This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am and is filed under CEO, Change, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I am reading the book of Carly Fiorina, Tough Choices: A Memoir. Actually I am listening to it since a dear friend made me a gift of the CD’s. Carly Fiorina herself is the speaker. She talks about her whole carrier and about her time as HP CEO. I am impressed by the openness and details of different events. Almost every story includes a leadership lesson. For every person working in the corporate world, this book is probably reassuring since you discover that not only you has these weird corporate craziness experiences but that is totally normal!!!
One lesson I liked very much is when she says: “Any structure, even one that it awkward and unwieldy, can work with enough alignment and teamwork”. I used this immediately within a client project. The head of R&D wanted to restructure the whole department. So I interviewed him about his management team: how aligned are they? and also about the level of collaboration and teamwork. He discovered that he needs to work on these issues and spend his energy and the commitment of his employees on increasing alignment and collaboration instead of wasting a lot of energy and focus during a big reorganization. If after all efforts he still believed it needs reorganization – than yes, he can still do it.
common sense but not common practice
September 20th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Hi – I loved the book too. Very much the story when they did the M&A with the California IT Company – all in slippers and lazy machos. The Lucent Group from Boston had a very different culture, traditional but 50 % female work force. She had studied the new company very careful and said:” If you have the first meeting with the management, you have one chance that they take you serious, if you underperform, this will be the image they keep in mind.” So she used the symbol of the shoes. They liked to show how easy and relaxed they are with coming in flip-flops to the board room. She put on her Texas Cowboy boots under her suit. She gave a detailed overview of the company and the market, figure based and straight. Than she came in front – showed her boots and said: “You think we are sissies – but we will kick you in the Ass!” Silence in the room – than a burst of laughter from the Californian guys. She made it – she got the acceptance. Carly said: Special people need special treatment, it not ladylike – but effective. – The lessons from this: Know the person you deal with! Good luck for the next negotiation. Claudia Schmitz