Conference 7.286::digital

    nasty little details like
    
    - product XXXXXXXX (from **big** ISV) just does not work to expected 
      and (in trust of excellence) from us to customers committed quality
    - it takes ages to get an signed order processed
      (sometimes even longer to get it delivered to the customer!)
    - still lots of confusion about the responsibilities in the new
      org. structure
    
    also, just because the picture is so well, customers expect wonderous
    things, and just get very good ones....
    the competition isn't getting nicer to us....
    
    the list goes on and on. So, what to do? I decided for myself: go on.
    Work on the details. Try not to solve the whole thing, since, as you
    pointed out in .0 the picture is nice. Just pick one single grain of
    sand out of the gear, every one counts. The next grain should be easier
    to reach.
    
    FWIW, Christoph 
                   

    The "propagation delay" of the SLT messages reaching the field, and
    the "garbled" nature of the "communication" link may be a cause.
    
    
    	fred deady

    re: <<< Note 2655.0 by ICS::DONNELLAN >>>
    
>    If our technology is really that strong, and our organizational
>    structure the envy of the industry (even IBM supposedly will mimic our
>    customer focused structure), then we should be very excited and proud
    
    While on paper, our organization might look like it's focused on the
    customer, in real life everybody is still navel-gazing.  In real life,
    it's "How can we fiddle the utilization and expense numbers?", not
    "How can we resolve this customer's problem?"
    
    The organization may have changed, but the same names in middle
    management keep showing up, and the same old business practices
    still apply.  I doubt that our fortunes will really change, until
    such time as top managment demonstrates a real commitment to 
    changing middle managment practices.  Maybe by even (gasp) firing
    a few managers for non-performance or mismanagment??
    
    Geoff

    The field is confused.
    
    The S/R's (of which I'm one) are not sure of their territories.  The
    CBU's are scrambling to grab any thing that looks like theirs.  The
    comp plan is deplorable.  We've got management telling us how great
    it's going to be, but our paychecks are showing we owe the company
    money.  We (all of us) have been beat about the head for years and now
    this new organization is so confused that you just feel like giving up.
    You call one of your support people and they have either been TFSO's,
    jumped ship, or "I don't do that any more.  And I'm not sure what I
    do."
    
    And, other companies know this and they are making offers.  In earlier
    times we wouldn't even look, but now???
    
    Ken

I guess this was the first I'd heard that "our organizational
structure [was] the envy of the industry". Perhaps I just haven't
been following closely enough.

-Jack

    
    Re: .0
    
    > If our technology is really that strong, and our organizational
    > structure the envy of the industry (even IBM supposedly will mimic our
    > customer focused structure), ...
    
    It's simple.  Those leaving in droves and those with very low morale
    see clearly that the technology and organization were never the
    problem.  The wrong things have been "fixed".  The broken things are
    still broken.
    
    Steve
    
    

    - Try a grinding, squeeze the blood out-of-a-stone, all consuming cost
    slashing mentality that has forgotten the OTHER SIDE of the balance
    sheet. Still having to scrounge for post-its, etc. Tends to make one not
    "feel" that the company really believes it's speeches & so the
    insecurity mounts, eating the confidence in the company which any sales
    person needs undergirding them so they can concentrate on & anticipate
    success in their task.  Or...we just got a brand new fleet of tanks but
    there's no food and we're freezing to death; the army marches on it's
    stomach.

    	Bill Strecker has been giving presentations to engineering groups.
    These are called "communication meetings," and we had ours last week. I
    was hoping this would be the much-needed pep talk and at least a little
    clarification of the software strategy (mostly what we'd like to hear
    in ZKO). There was supposed to be a presentation followed by a question
    and answer period.
    	The presentation was much longer than I expected - two hours
    roughly. It reviewed a lot of stuff we've heard before from BP DVN
    broadcasts and the like...the new organization, customer focus, etc. I
    guess they want to drill the point home. There was stuff about the
    product strategy that clearly revolved around
    Alpha....chips...systems...whatever would make money. Like BP, Bill
    openly stated where we have problems and what we need to do to turn
    those problems around. Unfortunately, a lot of the problem-fixing was
    stated in the future tense...like "What we'll need to do..." or "We'll
    be doing this..." A lot of it was vague and stuff we've been hearing
    for a while...only nobody is actually doing it.
    	Some interesting points were made as well. In the software space,
    for everything we do, there's niche company out there who can do it
    better...They pump more resources into it, are more clearly focused,
    and we can't compete...This is across the board...Then he went on to
    say our strength in software is being able to conceptualize complex
    systems and solutions, that we could help customers solve complex
    problems, buying out pieces that make sense and developing software
    which we can do better (only he'd just previously said that everything
    we do is being done better by somebody else). When asked later on how
    many software people were needed for this strategy, he responded that
    the number we had now was about right...unless we lose more
    money...then we'll need less. Kind of a crap shoot if you ask me.
    	The longer people stayed at the meeting, the more depressed they
    were when they left. I didn't see anyone "pumped up" by the meeting.
    I'll let people here correct me if my perspective was darker than
    others'. In summary, some good things to say but too little on the
    strategy and on specifics that we're in the process of implementing.

re Note 2655.8 by STAR::DIPIRRO:

>     	Some interesting points were made as well. In the software space,
>     for everything we do, there's niche company out there who can do it
>     better...They pump more resources into it, are more clearly focused,
>     and we can't compete...This is across the board...Then he went on to
>     say our strength in software is being able to conceptualize complex
>     systems and solutions, that we could help customers solve complex
>     problems, buying out pieces that make sense and developing software
>     which we can do better (only he'd just previously said that everything
>     we do is being done better by somebody else). When asked later on how
>     many software people were needed for this strategy, he responded that
>     the number we had now was about right...unless we lose more
>     money...then we'll need less. Kind of a crap shoot if you ask me.
  
        I'm sorry -- this is just so much self-serving justification
        for doing only what software engineering management wanted to
        do (or felt it had to do) anyway.

        If it is true that "for everything we do, there's [a] niche
        company out there who can do it better" then there is no
        reason to think that it isn't true for "being able to
        conceptualize complex systems and solutions".

        There is no advantage in bigness for conceptualizing complex
        systems and solutions.  Small teams can be very good at
        architecting and designing complex systems.  However, it would
        appear that big organizations are more prone to devise
        complex systems and solutions -- even to simple problems.

        In fact, Digital does have some reputation for products that
        are more complex than the competition.  This is a weakness,
        not a marketable strength!


>   	The longer people stayed at the meeting, the more depressed they
>     were when they left. I didn't see anyone "pumped up" by the meeting.
>     I'll let people here correct me if my perspective was darker than
>     others'. In summary, some good things to say but too little on the
>     strategy and on specifics that we're in the process of implementing.

        Until about two months ago I was in software engineering and
        was (peripherally) involved in the strategy planning process. 
        From what I saw, I am not surprised by your report.

        Bob

    
    There was one spot fairly well into the meeting that woke me up. I know
    the words "marketing" amd "inept" were spoken in fairly close
    conjunction, but I was a little fuzzy at the time. I think Bill also
    promised we'd see a large change in advertising fairly soon.
    
    Other than that, a rather long rehash of the same old information...
    

I'm pretty familiar with the presentations Bill Strecker has been doing
for the past six months and I did hear a couple of new things this time,
mostly as a result of the Q&A part of the session.�

In response to a question along the lines of "When can we stop
worrying about our jobs and get back to work?", Bill's answer was
that: 

 a) you can never say never, 
 
 b) the target of the Engineering layoffs was a Research and Engineering
    budget that is about 9% of corporate revenue, down from about 13%�, 

 c) that goal has been achieved,

 d) Bob Palmer was pleased with Engineering's performance of this
    gut-wrenching task, and

 e) Bill expressed some satisfaction that the layoff targets were
    reached in 8 months, as opposed to the much longer time that layoffs
    have been going on in the Field and Manufacturing.

However, he also pointed out that the figure of 9% is a ratio, and that
Engineering can control only the numerator of that ratio. So if
Corporate revenue declines, so will the Engineering budget (I don't
think anyone found that surprising).

Bill was asked whether all this talk of "focusing" in fact meant more
layoffs for people who work in areas where we will _not_ focus. Bill
said that was not the case, and that he really wanted "focus" to mean
putting existing resources behind fewer endeavors. An immediate
follow-up comment was, "You realize that this will require massive
retraining, and that our training function is all messed up."

Bill expressed qualified agreement and even provided some numbers. He
said Digital actually spends more money on training than many of our
comparable competitors -- and that we need to get more value for that
money. He said Digital offers 4,500 individual courses. [! -- JP]

[Note also that Bob Palmer and the SLT have recently asked Hope
Greenfield to consolidate and focus Digital's development and learning
efforts across the corporation.  Sam Fuller has asked Tom Gannon and
Engineering education groups to help this effort by identifying
Engineering's human development needs and begin addressing them.-- JP]

Bill also commented that there was only so much "focusing" (per unit
time) that an Engineering organization can do before things start to
fall apart due to unmet commitments/dependencies on  groups that
disappear. And he said that for this reason, he thought Engineering had
done about as much focusing as it could for right now.

Another interesting question and answer went as follows. Q: "Why should
we believe we are serious about UNIX this time?" A: "Because we now have
a CEO who is dead serious about succeeding with UNIX, and we've never
had that before."

My take was that Bill Strecker is a stand-up kind of person. He spent
two hours describing how we got where we are and where we are going from
here (yes, much of this has been heard before but I'll bet much of the
audience had not had the opportunity to hear it direct from the source).

He took some tough questions without flinching (or looking as though he
wanted to shoot the messenger) and he said he would stay around to
answer questions for as long as people wanted to ask them. I had to
leave at about 5:30 and Bill was still there was among a group of 15-20
people.

JP


�Questions and answers are paraphrased, to the best of my recollection.
 In the past I've provided verbatim transcripts from my own recording of
 such sessions, but medical problems have caused me to cut back on typing
 so I couldn't do that this time. I'm trying to get such a transcript
 via other means (and a video tape, if possible) and if I succeed, I'll 
 post pointers here.

�Bill said the 9% target figure was derived in two ways: First, the
 competitor  most like us is HP, which has an R&E budget of about 9%
 of their revenue. So, if the current "darling of the industry" can
 attain that status on 9% of revenue, why should anyone invest in a
 company that spends 13% of its revenue and doesn't do as well? 

 Second, the different market segments in which Digital participates have
 very different R&E budgets (e.g. printers, terminals and peripherals
 vendors tend to invest about 3%-4% in R&E while software vendors tend to
 invest about 13% on average). But if you do a weighted average of our
 presence in these market segments, it again comes out to about a total
 R&E budget of about 9% of revenue.
    

    
    One thing seemed fairly clear to me after listening to Bill Strecker
    here at LKG. After all was said and done it seemed obvious that our
    main failing in most everything we undertake is marketing. We have some
    very good products but fail to effectively deliver the message. Just
    open up an issue of PC magazine and count the ad's from Digital. I
    don't know about you, but all I see are ad's for Pentium/ Gateway
    2000/Zeos/Dell /everyone else. Every now and then an "Imagine" ad will
    appear in the Wall St. journal. This is not to suggest that PC magazine
    and others like it are the only vehicles one uses to reach a particular 
    market but it is a rather substantial one just the same. 

re Note 2655.11 by SEND::PARODI:

> �Bill said the 9% target figure was derived in two ways: First, the
>  competitor  most like us is HP, which has an R&E budget of about 9%
>  of their revenue. So, if the current "darling of the industry" can
>  attain that status on 9% of revenue, why should anyone invest in a
>  company that spends 13% of its revenue and doesn't do as well? 
  
        Well, one possible reason that we would need to out-invest HP
        is that we have to catch up.  When you're behind isn't
        investment parity one way of ensuring that you stay behind?

        (Although why anyone would have faith that we would indeed
        use the resources this way is beyond me.)

        Bob

    re .12

    I don't disagree about Digital's marketing prowess, but in re your
    comments about PC Magazine ... for the past six months at least, I've
    seen at least one DEC glossy multi-page ad in the magazine in every
    issue.

re .12
Marketing does not equal advertising.

We have had some very weak products and handed the market over to 
competitors that actually met customers needs.  We have had some very 
technically interesting products that no one wanted.  Technical superiority is 
useless by itself.  Our largest marketig failure is in not getting engineering 
to build what customers want.

A typical example is that customers wanted a 32 bit environment in DEC 
OSF/1.  Steve Jenkins promised it.  Steve never delivered it.  Those 
customers that wanted it did not port to Alpha AXP on the original schedule 
and are approximately 12-18 months behind the original schedule.  Steve's 
inaction cost the company well over $1 Billion in revenue so far and cost us 
tremendously in marketing capital.

Marketings failure was in not managing the engineering process.  Digital 
ended up with a technically elegant 64 bit solution that did not solve 
customers problems, so those customers bought and support HP instead of 
Digital.

We all know about the great job engineering and marketing did on the first 
set of PCs.  We all know about the great job marketing and engineering did 
on throwing away our leadership in networking.  We all know about the great 
job we did in software applications.  We all know about the great job we 
did in printers.

It takes two to dance and it takes two to fail as bad as we have.  
Engineering and Marketing worked very hard at ignoring each other and we 
ended in this sad state.  Perhaps if they work together as hard we could have 
engineering work on problems customers are interested in spending money on.

Matt

P.S. If you want to knock sales instead since they rarely contribute in 
this conference please read the letters to the editor in Business Week 
published last Friday first.  m.h.

    	I'm worried about the "catch up" reply a few back...because that
    struck me too when I listened to Bill's talk. What makes matters worse
    is that our target is the 9% number across the board, including our
    software investment. Our competitors in the software business are
    investing 13% on average. We're already behind, and this tells me we
    have no chance of catching up.

    RE: .15
    
    A M E N !!
    (and nice to see your name splattered through the Notes 
    conferences so freely Mr. Haley)
    
    Regarding your suggestion that marketing and engineering need
    to get together ...
    
    There is significant effort under way in that regard to ensure that
    the market demands of our customers (as seen through the Business
    Units) get translated into actionable engineering projects (or 
    acquisitions/relationships if that is the more rational approach).
    
    Yes, we do have additional work to do in terms of marketing the things
    that we decide to sell as a company (which includes positioning,
    advertising, warfare methodology, and a number of other thigns), and
    those will be looked at in light of what the Business Units and
    Engineeering agree to.
    
    There is hope.
    
    /se
    

Re: Matt Haley in .15

>It takes two to dance and it takes two to fail as bad as we have.  
>Engineering and Marketing worked very hard at ignoring each other and we
>ended in this sad state.  

Wild applause for this one -- I think it is exactly right. And as Steve
Early pointed out, we are working on it (it's part of the Engineering
Excellence program).

Re: Steve Dipirro and Bob Fleischer

If those points about the importance of software investment were
directed at me, you guys are preaching to the converted. But my
understanding of the 13%/9% figures was not as Steve presented it. I
think the total budget for Engineering is to be 9% of revenue. And I
think that at this time, there is no way to get any more detail out of
that figure (i.e., I didn't hear anything that led me to believe that 9%
figure was "across the board" in Engineering) for two reasons:

First, the BUs are in the process of taking over some control of the
purse-strings, and no one really knows how this is going to play out.
(But having those with P/L responsibility take a bigger role in
Engineering investment tradeoffs is thought of as a Good Thing.) 

Second, given our current accounting practices, I don't believe anyone
knows -- or can know -- what our software revenue is; so it seems
unlikely to me that we could figure out what 9% of it is.

JP

P.S., I was once told, by someone who ought to know, that even the
      hardest of our hardware engineering groups spend more than 50% of
      their budgets on software. I objected that this was an apples and
      oranges comparison, but it does provide food for thought. 
    

    	Yeah, I should have stated that I drew that conclusion myself
    regarding the 9% across the board...based on things said during the
    presentation and a realization of the impossibility of separating
    software from hardware expenses at this company. If the number is 9%,
    then I don't see how it could end up being anything but 9% across the
    board...I'm sure the granularity can be adjusted at lower levels to
    average out at 9%...if people are willing to do it.

Re: .8

>                                            ... In the software space,
>    for everything we do, there's niche company out there who can do it
>    better...They pump more resources into it, are more clearly focused,
>    and we can't compete...This is across the board...Then he went on to

    Are operating systems, general-purpose or otherwise, included in
    software space?  If so, which "niche" companies do this so much
    better (now or historically)?  Is it axiomatic that large companies
    cannot be clearly focused?  Shouldn't a well-run large company, given
    the fairly widely accepted notion of "economy of scale", be in a
    position to pump *more* resources into a given endevour than a
    small niche company?  Was this really what he said?  Shall we throw
    in the software towel?

    From my perspective the initial premise that you need to be #1 or
    #2 in a given field in order to justify an investment in it seems
    almost unimaginably shortsighted.  Why isn't the decision based
    on something a little more direct - like whether or not the product
    can be profitable (however you wish to measure that)?   Is being
    #1 or #2 required to be profitable?  Of course not.  In the DBMS
    and related product arenas, for example, there are 10s of companies 
    who are making money and leveraging the rest of their business.
    
    At one point last year there was a "rationalization" at senior levels
    based on the need to focus our best people on a smaller number of 
    projects so we could suceed in those areas.  I suspect that the "we must
    be #1 or #2" was being used to find those projects to invest those
    resources in but has evolved into a general means for deciding whether
    to continue projects, in particular software projects.  In my mind, it has 
    also become an efficient means of putting ourselves out of business.
    
    In particular, non-OS software projects seem to now have to run a
    continuous gauntlet of repetative and conflicting processes which
    define which projects are worthwhile.  And, of course, this process
    is highly biased toward killing projects.  Projects, once killed, 
    are only brought back with extreme pain and, generally, after all or
    most of the principles have left for other projects or other companies.
    Incredibly and frustratingly to me, profitability and potential 
    profitability don't seem to have much to do with whether we keep projects 
    going.  And we don't seem to be asking questions like "if we allocate 5% 
    of the gross revenue of the project to marketing how much more money 
    could we make"? 
    
    I'm involved in a project now which will ship soon and which has every
    indication of providing a nice profit margin and providing leverage for
    sales of many other products and systems integration business.  My
    recurring nightmare is this "success"may someday not be enough in this
    environment.  This would certainly not be unique if it someday
    happened.
    
    Starting new efforts is even worse of course.  You'd have better luck 
    going out to get venture capital from people seeking huge profit ratios 
    rather than our processes.  Only by doing what was trying to be avoided, 
    allocating people from existing projects, risking both the old and new 
    project do things seem to get started, regardless of their benefit or 
    customer need.   Sometimes this has to be done because it is the only
    way to retain profit margins that currently exist.  Of course, that
    isn't understood by "the process".
    
    As saying goes "a bad plan is better than no plan at all".  If
    you change your plan every month or two, you never had a plan.  No
    one can convince me that we are "continuously evolving our
    strategies and plans based on changing requirements and business
    conditions".  I interpret this simply to mean that we are in chaos, 
    are spending huge amounts of money executing these processes, 
    having internal competition to save projects and jobs on a continuous
    basis and doing just about everything but building products and selling 
    them.
    
    Here's hoping for a plan, renewed focus on selling what we build and
    actually making money and removing focus on spending vast amounts of 
    irreplacable time and opportunity on endless process.

    re -.20 MROA::NICHOLS
    >> Are operating systems, general-purpose or otherwise, included in
    >> software space?  If so, which "niche" companies do this so much
    >> better (now or historically)?
    
    Look no further than Novell for your answer. Look where they started.
    
    -Mike Z.
     

    Given the Product Marketing budget is under Bill Strecker (Bob Jolls),
    he has the power to fix any marketing issues.  With the on-going
    budget cuts so far this FY, it will be interesting if we can make
    a significant shift in visibility.
    
    Mark
    

    I don't know what dollar figure Product Marketing has for it's budget,
    but I doubt that it's of the magnitude needed to fix the 'visibility'
    that most people think Digital needs.  If you want to be as well
    known as Pepsi(TM or R or some other legalese), then go find out what
    their advert. budget is...
    
    Mark

    	Regarding operating systems, he said things like, "you think about
    operating systems, you think of Microsoft and WNT...You think about
    networking, you think about Novell..." He didn't mention any specific
    area in software where he believed we were superior...not that they
    don't exist (although if they did, you'd think he'd have mentioned them
    to provide something positive). 

    
    Topic 2673 contains the transcript of one of presentations, and of
    the question-and-answer session that followed. It addresses most of
    the points brought up in this string.
    
    JP

re: .22

    Does Novell do it better, or did they just get there first?  Now that
    they've gotten pretty big, I guess they'd better get ready to give up
    too (there must be *some* upstart company out there with clear focus
    and resources to bear that's salivating at the idea of eating Novell's
    lunch!).

re: .25

    MicroSoft.  Now *there's* a niche company!

    re: .27   <<< Note 2655.27 by MROA::NICHOLS >>>
 
>    Does Novell do it better, or did they just get there first?  
    
    Being one of the first to market certainly didn't hurt Novell. They
    are also committed to doing whatever it takes to stay #1, because
    that's where the true profits are.
    
>    MicroSoft.  Now *there's* a niche company!

    I don't know if this was meant as sarcasm, but you're entirely correct.
    The vast majority of Microsoft's revenue comes from exactly two products.
    But those two products have allowed them to exert tremendous influence
    over literally thousands of hardware and software vendors.
    
    Shooting for #1 or #2 as a goal is sensible, even if you don't ever
    achieve it. There are thousands of businesses out there who run for
    years on "acceptable" profits, only to collapse suddenly because of
    a single glitch in cash flow, or a bobble in bringing a new product
    to market. Is this the kind of company you want to invest in or bet
    your career on?
    
    Geoff

>    Being one of the first to market certainly didn't hurt Novell. They
>    are also committed to doing whatever it takes to stay #1, because
>    that's where the true profits are.

    I wouldn't be surprised if we're still #1 or #2 in minicomputers.
    When you're as big as we are (in body count), it's important for
    the strategists to pick the throne of a big pond as the target.
    
>>    MicroSoft.  Now *there's* a niche company!
>
>    I don't know if this was meant as sarcasm, but you're entirely correct.
>    The vast majority of Microsoft's revenue comes from exactly two products.

    In the sense of the word "niche" implied by this, it could probably be
    argued that DEC was a niche company in the mid-80s because most of its
    revenue came from VAX/VMS.  MicroSoft is in the business of operating
    systems, desktop publishing, spreadsheets, databases, networking,
    compilers, and probably lots more.  They are big, and they face the
    same problems any other big company faces when trying to formulate
    and successfully execute strategies.  In fact, I think it could be
    argued that they are in a more difficult position than most due to the
    fact that alot of direct competitors are "gunning for them" because
    they've been so successful in the pc/os space.  Intel has a similar
    problem, but the hardware game is played on a less-level playing field
    (e.g., superior physical plant capacity is a real advantage).

    Anyway, having read the transcript note, I have to agree with Mr. DiPirro's
    assessment.  It didn't seem, to my eyes at least, long on "that vision
    thing".

    I still keep hearing that morale is in the pits in the field.  That
    having leadership products has not helped.  So it is not clear what the
    root issue is.  My understanding is that the field will not be affected
    by any layoffs this year (at least not to the tune of previous
    layoffs).  I understand from Lucente's memo that he will do whatever is
    necessary to make selling easier.  Incentives have been offered.  
    
    So what's the problem?  If it can't be expressed here, please send me
    e-mail or call (223-6704).  The answer to this question is crucial to a
    project I'm initiating on morale.  If there are issues that need to be
    raised, I intend to do it.  For me the success of this company depends
    mostly on the spirit of its people.  I suspect that senior managers
    believe that pay incentives and leadership products will solve the
    problem.  That does not appear to be the case.
    
    What's missing?

re: .30

>	What's missing?

Maybe the following observation is not germane, but it seems to me that the
more managers talk among themselves (at peer level or next level up), the
more dissenters and bearers of bad tidings will get isolated and discounted
as having any viable input on the "solution" that is being talked about.
There's a natural wish to believe that any solution that gains consensus
will be good AND easy to implement if all the "troops" just pull together.
And because management above the line supervisor level has such an indirect
influence on the actual work being performed at the bottom, there's more of
a tendency to hope for a "miracle cure" in the form of some organizational
tweaking or policy change (something managers can do themselves).  A manager
who points out real difficulties in this risks being treated like Cassandra.

The only antidote is to have managers talk to the troops interactively on
an ongoing basis--and not to a small sample of the same folks.  One manager
of a department that I worked for previously had several layers of manager
and supervisor types between him and the line workers, but still got around
to talking to lots of the 200 or so worker bees that worked for him (1-on-1
mostly just when someone asked for that, but otherwise with groups of 5-10
at a time).  Talking with people 3 or 4 (or more) levels down is not undoable
--if you make it a high enough priority.  But it goes against the current
mindset of our corporate culture.

								- paul

    (See the repeated calls for more MBWA/MBNA as a possible contribution
     to a morale turnaround)
    

    
     Here is a morale booster. 
    
     I have been on-site for over five years. Not once in those five years,
    nor to my knowledge, has a senior executive from Digital Equipment
    Corporation visited this customer. Our account team(s) and mid-level
    managers visit frequently. But it would blow the customers mind if a
    VEEP or VIP showed up here, just checking on things.....
    
     Just don't bring the entourage along, and I'll take care of the coffee
    and donuts.
    
    -Mike Z.

    RE: .30-
    
    	I get the impression that your focus is upon the morale in the
    sales force, but the problem affects services too. The results of the 
    problems in services make the sales force's job more difficult. An
    example of the cause and effect:
    
    	Services are told that they are empowered to do what is right for
    the customer and Digital, and that they are also accountable for
    results in resolving problems. Current effort nor past performance don't 
    count toward exceeding job requirements on PAs, plus few can be 
    above average performers when the corporation is loosing millions. Your
    performance is also tied to the customer survey results and revenue
    produced, not just in your office but to all the geography you
    potentially support.
    
    	This set of messages sets up a matrix of factors that I equate to a
    Catch-22 spreadsheet where your performance review can be managed to suit 
    the business climate. Now, the rest of the story:
    
    	Once a customer problem is determined to be an Engineering issue,
    delivery of a solution is largely out of services' control. Our time is
    now spent on tracking what is being done, keeping track of who is
    currently responsible for the product, etc. while ongoing upheaval
    disolves & realigns the engineering support structure such that
    progress can slow to a crawl. Yet we are accountable- NOT.
    
    	Meanwhile, the salesperson is being prodded by the customer as to
    why there is no resolution to the problem. Sometimes an alternative
    product would suffice. Then starts the ownership/ funding for
    replacement issues with product management. How can new sales be
    expected in the throws of these dilemnas? 
    
    	There is a lot of talk acknowledging that there is a problem with
    resolution of CLDs. I keep waiting for the "you're in a queue without a 
    pointer" syndrome to end. That would improve my morale, and maybe a few
    performance reviews, too.
    
    Phil

Here are a few things that are affecting morale in the Field:

- We are spread too thin to adequately support the customer, but we are 
  pushing ourselves to the limits to do it. Burnout will surely result.

- The administrative processes and information systems are dismally inadequate 
  to provide the necessary level of pre-sales and post-sales support.

- Confusion about what the new organizational structure means to the troops.

- Having to deal with other individuals and organizations in the company that 
  just don't get it. "It" refers to the SLT's message that everyone is to be 
  working together to help generate revenue.

That's all I can think of for the moment.

Jim
(whose morale has been taking a roller coaster ride these last few months)

    
    
    Jim has made a direct hit with some of his bullets.  As for layoffs,
    it seems to me that Pat Sweeney entered a note a few weeks ago that
    would refute your assertion.
    
    
    Mike

    re:-1
    
    
    Where's Pat's note?

    re: last two
    
    I hadn't had my coffee when I responded to .36.  Frankly, Pat's
    departure remains a mystery to me, given the shortage of support
    people in the field.  Still makes no sense to me.  Why now and not last
    June if declining business was the reason.
    
    

    How about:
    
    	Admin systems that are useless or worse.
    
    	Being forced to supply your own office supplies.
    
    Bob

    RE: .37  Note 2658.
    
    
    
    Mike

>    root issue is.  My understanding is that the field will not be affected
>    by any layoffs this year (at least not to the tune of previous
>    layoffs).  I understand from Lucente's memo that he will do whatever is
>    necessary to make selling easier.  Incentives have been offered.  

	Who did you hear this from?  For what people in the field?  Sales,
	Sales Support (Digital Consulting)? or who?

	I was told by my manager that there is absolutely no guarantee
	of keeping a job in today's Digital beyond the end of any
	quarter.  No matter how well one performed.  

	I see little or no direct management of the troops.  At least
	management of people (rather than numbers and metrics).  We have been 
	relegated to "resources to be used or applied" (or thrown out)
	rather than individuals.  There has been little or mentoring.
	
	I am perhaps in a different situation since I am in a remote office.

	I have a great deal of respect for Digital's people and products.
	But I am quite confused where this company is heading in the 
	current marketplace.  I know we have had some of the best hardware
	on the planet. I know we have had some of the best software 
	engineers in the industry.  We used to be at the top in networking.
	I have been working with DEC gear since the mid '70s, starting on
	PDP-8's, 11's, then to VAX, etc...  I have worked doing all kinds
	of WAN, LAN and multivendor networking when no one else had a clue
	how to do it.  I have enjoyed it all.  

	With the current metrics and environment, I found it to be more 
	suitable outside of DEC, with a reseller.  Since we tend to be 
	pushing more and more business that way, and since I'll have
	more opportunity to do other things, whether realted to DEC
	products or not, I have decided to leave.  My last day is Oct. 8.

	There are few places one can get any guarantees of employment.  I
	felt the timing was right and the opportunities were ripe to
	seek employment elsewhere.  Time will tell.  At a minimum, I will
	have more chances of controlling my environment and be able to
	work with and manage people again, not metrics.

		--chas

    re .30
    
    It't not leadership products so much as it is leadership.  Middle (L2)
    management remains unchanged; hence we have no leadership.

    RE -1:  layoffs this year
    
    Both Palmer and Gullotti have indicated that the massive layoffs of
    last year are behind us.  That was not intended to mean that they are
    gone forever or that anyone can count on job security;  business
    results will indicate if and when cuts in the future are necessary.  A
    bad Q1 will not give anyone the warm and fuzzies;  however, I suspect
    no one wants to do any more cutting than is absolutely necessary.
    

    re: .42
    
    Does this mean that DM level and territory managers and their CBU
    counterparts are not assuming the leadership necessary to turn morale
    around?  Their mandate from Lucente at the Sales and Marketing
    Executive Conference was to do just that, or they wouldn't be around in
    the future (i.e., if the numbers aren't there).
    

>    Both Palmer and Gullotti have indicated that the massive layoffs of
>    last year are behind us.  

....which says absolutely nothing about the massive layoffs of this (or
next) year....

tom_p

    re -1:
    The intent of their remarks was that they were behind us and hopefully
    wouldn't have to be repeated.

    
>    Both Palmer and Gullotti have indicated that the massive layoffs of
>    last year are behind us.  


From my conversations with sales and support people, it didn't seem that many
people believed the statements.  A direct quote from one of the sales reps
that I support is "We're all living on borrowed time."

I believe that there will be more rounds of layoffs in the field and that, like
the others, my current or past performance will have nothing to do with my
being picked or not.  In the last round one of my best friends was what I
call a triple crown winner...DEC100, COE and TFSO in the same year.  I think
this randomness will continue.



    

    re: .47
    
    Well, I truly believe that "the massive layoffs of last year are behind
    us."  It's absolutely true.  No doubt about it.  Now, as for the
    massive layoffs of NEXT year ...  ;^)
    
    Steve

    RE: .44
    
    > Their mandate from Lucente....
    
    You can NOT ***MANDATE*** that morale increase.
    

    re: raising morale
    
    It seems that most managers think they can raise morale by saying, "hey
    folks, let's get excited!  We need to get morale up!"
    
    That's not how to raise morale.
    
    On a similar note, I couldn't help but note something at the DC area
    kick-off meeting a few weeks back.  There are basically two types of
    speeches which one can deliver: information or inspiration.  Digital
    now has a few individuals who can deliver information.  Fine.  Great.
    But I've yet to see a single high level manager who can deliver a
    speech for inspiration.
    
    I've heard a few coworkers exclaim, "oh, wasn't so-and-so's speech
    exciting!".  Unfortunately, it wasn't.  It may have been a good
    information speech, but it fell off the low end of the inspiration
    meter.  We've gotten so accustomed to the lack-luster delivery of our
    managers that even a poor inspirational speech gets high marks from
    some folks.
    
    But, the real truth is that the masses of Digits walk out with precious
    little more than they arrived with.
    
    We need someone who really knows how to inspire and excite to help get
    us back on track morale-wise.  It's really not a tremendously tall
    order.  But you need someone with skill and a message that will stick.
    
    -- Russ

Note 2655.47 by RLTIME::COOK
    
>I believe that there will be more rounds of layoffs in the field and that, like
>the others, my current or past performance will have nothing to do with my
>being picked or not.  In the last round one of my best friends was what I
>call a triple crown winner...DEC100, COE and TFSO in the same year.  I think
>this randomness will continue.

    you want to know what kills morale beyond ANYTHING? try axing people
    based on total randomness. anyone who doesn't believe that happens
    needs to take their shades off. and it's NOT an isolated case. this
    whole process has become so disfunctional it's almost unbelievable.
    painfully unbelievable.


    

    Moral is to material as Ten is One - Napolean Bonaparte ...
    Now he knew about winning in the face of adversity!!! 

    There was a big army in a route ( retreating in general disarray)
    so the general let the baggage and the inefficient units get the chop
    quickly 
     while they implemented the big plan. 1) form a rear guard to hold the
    enemy then 2)rest and  reqroup the crack units for a counter attack. 
    The Rear guard like in countless wars had to be starved of material
    and weapons for the counter attack. Some held the line stoiclly while
    others had a gun held to their heads. However the Rear guard could not
    be told exactly what their mission was or that they would probably all
    fall before the counter attack came. In the Rear Guard, starved of food
    and ammunition in what seemed to them a hopless fight, morale fell lower
    and lower each time the rations were cut. This worried the Generals
    because they didnt want the line to collapse before the counter attack
    was ready.  They knew they could raise morale by telling the soldiers
    their real  part in the plan, but some were deserting to the
    enemy. Not only would this tip off the enemy, but worse the folks back
    home would not like to hear how many of their boys were going to be 
    sacrificed before the end.

...meanwhile, back in Wellington's camp...