many of those things that have made IBM unique and have 
done a lot to earn industry respect over the years...If he won't take the 
responsibility for the empty politics and do-nothing performance of middle 
management, then who should?

  -- He has no results to show - worse, he has presided over the most serious 
erosion of everything that matters...He would be respected more if he were to 
resign.

  On IBM Management Practices:

  -- The current system rewards non-technical middle managers who always 
report good news, always make their dates irrespective of quality, and grow 
their local empire.

  -- Many of us in marketing are being asked to abandon all "strategic and 
long-term" projects and focus instead on increasing short-term revenue, while 
we simultaneously cut expenses by as much as 50 percent. That is the kind of 
thinking that must have Toshiba and our other Japanese competitors grinning 
from ear to ear.

  -- While we preach the new gospel of MDQ (market-driven quality), we treat 
the workers like dirt, managing not by wandering around but by terrorizing 
around.  "You do that right now or I will report you for insubordination!" (to 
an engineer who questioned a technical procedure)..."Speak English!  You are 
not supposed to speak a foreign language at work!" (to a Mexican-American 
worker talking to a co- worker)... "You'd better have those cards ready this 
afternoon, or you may be fired!" (to a temporary employee who was trying to 
learn how to perform a task correctly).

  On IBM Products:

  -- I was involved with a critical job to IBMize some public-domain code to 
meet marketing requirements.  The number of problems we found was 
unbelievable.  The product had already been announced, ship dates scheduled, 
etc., before we ever got it working.  I pointed out problems (but) nothing was 
done...in fact, the senior manager's stated attitude was: "Get it out the 
door, we don't have time to find, let alone fix, all the problems.  We'll fix 
them when/if a customer finds them and complains..."  My response was to go to 
Open Door (a formal complaint procedure within IBM)...I won't say there was a 
happy ending, because there wasn't.

  -- When speaking to some large banking and investment customers recently, I 
was told they perceived IBM's offerings as confusing-AS/400, 3090, ES/9000, 
PS/2, and RS/6000....How was IBM going to deal with workstations that could 
outperform their mainframes?

  On IBM And Its Customers:

  -- My customer, like IBM, is in deep financial straits.(sic).  What they 
"want" to do and "can" do are two completely different things.  We have a new 
project starting up that has a budget of $24 million for PC hardware.  Our 
"best" guess at the moment is that IBM hardware to meet the requirements will 
exceed this by some $9 million.  How am I supposed to tell my customer to go 
back to their CEO and say, "Oops, we underestimated by 28 percent?"

  -- Mr. Akers continues to put the needs of IBM stockholders ahead of the 
needs of IBM customers by focusing the attention of executives and employees 
on short-term profits and meeting schedules.

  -- In reading the (Akers) quotes, I didn't notice any concern for customer 
satisfaction, which is the only significant factor in IBM's continued 
existence.

  On IBM's Bureaucracy:

  -- The emphasis on MDQ (market-driven quality) hasn't done anything to 
change the way the Big Grey Cloud operates...When solutions do get proposed, 
they face resistance almost immediately.

  -- IBM's reputation among potential hires is very bad.  Most computer 
science students state they will never work for IBM.

  -- Too much empire building.  When I presented the completed work to my 
manager, he was furious that I did the work in four weeks instead of one year.

  -- I once had a manager who was afraid to make a decision about sending some 
paperwork to California (via) Federal Express when $30 million of revenue was 
at stake to the company.

  On the Need for Change Within IBM

  -- When the steam locomotive manufacturers tried to switch to diesel, not 
one of them managed to change their paradigms successfully. Each thought they 
knew best what their customers wanted and tried to ram it down their 
throats...If we can't figure out that the steam engine (mainframe, proprietary 
system, techie/politically driven planning) is one the way out, we will suffer 
the same fate -- making some of the most beautiful diesels (PCs, RS/6000s, 
OS/2 2.0, etc.) ever built, but dying nonetheless.

  -- Organizational problems...are crippling IBM's ability to deliver 
solutions...The OS/2 database resides in Austin.  The AS/400 database resides 
in Rochester.  These development groups do not report even with the same 
division, much less to the same person.

  -- This forum is the most amazing and hopeful thing happening ever. Many of 
us are discussing, thinking about things we had "archived" in our minds for 
too long.

  InformationWeek, published by CMP Publications Inc., is the weekly 
newsmagazine targeted directly at those executives who oversee the computer 
and communications systems in the county's largest corporations.  It has a 
national circulation of more than 170,000.

  /CONTACT:  Laton McCartney, editor-in-chief, 516-562-5427, or Peter Krass, 
senior writer, 212-686-7851, both of InformationWeek/
categoryIndustry I/CPR
categoryMarketSector M/TEC
categoryGeographic R/NME R/NY R/US
categoryCompany IBM

    Wow.  All in all, I'm glad I'm (still) working for Digital ...
    
    Steve

    If you take .3 and re-write it changing the names, it sounds like 
    Digital. An awful lot of people here and in conversations blame
    management, including KO, for the mess we're in. I've heard all
    the same comments about high prices, low quality, and poor customer
    service as well. I have no argument to say their wrong BTW. We have
    the same problems IBM does. Fortunately their management doesn't seem
    any more interested in fixing them then ours does.

    RE: .0 I don't see any room to take advantage of IBM's problems
    until we get our own house in order.

    I would hate to see this conference get into the hands of the press.
    It's no ones business but our own what is said here. In the past there
    have been trouble makers and people impressed with their own self
    importance who have taken messages (more from mail then notes) to
    the press. No good has come from it in the past and I don't see any
    point to it. Not while the motto of many managers continues to be
    "Protect the guilty and punish the innocent."

    		Alfred

    Re -1, agree strongly that's it's a perfect description of DEC, even
    including some badly needed resignations.
    
    Most interesting to me was the devastating view of muddle management.
    Is it something that gets in the ventilation system?

    That is an amazing article. I've out here in the field for 9 of the
    last 11 years. I've always hated, feared and respected IBM. 
    
    It strikes me as ironic. A few years ago, we at Digital were talking
    internally about how, by 2010 (or something), Digital would be bigger
    than IBM. A year or two before that, we were talking about how our
    Sales force had to become more like IBM's and less nerdy engineer
    order-takers.
    
    As I read that article, I recalled (probably inexactly) the quote about
    how you become that which you hate the most.
    
    To tell you the truth, though, I'm more interested to see how we (DEC
    and IBM) manage (if you'll pardon the pun) to get out of this hole.
    Perhaps both of us will, perhaps neither. Interesting times...
    
    - Larry.

    Re .2 and subsequent
    
    It does not surprise me that there is more in common between IBM and
    DEC in the present downturn than most people realize.
    
    Both DEC and IBM grew to their present prominence on what is now
    out-moded technology.
    
    The number of suppliers in the computer industry has exploded in the
    last ten years ending the oligopoly of old line computer vendors.
    
    There's nothing so hard to change as previously successful behaviour.
    
    And on Muddle Management:
    
    What it takes for an individual to succeed in an (established)
    organization is diametrically opposed to what it takes for the
    organization to succeed in a rapidly changing environment.

Very interesting reading, particularly from my perspective of having worked
for IBM 13 years ago and left that environment at that time to come here.

Most of the problems in .0, and the problems here, are a result of being a
large corporation:  upper management out of touch with customers and
the rank-and-file, middle management empire building, "corporate" out of
touch with the field, stifling of initiative.

Over the 11 years that I've been at DEC, I've watched the company's arteries
gradually harden as a natural consequence of our growing larger.  I have
always taken comfort in the fact that however bad the size-related problems
may be here, they are at least 10 times worse at IBM.  This memo vidicates
my belief.

IBM has run aground on the same shoals that we have.  It has taken them
longer to grind to a halt than us because of their sheer size.  Unfortunately
for us, IBM is culturally a much more regimented society than DEC is.  This
means that if their management does provide direction, they will tend to
snap to attention and get on with it.  The traditional DEC consensus-building
approach to management will tend to leave us floundering a lot longer while
everybody "buys into" the new corporate direction.  I much prefer Sculley's
approach of "lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way".

On the whole, I'd still rather be here than at IBM.

--PSW

    Anyone that counts IBM out is liable to wake up seeing stars.  It's
    still one most respected companies in the world,  and they have some
    of the smartest people in the world working for them.  As mentioned
    previously, many of their problems stem from being a gigantic company,
    but scads of other companies have died of these problems without ever
    becoming a fraction of the size IBM has attained.  DEC might end up
    being one of them.  IBM started taking it's medicine almost two years
    ago, whereas DEC has just swallowed the first couple of doses.
    
    While I enjoy working at DEC more that I would working for IBM (at
    least for now), I wouldn't have any qualms about investing money in
    them for the long haul, if I had any money to invest ...
    
    Geoff

    	re .4
    
>    If you take .3 and re-write it changing the names, it sounds like 
>    Digital. An awful lot of people here and in conversations blame
>    management, including KO, for the mess we're in. 
    
    	I'd only change one thing in the above:
    
    "... it sounds like DIGITAL NOTESFILE. ..."
    
    I don't think there as high a concentration of complainers/blamers
    within the company as there is in this conference.  I guess it
    just sort of collects here...
    
    	Joe Oppelt

    Well Joe,you know what flows downhill...DIGITAL notes file *is* at the
    bottom of the "notes hierarchy". (well,*near* the bottom...SOAPBOX is
    *at* the bottom)
    
    Ken

    I read the article in Information Week itself.  It was on two pages
    separated by a two page ad by IBM.  I wonder if IBM might not have
    been too dismayed that it appeared.  They generally don't let things
    like this out and pubs like Information Week don't generally publish
    them, especially with an ad between by the same company, unless the
    company does not object.  I wonder ...

    IBM announced this morning that they were eliminating a layer of
    managment effective immediately... hmmm.. i wonder if DEC will follow
    their lead?
    

    Maybe THAT'S why they allowed the "leak" about the dissatisfaction from
    the top and from the bottom.  The only ones not griping in the "leak" 
    were the middle managers.  Now that everyone agrees that IBM's woes are
    the fault of the middle managers they can send them out and their stock
    won't take a beating.  Imagine what would have happened if that tasty
    little rumor hadn't preceded it.  It might not have "made sense" to
    Wall Street.  Hmmm ...
    
    Steve

    Re: .13
    
    IMO, layer is not the problem in DEC. Take engineering for example,
    under VPs there are group managers, senior managers, managers, then
    supervisors. Five layers is not too bad. The problem is most of
    the managers don't have the job capacity described in the JEC to do. If
    you look more closely, you'll see the reporting structure is not
    strictly hierarchical. For example, many group managers have many group
    managers reporting to them. To me that's one of the major reasons, DEC
    has such a huge payroll to carry.
    
    I always think that VP should be a title, not a position. In other
    words, in company's organisation chart, certain boxes are identified
    with VP titles. Whoever assigned to those boxes will hold VP title
    together with certain amount of bonus, of course. For whatever reason,
    as soon as the person is out of the boxes, he/she is out of the VP
    title and bonus. If the company really wants to cut off management
    layers, the theory can apply to group manager as well.
    
    GF
     

    According to the LA Times this morning, the "layer of management" that
    was eliminated involved promoting a VP to the IBM equivalent of our
    Executive Committee. The VP's former reports (3, I think) now
    report directly to the President. The elevated VP previously reported
    to the President.
    
    Nobody lost their job. One VP was affected. Not extremely dramatic, IMHO.

    Aw ... nuts. 
    
    Steve

    
    	re.-2
    
    	i think that DEC could stand some flattening and perhaps some
    narrowing. By establishing a metric that would suggest that each
    manager have a minimum number of direct reports say 15 , one would
    strip away at the horizontal layers. I still see cases even under
    today's current economic climate of organizations that have org charts
    that are not very deep. Recently I have heard of an organization that
    had 8 direct reports and 1 manager. One of the eight was given a management
    title and now has seven direct reports. This new organization reports
    to a group manager who only has one other direct report. 
    sigh..... it just doesn't figure...