If you ask the average guy on the street to name five companies that have truly transformed themselves over the few decades, Hewlett-Packard would be on everybody's list. You'd also put on this list GE and Johnson & Johnson.
The world is changing, but so is Microsoft.
When I was at Teradata, I got called a growth guy. And then when I became C.E.O. of the whole company, I got called a cost-cutter. Then, I came to H.P. and became an operations guy.
I don't think Yahoo can be Facebook tomorrow, and don't think Yahoo wants to be Facebook.
Samsung's future hinges on new businesses, new products and new technologies. We should make our corporate culture more open, flexible and innovative.
SK Group will work to be reborn as a group embraced by the public.
It's a bottom line business where a lot of gray suits are brought in and then, within two years, these guys suddenly know everything about baseball.
Many companies don't exist after 25 years. It's a rarity. Or if they do exist, they're like IBM, with a totally changing personality.
When I look at efforts to create change in big companies over the past 10 years, I have to say that there's enough evidence of success to say that change is possible - and enough evidence of failure to say that it isn't likely. Both of those lessons are important.
John Akers once said that changing IBM's culture was more difficult than getting elephants to dance. Of course it's really difficult, as Lou Gerstner also found out years later. The title of his own book is Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? He and his top executives were change masters at IBM. All organizations, especially the larger ones, will always need change masters. Dissatisfaction with the status quo and efforts to improve it should be encouraged rather than discouraged. Regrettably, that is often not the case.
Fixing culture is the most critical − and the most difficult − part of a corporate transformation… In the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.
I think one of the major themes in 'Escape Fire,' really, if you break it down, is that huge institutions, the military, the Safeway Corporation and others, are being forced to change.
I am honored to be able to serve GM at this critical juncture and take part in its reinvention.
Disney is no longer just Mickey Mouse; Disney is family entertainment. And we're seeing more and more brands change into something that is far greater and broader than individual products and services.
Innovation at large companies is hard, but it doesn't have to be.
Revitalizing General Motors is like teaching an elephant to tap dance. You find the sensitive spot and start poking.
I've never commented much about my experience at Enron except to say, when I was there, it was a much more pipeline and asset-oriented company.
In 'That Will Never Work,' I give readers a clear-eyed insider's look into how one of the least likely startups grew into one of the world's most successful companies.
The transformation at the corporate level was achieved by selling off business units in old markets and by creating new business units to pursue the new opportunities. But the individual business units themselves within those transformed corporations were almost inert to change.
The progress we have made in a short amount of time gives me confidence we're making the right moves to turn around our business and reposition McDonald's as a modern, progressive burger company.
I turned Compaq from a small company with troubles into a computer powerhouse. We can do the same at Intershop.
It all sounds almost silly, but the fact is that the only way to change a corporate culture is to just change it.
If we can just take a few companies, and use those as models, as examples, to show the rest of corporate America how they can become more competitive, that's what I'd like to do and that's what I hope to do.
It's like in biological evolution: The population will evolve, even though individuals can't. The same thing happens in the corporate world: The population of business units within corporations evolves, even though individual business units can't. That's because the capabilities of business units reside in their processes and their values, and by their very nature, processes and values are inflexible and meant not to change.
My goal is to change NXT. It is to change every company I've ever been to, and I've changed every company.
