Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change by Jr. Louis V. Gerstner Read Free Book Online Page A

retiring, he became dean of the Business School at the University of North Carolina and was building a new house in that state. The last thing he needed was to come back to IBM, but he did because he loved the company and he didn’t want to see it die.
    When I arrived, Paul was responsible for the program of federal-ism—breaking up the company into individual, autonomous units.
    Not that Paul created the strategy, but in the absence of a CFO, he was basically overseeing the finance function for the board. He was also in charge of watching all the investment bankers who were scrambling over most parts of the company, dollar signs in their eyes as they
    WHO SAYS ELEPHANTS CAN’T DANCE? / 37
    planted their flags into each business unit. It reminded me of a gold rush. Each one saw an initial public offering of stock (IPO) for the unit or units that he or she advised. We were spending tens of millions of dollars on accountants to create the bookkeeping required for IPOs because IBM’s financial system did not support stand-alone units. Paul was also deeply involved in the financing activities that were under way to raise additional capital.
    For me, asking Paul to stay on was an easy decision, and I’m grateful he did. Over the next year he was a tower of strength, a wise mentor, and an insightful partner in evaluating strategy and people—another important hero of the IBM turnaround.
    A special moment occurred during those first weeks of April. I walked out of my home one morning at my usual early hour.
    However, when I opened my car door, I suddenly realized there was someone sitting in the back seat. It was Thomas J. Watson, Jr., former IBM CEO and the son of IBM’s founder. Tom literally lived across the street and had walked up my driveway to surprise me and ride to work with me. He was 79 years old, and he had retired as CEO of IBM in 1971.
    He was animated and, perhaps better stated, agitated. He said he was angry about what had happened to “my company.” He said I needed to shake it up “from top to bottom” and to take whatever steps were necessary to get it back on track.
    He offered support, urged me to move quickly, reflected on his own career, and, in particular, the need he had seen over and over again to take bold action. At the end of our ride together, I had the feeling he wished he could take on the assignment himself!
    On April 15 I made my first official visit to a nonheadquarters site.
    I had chosen it carefully: the company’s research laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York. If there was a soul of IBM, this lab was it.
    38 / LOUIS V. GERSTNER, JR.
    Appropriately named the T. J. Watson Research Center, it contained the intellectual fervor that had led IBM over decades to invent most of the important developments that had created the computer industry.
    It was my first “public” appearance inside IBM, and it was important because I knew this was my greatest immediate vulnerability.
    Would the researchers reject me as an unacceptable leader? Some in the company were calling me the “Cookie Monster” because of my previous job at Nabisco.
    I spoke from a stage in an auditorium. The house was full, and my remarks were broadcast to an overflow of employees in the cafeteria. Other IBM research facilities around the world picked up the broadcast as well.
    The stereotype of researchers says they are so focused on big ideas that they are disconnected from the real world. Well, not these researchers! I saw the pain of IBM’s problems on their faces. I don’t know if they were curious or apprehensive, but they certainly came to listen.
    I gave what soon became my stump speech on focus, speed, customers, teamwork, and getting all the pain behind us. I talked about how proud I was to be at IBM. I underscored the importance of research to IBM’s future, but I said we probably needed to figure out ways to get our customers and our researchers closer together so that more of IBM’s great foundry of