Ho John Lee's Weblog

SV Watcher posted the text of a message that went out to HP employees from Mark Hurd today. Looks like the official corporate values are pretty much the way I remember:

Clearly things have happened here that are unacceptable. But we will not react to speculation. Instead, we will continue to gather and review all the relevant facts. I can assure you we will get to the bottom of this and take appropriate action.

HP’s values are at the core of this company. These have not changed and will not change. HP’s shared values are a set of deeply held beliefs that govern and guide our behavior.
• We are passionate about customers
• We have trust and respect for individuals
• We perform at a high level of achievement and contribution
• We act with speed and agility
• We deliver meaningful innovation
• We achieve our results through teamwork and
• We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity.

He also mentions that he believes the current board flap has nothing to do with the strategy or operations of Hewlett-Packard. I agree, provided it gets resolved promptly and fairly.

Gene Becker, who’s still at HP, is starting to think about what the HP Way 2.0 might look like. But a set of values or ideals is just words on paper until people begin to live and breathe by them, and people will learn them by their shared experience. The board affair is a great “teachable moment” in progress, the question is – what lesson gets taught?

The HP board is holding an unscheduled meeting over the weekend. Patricia Dunn has apparently offered to resign if they ask, but isn’t volunteering to step aside. Perhaps there are more facts here in her support, but let’s see what lessons we learn. So far it looks like “Don’t get caught”.

See also: What would Bill and Dave do?

HP has a culture problem.

Put aside for a moment the (probably illegal) methods used to obtain the personal phone records of the HP board members.

Yes, HP’s private detectives were using social engineering and pretexting, but honestly, does it surprise you to hear that a senior executive got carried away trying to identify their secret “enemies”? Didn’t think so.

The surprising part is that this wasn’t an Oracle (sending private investigators out dumpster diving for evidence) or an Apple (filing lawsuits and requesting subpoenas to learn the names of leakers), or some other Valley company built around tightly controlling founders.

The surprising part is that this was at HP, the company formerly known as “Hewlett-Packard”, where by tradition Bill Hewlett left his change on his desk, demonstrating his trust in his co-workers. This is like expecting Gerald Ford and getting Richard Nixon.

HP has been getting its act back together for the past year. Less talking, more doing. This affair won’t have any short term effect on the operation of the company. But it how it is resolved (or not) will have a long lasting effect on the internal values of the organization and the external perception of the company by partners, customers, and competitors.

If Patty Dunn worked for Mark Hurd, I think he would be nearly obligated to fire her at this point, or at least move her to the “penalty box” of sidelined executives. However, board directors aren’t exactly employees, and she’s the chair. It’s difficult to fire your boss.

But…would you want to do business with (or work for) a company whose management thinks it’s OK to conduct illegal searches because it thinks you did something it doesn’t like?

What would Bill and Dave do? (After they stop spinning in their graves.)

Yes, I know it’s a vastly different company now. That’s a good thing. This is still wrong.

More at Newsweek, MSNBC, Smoking Gun, TechDirt, Fred’s House, Infectious Greed, Intuitive Life