Song of The Day: Ziggy Stardust - Artist: David Bowie

Last Thursday (11/16) I was invited by AOL to attend the NVTC’s Tech Celebration. The guest speaker was Carly Fiorina, the former Chairman and CEO of HP.

The event started with a “meet-and-greet” and then dinner. Before dessert Ms. Fiorina took the stage and gave a speech on leadership with references to her book, Tough Choices. There is a bunch that could be written about the speech; however, this quote (translation varied somewhat), included in her speech, seems to capture the essence of it all:

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Niccolo Machiavelli

As Ms. Fiorina alluded, it can be a rather hard business driving “change” and it takes a lot of determination, hard work, and passion to make it happen. Even then, there may be forces at odds with those who take change “in hand,” which can ultimately stunt momentum and change. For example, no matter what one does below them in an organization, one may have limited ability to change what’s above them :). According to Ms. Fiorina, not in the speech but from other articles, it was a dysfunctional board that made her success uncertain.

One other interesting aspect from the speech was regarding change “indicators,” lagging versus leading, and what they are telling about changing trends.

Most reading this will know the difference. For example a balance sheet is a lagging indicator because it represents the results of what changed. However, Ms. Fiorina looks to these areas as leading indicators for changes up-front and on the periphery:

  • Customer Satisfaction
  • Rate of Innovation (e.g., growth of patents)
  • Diversity of Management Team (i.e., perspectives, expertise, etc.)

So not only is driving change potentially “difficult, perilous, and uncertain,” but one also needs to anticipate its trend before others and then commit to driving the “difficult, perilous, and uncertain new order of things.” :)

Ms. Fiorina apparently had seen changing trends, thus merging with Compaq, and had taken change in hand with determination, hard work, and passion. So what happened? Next time….

600) )4j

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