Fiorina recounts ‘tough choices’ as CEO of Hewlett-Packard

“Tough Choices: A Memoir”

by Carly Fiorina. Portfolio Publishers, $24.95 Hardcover, 300 Pages, October 2006, ISBN 159184133X.

During her tenure as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina became a celebrity, her life scrutinized by the media. In “Tough Choices,” Fiorina understands that readers will want to know what happened at H-P, so she opens her story the day she was fired by the H-P board. But this book is more than a chronicle of her years running and leaving H-P. She begins her second chapter with: “How a story ends has much to do with how it begins, and so I must begin with my mother and father.” If this indicates to you that this book is her personal story, you are right, but she consistently drops in valuable paragraphs loaded with rewarding business insight as well.

As you read about her years at school and at AT&T, you will understand better how she achieved such success in the face of enormous gender prejudice and organizational apathy. Each challenge helped her develop a theory of leadership that she would later apply to her job as CEO of H-P. She writes:

“Sometimes, if things aren’t working, people can see that there are problems but they can’t identify the cause or, consequently, the solution. A leader’s job is to find and address the cause, just as a doctor’s job is to try and cure the disease rather that simply treat the symptoms.”

And one symptom she identified at H-P was:

“When I arrived at the company they founded, I encountered a group of people who could not imagine their future beyond Bill and Dave and the strategy and practices they’d always followed. I saw a company that had no identity or sense of itself beyond the celebration of Bill and Dave’s legacy and the values they preached … .”
I recommend this book for a variety of reasons, but the true gift of the book is to get to know this exceptional person; you won’t regret the time you spend in her company.

“The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation”
by Matthew May, Free Press, 256 Pages, $26, Hardcover, October 2006, 0743290178.

One million. That is the number of ideas that Toyota implements every year. Built into their culture is the insight that “Good enough never is.” Now, the trouble with most Toyota books is they are written from the factory floor. There are many goods ones, but they don’t seem to find an audience outside operations.

Enter “The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation.” Toyota University gave author Matthew May the task of translating the Toyota Production System so the knowledge worker would understand it and use it. In other words, May knows Toyota.

The key to Toyota’s success is the nature of constant improvement. Innovation to them is not invention or artistry. It is gaining deep understanding of the work at hand. It is about having a strong engagement in the work you do. It is about tinkering and trying new things.

“Slaying dragons and storming castles isn’t for the faint of heart. The root meaning of ingenuity means freethinker. In a world run by powerful bosses and inflexible systems, rarely if ever is creative license granted freely. It’s taken. And that takes basic courage. Or at least a soldier’s bravado. It’s the obstacles that make the achievement so impressive. If it was easy, we wouldn’t be talking about it. No challenge, no creativity.”

The rise of Toyota is not just an automotive story. If you haven’t spent time reading about the company and, more importantly, their management philosophy, here is your chance.

“The Starfish and The Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations”
by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, Portfolio, 240 Pages, $24.95, Hardcover, October 2006, 1591841437.

Have you heard of Craigslist or Skype? They are bound to do the same to newspapers and the phone as Napster and its descendants have done to the music industry. These are all organizations that are not dependent on a leader for its survival. And, of course, there is al-Qaida, another decentralized group that no one can seem to get a location on.

So why the starfish and the spider? The spider is an eight-legged insect that, while it may survive the removal of one or two legs, it would surely die if it lost another leg or even its head. Most companies are spiders. For a starfish, the removal of a leg means nothing. The leg grows back and another starfish grows from the removed leg. Decentralized organizations work the same way. If part of the organization is hurt or destroyed, the group fractures and grows from the broken pieces.

This book is more than interesting stories and cute metaphors. Like all good business book authors, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom give you a number of frameworks to think about as you read the book. They provide a list of qualities that can help you identify what a leaderless organization looks like. They give you five factors that make these organizations work (circles, a catalyst, ideology, a pre-existing network and a champion). They also give three strategies for fighting decentralized groups.

“Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies”
by Nikos Mourkogiannis, Palgrave Macmillan, 272 Pages, $27.95, Hardcover, October 2006, ISBN 1403975817.

“Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies” makes the case that all great companies need a purpose. He defines purpose as “the reason for doing something that appeals to our ideas about what is right and what is worthwhile. Pretty heady stuff.

Nikos says there are four possible sources of energy for purpose. First is “the new” – companies like Sony and 3M who exist to discover. Second is “the excellent”-companies like The Economist and Berkshire Hathaway that believe that excellence in their field is the highest pursuit. Third is “the helpful” – Disney’s and Marriot’s missions are to increase happiness The final is “the effective”-ambition and daring fuel goals like Bill Gates’ obsession with getting the Microsoft operating system into every desktop computer. The author relates each of these energy sources back to a branch of human philosophy (Kierkegaard, Aristotle, Hume and Nietzsche).

Throughout the rest of the book, there are profiles of business leaders like Henry Ford and Sam Walton and descriptions of their sense of purpose. He addresses issues like morale, innovation, competitive advantage and leadership. In each case, purpose reinforces or expands the possibilities when dealing with these issues.

“Follow the Other Hand: A Remarkable Fable that will Energize Your Business, Profits, and Life”
by Andy Cohen, St. Martin’s Press, 150 Pages, $22.95, Hardcover, October 2006, ISBN 0312357931.

“Follow the Other Hand” is a fable about Jonathan West who runs a family business selling olive oil. Big-box retailers and the disappearance of his core customers, the mom-and-pop stores, are hammering him. A successful friend recommends that he contact a man who helped him turn around his own business. What makes this story unique is that the guru is a magician, hence the name of the book, aptly named Merlin. Merlin explains that “Misdirection” is essential in magic.

“Mis-di-rec-tion” exclaimed Merlin, “is not only a method for achieving magic. It is a reminder of a simple question that we must constantly ask ourselves, or else be willing to accept the consequences if we don’t. Which hand do we choose to follow? Do we follow what everyone else is thinking or do we challenge their assumptions and look in the other hand for new ideas?”

This is a surprisingly simple metaphor for thinking outside the box or looking at a problem differently.

The author is a consultant and an expert magician. He explains the process that a magic trick needs to go through to be … well … magic. It starts with the “effect,” which is what you want to do, followed by the “method,” which is how you do it. Finally, you have the performance, which is how you present the trick. It doesn’t take much to see how all these various parts can be introduced in a business environment to begin a conversation about new product development, a new strategic plan or any business problem.

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