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When Hewlett-Packard opened its doors to Carly Fiorina in 1999, the company was intensely inbred and proud of it. Employee turnover averaged just 5 percent a year. Top management consisted almost entirely of people who hadn't worked anywhere else since college graduation. Executives working on theory decisions sometimes walked over to file cabinets and fished about until they found a transcript of Dave Packard's comments from decades earlier. They sought guidance from his words as if they were reading scripture itself. People who worked at HP couldn't imagine that their unique culture could ever be diluted by a mega-merger. Many employees were feeling that the HP Way was being diminished to only one objective: profit. They were concerned that with the merger the company was working to resurrect the true HP Way by clearing out "deadwood" through layoffs and were beginning to feel less valued. .
The Hewlett-Packard that Carly Fiorina was now running was not the same company from the garage start up of the 1930s or even the small instrument company of the 1950s. It couldn't be. HP had become so big that it needed to be run by entirely different principles. It wasn't selling to the engineer at the next bench any more, it was trying to connect with mass markets around the globe. It was fighting for supremacy in some of the world's most competitive industries.
Carly Fiorina was not the same kind of leader as Dave Packard or Bill Hewlett. She couldn't be. The founders had an unshakable credibility that came from having done every job themselves when the company was small. They had been research scientist, salesmen, janitors, and factory foreman. When they practiced management by walking around, they were admired and beloved before they opened their mouths. In addition, their company was small enough in its prime that it was possible to lean over a partision, say hello to some workers, and eventually get to know almost everyone.
