It was clear that at all levels of the organization there was fear, uncertainty, and an extraordinary preoccupation with internal processes as the cause of our problems and, therefore, a belief that tinkering with the processes.
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Thus began a lifelong process of trying to build organizations that allow for hierarchy but at the same time bring people together for problem solving, regardless of where they are positioned within the organization.
However, what was also clear was that IBM was paralyzed, unable to act on any predictions, and there were no easy solutions to its problems. The IBM organization, so full of brilliant, insightful people, would have loved to receive a bold recipe for successāthe more sophisticated, the more complicated the recipe, the better everyone would have liked it.
It wasnāt going to work that way. The real issue was going out and making things happen every day in the marketplace.
We got there in stages because, while you can force anything down the throat of an organization, if people donāt buy into the logic, the change wonāt stick.
And, most challenging of all, they were almost inextricably interwoven with all that was good, smart, and creative about the company and its peopleāall the things it would have been madness to destroy, or even to tamper with. We couldnāt throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Perhaps the greatest mistake Iāve seen executives make is to confuse expectations with inspection.