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Lesson #3: Build a Company of Owners

Article Overview: “It’s one thing to create a culture that works,” says Dell. “It’s another to use that culture to create a measurable strategic advantage. You need to engender a sense of personal investment in all your employees, which comes down to three things: responsibility, accountability, and shared success.”

Lesson #3: Build a Company of Owners

“It’s one thing to create a culture that works,” says Dell. “It’s another to use that culture to create a measurable strategic advantage. You need to engender a sense of personal investment in all your employees, which comes down to three things: responsibility, accountability, and shared success.”

Dell attributes a large part of his success to his ability to create a team behind him that feels every bit as personally devoted in the company as he does. “Creating a culture in which every person in your organization, at every level, thinks and acts like an owner means that you need to aim to connect individual performance with your company’s most important objectives.”

For Dell, that means using specific quantitative measurements of overall company progress towards the goals of creating the best possible customer experience and enhancing shareholder value and applying those to every employee’s performance. “A company composed of individual owners is less focused on hierarchy and on who has the nicest office, and more intent on achieving those goals,” says Dell. “At Dell, everyone is an owner.”

Dell is not one to micro-manage. He believes in hiring talented people, giving them significant responsibilities and letting them carry them out on their own. With responsibility comes accountability, as well as a share in the company’s success. He maintains as open a dialogue as possible between management and staff in order to promote the free-flow of ideas and cooperation. Dell is distrustful of overly rigid business processes and encourages his company to remain “allergic to hierarchy.”

“One of the typical battlefields in a high-tech company lies between R&D and manufacturing,” says Dell. “The R&D guys make a product and say, 'OK, this one's done.' The manufacturing guys see it and say: 'What are we supposed to do with this?' At Dell, all R&D managers and all manufacturing managers report to one person who makes sure that each side sees the other side's problems and challenges. They empathize. They work together as a team.” On his frequent visits to Dell plants around the world, Dell is known to go down to the production line to talk to his workers, or offer a question and answer session to the employees.

Dell believes his main role as Chairman of the company is to create a strong team by giving people the freedom and the courage to take risks. “I learned very early to surround myself with talented people who challenge convention, offer new ideas, and relentlessly drive for improvement. And to let those people thrive,” says Dell. “Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people…or find a different room.”

Over the years, Dell has consistently been asked about when he would finally step down and let others run the company. “The truth is,” replies Dell, “other people have been helping run things at Dell for a long time. The greatest mistake you can make is thinking you can do it all by yourself.”

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Article Tags: accountability, battlefields, business processes, cooperation, customer experience, dell, dialogue, free flow, hierarchy, personal investment, quantitative measurements, shareholder value, strategic advantage



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