Lesson #1: Practice Management the HP Way
Lesson #1: Practice Management the HP Way
If you were working at HP in its early days, you knew you were in for something different. From the very beginning, Hewlett and Packard had a very unique idea about what it meant to manage, and it was not something that everyone else understood.
In 1942, when Packard was just 29 years old, he attended a conference at Stanford on wartime production. Most of the other attendees were the heads of major corporations like Standard Oil. At the time, Packard was still just starting out.
“Somehow, we got into a discussion of the responsibility of management,” Packard later recalled. “[The moderator] made the point that management’s responsibility is to the shareholders - that’s the end of it. And I objected. I said, ‘I think you’re absolutely wrong. Management has a responsibility to its employees, it has a responsibility to its customers, it has a responsibility to the community at large.’ And they almost laughed me out of the room.”
Packard might have seemed like a fish out of water at the time, but today, most of the management practices he implemented are considered the standard throughout Silicon Valley. First, HP decided to give every worker bonuses based on their levels of productivity. Soon, that turned in a profit-sharing plan. The company was also one of the first to adopt flex-time schedules. And, HP even broke ground when it launched its company-wide catastrophic health insurance plan.
In the 1970s, when HP and most other companies were hit hard by the recession, Hewlett and Packard struggled to come up with a way to avoid layoffs. “We did not want to run a hire-and-fire operation, but rather a company built on a loyal and dedicated work force,” said Hewlett. “Further we felt that this work force should be able to share to some extent in the progress of the company.” To that end, they decided to enforce a ten percent pay cut and require employees to take every other Friday off.
As significant as those big gestures were, the HP Way became much more about the little things. Everyone – even the bosses – was to be addressed by their first name only. Managers were to maintain an open-door policy, in the rare case that there were doors, that is; HP wanted a wall-free office in order to encourage teamwork and the free flow of ideas.
The HP Way paid off for the company in the form of staff loyalty and stability, both of which helped it get through some of the tougher times of the 1980s and 1990s. Today, now that their ideas have become entrenched in almost every Silicon Valley company, it can surely be said that neither Packard nor Hewlett would ever have their ideas laughed out of a room again.
Lesson 1 Practice Management the HP Way
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“It is important to remember that both Dave and I were products of the Great Depression,” said Hewlett. “We had observed its effects on all sides, and it could not help but influence our decisions on how a company should be run.”
If you were working at HP in its early days, you knew you were in for something different. From the very beginning, Hewlett and Packard had a very unique idea about what it meant to manage, and it was not something that everyone else understood.
In 1942, when Packard was just 29 years old, he attended a conference at Stanford on wartime production. Most of the other attendees were the heads of major corporations like Standard Oil. At the time, Packard was still just starting out.
“Somehow, we got into a discussion of the responsibility of management,” Packard later recalled. “[The moderator] made the point that management’s responsibility is to the shareholders - that’s the end of it. And I objected. I said, ‘I think you’re absolutely wrong. Management has a responsibility to its employees, it has a responsibility to its customers, it has a responsibility to the community at large.’ And they almost laughed me out of the room.”
Packard might have seemed like a fish out of water at the time, but today, most of the management practices he implemented are considered the standard throughout Silicon Valley. First, HP decided to give every worker bonuses based on their levels of productivity. Soon, that turned in a profit-sharing plan. The company was also one of the first to adopt flex-time schedules. And, HP even broke ground when it launched its company-wide catastrophic health insurance plan.
In the 1970s, when HP and most other companies were hit hard by the recession, Hewlett and Packard struggled to come up with a way to avoid layoffs. “We did not want to run a hire-and-fire operation, but rather a company built on a loyal and dedicated work force,” said Hewlett. “Further we felt that this work force should be able to share to some extent in the progress of the company.” To that end, they decided to enforce a ten percent pay cut and require employees to take every other Friday off.
As significant as those big gestures were, the HP Way became much more about the little things. Everyone – even the bosses – was to be addressed by their first name only. Managers were to maintain an open-door policy, in the rare case that there were doors, that is; HP wanted a wall-free office in order to encourage teamwork and the free flow of ideas.
The HP Way paid off for the company in the form of staff loyalty and stability, both of which helped it get through some of the tougher times of the 1980s and 1990s. Today, now that their ideas have become entrenched in almost every Silicon Valley company, it can surely be said that neither Packard nor Hewlett would ever have their ideas laughed out of a room again.
Lesson 1 Practice Management the HP Way
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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