When I knew HP’s CEO was special
You can tell a lot about leaders by how they enter a room.
In 2000, I watched Carleton Fiorina, president and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard of Palo Alto, Calif., as she “took” a room. There were about 25 employees standing, sitting at desks or moving about. As she entered, all activity stopped, except for Fiorina, who shook hands with every individual, smiling and speaking to each.
“Call me Carly,” she told all who breathlessly awaited their private moment with her. It was as if time had stopped and only her presence mattered. Carly’s not a common name, but she was no Carly Simon, the songbird with a famous mane of hair. She was more like Madonna, all marketing sass and savvy.
I’ve seen politicians make similar commanding entrances — the young John Turner with his piercing blue eyes comes to mind — but never a businessperson. Even her husband was starstruck. Shortly after they first met, Frank told her, “You’re going to run a big company someday, and I’m going to help you get there.” In 1998, when he was 48, he took early retirement from AT&T to travel with Fiorina and champion her career.
Fiorina became Fortune magazine’s most powerful woman two years running, but I believe it was her manner, not any awards or corporate results, that set her apart.
On that visit to Canada, the 45year-old Fiorina spoke to the Canadian Club and met 1,300 HP employees in 25 locations either in person or by teleconference facilities.
Her message to staff was not the usual upbeat twaddle. At one such gathering she literally shouted, “We make over three new product announcements a day. Can you remember them? Our customers can’t.” She also demanded to be told about any dead weight hurting the company. “Send me ‘The Ten Stupidest Things We Do.’ I’ll read it.”
When meeting employees, Fiorina constantly smiled. There was never a moment of self-doubt, no misstep in her comportment. The Texas-born Fiorina had three degrees, including an MBA, but rather than quote management gurus, she was more likely to cite Socrates: “We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.”
All those elements of her personality came together to form and frame a style of leadership that was more gifted than most CEOs I’ve met. “Great leadership creates an environment that is capable of more when the leader leaves than when the leader came,” she told me. “That’s far beyond the cult of leadership. Cults of personality are not long-lasting. It’s also about some fairly structured heavy lifting.”
Her view of her own persona was equally astute. “I generally haven’t been what people expected. I’ve not done what people expected. What challenges me is doing things that people think can’t be done.”
Prior to her arrival, HP had lost its potency as a skunkworks. The company created the first hand-held calculator in 1972 but there had not been a runaway success since the ink-jet printer in 1984. The board of directors looked at 100 candidates before choosing Fiorina, the first outsider to run HP in its 60 years.
“This company cannot be transformed if I choose to go it alone,” she said. “I cannot be so far out ahead of the organization that we don’t journey together.” Bosses are rarely both so declaratory and selfdeprecating at the same time.
As CEO she led the takeover of Compaq, makers of personal computers, but constantly fought with the board of directors, who, during her time as CEO, became unhappy with the company’s performance. After six years in the job, the directors forced her out in 2005.
The fact most men don’t like working for a female boss may explain her departure. But few are the CEOs of either sex who write and leave behind guidelines to help any and all other firms. Fiorina called them the “Rules of the Garage,” a reference to the company’s founders, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who started the company in a onecar garage in 1939. The rules were unveiled with a $200-million (U.S.) ad campaign starring Fiorina.
1. Believe you can change the world.
2. Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
3. Know when to work alone and when to work together.
4. Share tools and ideas. Trust your colleagues.
5. No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)
6. The customer defines a job well done.
7. Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
8. Invent different ways of working.
9. Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
10. Believe that together we can do anything.
11. Invent.
By any measure, those rules are Fiorina’s most enduring legacy.