Conference 7.286::digital

    Overall, bravo.  A nicely balanced view of what's good and bad about
    digital from a semi-acculturated perspective.  It does us good to
    remind ourselves of what is right while we decry the wrong. If you have
    not read extensively in this conference in the past 6 months or so you
    can find many, many supporting examples and viewpoints about almost all
    your points. Welcome.
    
    But tell me, before the inter-holiday break is over and we all head
    back to slaving away,  what is 'frightening' about the efficiency and
    subtelty of our network.
    
    jonb
    

    I don't think you have assumed much "personal risk" in posting .0.
    
    Let's face it, finding ills within Digital doesn't take much effort. 
    It's the person who says everything's just fine who is taking the
    personal risk.

    I really like your commentary.  It's nice to see some clear thinking
    from the outside.  Shows us how dangerous corporate incest is.  
    
    I don't necessarily think the "vast array of products" is a good thing
    though.  I'd rather we built a few good ones, particularly software.
    
    Our large number of products is kind of a product-equivalent of one of
    our major customer problems....i.e., we are very good at the big
    things, but terrible at small things.  IBM has quite a reputation for
    the opposite.  Last I heard they were winning, while we continue to
    slip.
    
    'Preciated your insight though.

 >>>   ...IBM has quite a reputation for
 >>>   the opposite.  Last I heard they were winning, while we continue to
 >>>   slip.
   
	
    Winning what?
    
    Angela
    

    Oh spare us that blind hatred of IBM.

    IBM is doing several things right.  In fact, what Digital promises in
    terms of restructuring, customer focus, ability to enter new markets,
    IBM has already achieved.

    This is reflected not in my opinion, but in their stock price,
    profitability, and market share.

    Digital is doing everyhting right.
     1. We are managing to drive our customers to T.P.M.
     2. We are like "Crazy Eddie" Our prices are insane.
     3. We promise the moon, sun and stars and deliver excuses.
     4. We quote on contracts that we can't deliver.
     5. We have a customer rollout and no one shows up.
     6. Customers call for software support and we hang up the phone.
    
    The days of giving our customers "the warm fuzzy feeling" are gone, as
    now we can outbid the whole world when it comes to cost, we can throw
    more red tape and innuendos at them then " carter has liver pills". We
    can "retire" people and then add three more levels of managers. Yes it
    really seems we can do "the right thing" when we have to.
    
         Just another country heard from.
    

re .1
    
>                 -< bravo/what's frightening about networks? >-
    
    I won't speak for Gordie, but what worries me is how easily a 'we-they'
    outlook, unfounded rumors, and destructive paranoia can appear  and
    spread infectiously throughout the network.
    
    Kinzelman's memo is a good illustration of the positive results we can
    get using the network.  I have another.  I formed a distribution list
    from two related conferences, invited the people on the list to join a
    member's only conference, and had an active conference going in three
    days.  Several weeks later, there are more than a dozen points of view
    recorded there.
    
    Negatively, our collective paranoia about Dan Infante's "don't backup
    the EIN conferences" spread like wildfire.  In a physical facility,
    there is a management which is ultimately responsible for employee
    morale, debunking rumors, etc.  In the network, each of us must assume
    that responsibility.  We do a good job, overall, but don't kid
    yourself.  The results of an open network like this in many business or
    educational environments could be very different!
    
    
    Regards,
    
    Dick

    re .4....they're winning the war for market share...and are quite
    successful in lot of product spaces that we are slipping in.
    
    Basically, IBM "bit the bullet", and went through a couple of years of
    massive restructuring and down-sizing.  We're still walking in ever
    widening circles around the bullet.

    I'm going to take a position between .6 and .7. hopefully skpetical
    but not cynical to the point of no return
    
    re: .6 Expressions of frustration and futility with Digital in this
    conference are so common that there's little novel in the last one
    hundred or so entered here in the conference.
    
    We're working now not to make some anonymous shareholders wealthier but
    for the very survival of our careers.  For me that's sufficient
    incentive to put up with some BS. I offer you encouragement, but I also
    warn you to know when you've been defeated.
    
    re: .7 Oh come on now...  Kinzelman's memo had some novelty in the
    precision of its wording such that it could not be "hand-waved" as so
    many worker-to-management gripes have been.  To say that it's "a good
    illustration of the positive results we can get using the network" is
    cybercrud.  It's just good intentions, and I think you know where the
    road paved with good intentions leads to.  OK, we can take some relief
    in the fact that people are listening.  "I hear what you are saying"
    is that wonderful DEC-ism that applies here.

    I often find myself saying that this is a business, not a democracy.
    While I applaud many of the "human" aspects of Digital's policies, I
    think we may have gone too far.  Much unnecessary, wasteful activity
    occurs when trying to make pieces fit when they should have fit in the
    first place (and given good management, they might well have).  We seem 
    to carry independence too far as regards product development, which
    yields less than cohesive product sets in support of less than solid
    corporate level strategies.
    
    As for  "We're working now not to make some anonymous shareholders 
    wealthier but for the very survival of our careers.", though Mr.
    Sweeney may not have meant it that way, the attitude his statement
    conveys points up my biggest disappointment upon coming to Digital. 
    Too many are concerned for themselves before the company while (not)
    doing their jobs.  I may have been fortunate in my past business
    affiliations (NASA, AMS Inc., etc.), but it was almost always true 
    that when we were concerned for the company first, and did our jobs 
    well, we didn't have to worry about our careers too much. We certainly
    don't seem to be helping ourselves with the "metrics" fixation. That
    appears to be true when, for example, someone in the field asking for 
    a quote on an unannounced product without success states that if we
    don't provide the quote, they will quote it to the customer anyway.
    That behavior can't be explained by common sense.
    
    I stop in here very infrequently (every few months for a short while),
    but it interests me to see the same arguments and rebuttals every time.
    The words change a bit, but the "problems" always seem familiar, and
    the suggested "solutions" likewise. This last only for what it's worth.
    My quick cut is that management mechanisms that work well when a
    company comprises 1K employees doesn't scale well to 100K employees.
    
    Cheers...Gary
                 

    re .10
    
         well said.

    re .10

    We do spend a lot of time banging square pegs into round holes. And
    when we see it's not working, we stop everything and measure and
    categorize all our pegs and holes before continuing (to do the same
    thing again).

    We make up rules and procedures and processes to follow and metrics to
    measure their success where we should be using nothing but common sense.

>   As for  "We're working now not to make some anonymous shareholders 
>   wealthier but for the very survival of our careers.", though Mr.
>   Sweeney may not have meant it that way, the attitude his statement
>   conveys points up my biggest disappointment upon coming to Digital. 
>   Too many are concerned for themselves before the company while (not)
>   doing their jobs...

    Knowing Pat, what he was saying that we are working for Digital's
    future and for jobs' futures -- a job at a company that is not going
    to become healthier is not a "career."

    It's intersting. I dug out an old Tom Peters tape from several years
    ago. Here was a profitable steel company: thousands of workers,
    incredibly high quality and customer satisfaction. No job descriptions,
    minimal management. And no more than 100 people in a building. Not the
    Digital way, but emminently successful. And why?

    	- people talk to each other

    	- once you get more than 100 people under the same roof everything
    	  (quality, output,...) goes to hell  --  probably because people
    	  stop being able to talk to each other!

    We're all doing a lot of talking. But the lack of immediate _effective_
    response (e.g., "I hear you") sometimes casts doubt on if we listen as
    well as we talk. We talk about the Digital way of working, but that way
    of working breaks down after you surpass a certain size. We have
    something to learn from this example about how to organize ourselves and
    how to work most effectively. Being big isn't bad, it's when you're big
    in a way that negates all your advantages in doing business when you were
    smaller that is the real killer.

    What was the topic, again? :-)


    /Peters

    From "Administrative Vitality" by Marshall Dimock:
    
    	"My thesis is that bureaucracy is now in large supply and that
     	 enterprise is fading and needs to be restored; that the four main
         elements of bureaucracy are hierarchy, specialization, rules, and
         impersonality; the four main ingredients of enterprise are incentive,
         idea, person, and process."
    

    RE.13
    
    Yeah...thanks,and I dared to forward it to a few people I regard as
    my trusting friends.I wanted to forward it to somewhere higher but
    I think that in this stage of day&age I may burn myself with it.
    
    Jan.(ESSC Nijmegen,Holland,Europe)