dispatches from the new world of work

Enough, for God's Sake, of the Hurd Mentality

Anniversary #25 of In Search of Excellence. Our favorite company on our list of 43? In a cakewalk, Hewlett-Packard, our hometown pals. Since 1982, when HP was an instrument company with about $1 billion in revenue (real $$ in '82, IBM was about $10 billion), the firm has gone through numerous transformations, including hiring Stanford MBAs to add strategy and marketing to its engineering prowess, and then, courtesy David Packard's astounding foresight, becoming a computer company by, initially, stealing some of IBM's best research talent.

More followed, and the New York Times yesterday proclaimed that HP had hit the $100 billion mark, and the final nudge had been great design! ("Design Helps H.P. Profit More on PCs.") The genius who replaced "ditzy" Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd, brought home the bacon, and on the design side it had happened when he poached some dude from Palm. A few weeks before, the Wall Street Journal had been equally breathless in praise of Hurd as the guy who scaled (scale, that is size) computerworld's Mt Everest.

I have no doubt Hurd is a fine operating exec. Moreover he did reestablish much of the decentralization that had slipped under Ms Fiorina. (She had good reason to centralize, but I am a congenital decentralizer who can never excuse moves, no matter how apparently legit, toward central control.)

But, as I said in my title to this Post, "Enough, for God's Sake."

Consider two questions:

Q: Why is HP "enormous"?
A: Carly's much contested Compaq acquisition. I supported it then, as I couldn't see HP prospering as essentially Xerox Lite, and I support it now. Carly poured heart and soul and guts and reputation into pushing the merger, including overcoming the shameful tactics of Hewlett Jr and Packard Jr. If HP is the "biggest guy on the block" in 2007, benefiting from PC sales, the "first 98%" of the credit goes to Fiorina, not Hurd. PERIOD.

Q: Why is HP a nouveau design star?
A: Good God, it ain't the Palm guy, who may be very good, and it sure as hell ain't dreary Mr Hurd. Carly brought, again with deafening criticism by the engineers, style to a previously 100% style-free HP. PERIOD.

I am not taking away from Mr Hurd's operating performance, which probably exceeds Fiorina's. But if we are primarily celebrating HP's megabulk, as the heavy in computerworld, and its fashion consciousness as engine of soaring PC margins and profits, then we are celebrating Carly Fiorina. As I said ... PERIOD.

Enough!

Tom Peters posted this on 05/18/07.

Comments

1. Hilarious as usual TP - such a surprise - pro satanic-Fiorina & negative toward magnificent-Mr. Hurd - maybe cut back a bit on the estrogen-laced Kool-Aid.

Posted by sean_hp_fan at May 18, 2007 12:00 PM

Its about time someone pointed out the mental biases everyone in the business press holds. A company does good--must be because they have a great CEO! They do bad--again, its all the CEO. Tom has mentioned that companies have life-cycles. They live and they die (or should die). So do leaders. Even a great leader cannot effectively lead in every situation, and in some circumstances could well turn out disastrous. We give leaders far too much credit AND blame for what happens to companies, countries, NPOs, the local sports team, etc.

Carly will never be as popular as Hurd, but she deserves just as much credit for getting HP to where it is today. I don't think Hurd would consider an acquisition as paradigm-shattering as Compaq, and were he the CEO at the same time as Carly, he probably would have driven the thing into the ground just as badly (except HP would not have gotten Compaq in the process). The Carly era was a growing pain HP had to go through, and they're lucky to have both her and Hurd.

I do not have, nor have I ever had, a vested interest in supporting Carly. I just get sick of the lemming-like support and then criticism that people give to leaders in all walks of life (witness Neeleman of JetBlue, of whom one pundit remarked was fired for spending too much time with customers on flights and not enough time at the ol' desk strategizing--the exact same thing they were worshipping him for 2 years ago!). Life is far more random than we'd like to believe, and the leader becomes either the catalyst or scapegoat for all our happenings. Wouldn't it be nice if it were that simple?

I'm not relieving leaders of all responsibility--but organizations are far more complex than most would like to believe, and whle simplifying greatly can be a tremendous advantage in making sense of it all, we often lose sight of the fact that the best laid plans of mice and men (and women) are affected by a nearly infinite number of variables, some controllable, others not. Just like in the Navy--you can have the best Captain in the world, but if some moron is at the helm while the Captain is sleeping and the ship runs aground, the Captain is fired. Doesn't mean he was a bad Captain--but he sure had $h!t luck. You get back up and you start over again (so congrats to Carly on being a bestselling author/speaker).

And that's my rant.

Posted by Paul at May 18, 2007 8:07 PM

Yes, yes and once again: Yes!

Carly Fiorina has a very special touch, presence, passion and power. This recent press release about her participation at World Economic Forum on Middle East-on a sesssion together with Queen Rania from Jordan -affirms it:

http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest%20Press%20Releases/giving_culture

Enjoyed your recent posts vey much, Tom. And that about Richard Branson too...):)

Best From Germany/Dubai,

Albert

Posted by Albert Klamt at May 20, 2007 1:36 AM

Tom, if youâ€™re talking about size, then yes Carly gets the credit. If youâ€™re talking about growth, especially growth in profits, then Hurd gets the credit.
As I point out in http://www.crimson-consulting.com/blog_archive/HP_Hurd_Good_to_Great_CEO.html "I like HP because I like Mark Hurd", Carlyâ€™s tenure was focused on Carly. Mark is focused on HP. On HPâ€™s operations. On HPâ€™s profits. On HPâ€™s customers. On HPâ€™s employees. On HPâ€™s employees.
Furthermore, I donâ€™t agree that Carly can receive any credit â€“ whatsoever â€“ for the â€œnew profitabilityâ€ of HPâ€™s PCs. That credit goes to Todd Bradley and team. Period.

Posted by Glenn Gow at May 20, 2007 10:42 PM

It wasnâ€™t that many years ago when a â€œManagerâ€ called me into his office to deliver the standard motivational message. After 10 minutes of self-promotional conversation, he concluded by saying that â€œanyone could have done what you have done and I could easily replace youâ€. After pondering the wisdom of this statement, I responded â€œYes, anyone can do it now, but no one could have done it 6 months agoâ€. And yes, he did get the chance to replace me. The point is this, doing great, â€œWowâ€ or even the impossible will look average after 6 months.

Posted by RTodd at May 21, 2007 5:21 AM

Paul, exactly on the mark per me.

Posted by tom peters at May 21, 2007 6:48 AM

Very fresh and counter intuitive prespective that can only come from the pen of Tom .
The Bold and Audacious moves were made by Carly and in doing so she may not have been exactly humble and self effacing ..
So from a Leadership perspective,both the blueprint + the ground laying was done by Carly for which she definitely needs to be applauded . HP Insiders will vouch for the fact that focus on Customer insight and Design based on Customer Insight again flourished during her times ..
So you are bang on : While euologising Hurd times , please don't forget the Hard times during which Carly navigated the ship
Highly appreciate your perspective on this Tom
cheers
rajan

Posted by Rajan at May 21, 2007 8:24 AM

Thanks for acknowledging Carly's role in helping HP get to where it is today. I'm a recent HP retiree and I wholeheartedly agree with you, though I expect most U.S. employees who knew her would not. I was struck by your phrasing that Carly poured her heart and soul into the merger. I agree. She had heart and soul and I think she valued that in employees even when they didn't value her. On the other hand, I'm not so sure Mark Hurd knows what heart and soul are -- his word for employees is "human capital" -- I know that's a new buzzword in the industry but I also think it's indicative of his personality that humans aren't much more than the heavy capital equipment that it also takes to run a business.

Posted by Pam at July 6, 2007 7:57 AM