Tough Choices by Carly Fiorina

Touch Choices is an interesting read of Carly Fiorina's rise to power in the corporate world. Her management style is humane, insightful and highly effective.

In my opinion, HP would have been much better served with Carly Fiorina at the helm but a parochial, self serving, petty, political and cut-throat board brought down one of the greatest CEOs of our time.

Her values and grounding-
Success was not, to my parents, about frame and fortune. It was ultimately about the quality of one's mind and one's character. There was never any question about whether we would go to college or graduate school. It was assumed. Character was everything and character was defined as candor, integrity and authenticity. Character was about speaking the truth, and about speaking up and speaking out. Integrity was about preserving your principles and acting on them. Authenticity was about knowing what you believed, being who you were and standing up for both. What you are is God's gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God.
Learning was not simply a way to make a living - learning was a goal in and of itself- pages 4 & 5

Excerpted Management tools, style and insights-

(1) you not only pay others respect by asking to learn from them, buy you get smart fast by listening- page 7

(2) --disciplined thought processes and well-structured questions are as powerful as the answers- page 11

(3) --leadership lesson - understanding the essence of things is difficult, takes a lot of thought and has a big impact - page 12

(4) --don't think about the next job, focus on doing the very best you can with the job you have. Learn everything you can from everyone you can. Focus on the possibilities of each job, not the limitations. Look for people who will take a chance on you -page 19

(5) --a boss's confidence is a powerful motivator. "Because they saw potential in me, I began to look for it in myself" - page 20

(6) There are some who would argue that a manager's job is to use fear to motivate people, but I believe that a leader's job is to help people overcome their fear- page 26

(7) Its important to have confidence in what you know and what you can do. You can't make decisions effectively without confidence. It's equally important to be realistic about what you don't know and what you can't do; without realism, confidence become hubris- page 65

(8) Business is about producing results. If you're going to work for a company, large or small, then you must be prepared to embrace the objectives of that business. If you can't, you should work someplace else- page 67

(9) All triumphs are made of the same stuff: the right support, the right team, the determination to achieve the goal, lots of really hard work. And all triumphs are much more about choice than they are about chance- page 79

(10) A leader's job is to build an organization's skills and capabilities and to develop its capacity for producing quality results. A leader's job is also to define a worthy purpose and to build confidence to perform- page 101

(11) People are motivated by both reason and emotion. So are organizations---- a leader must capture hearts as well as challenge minds - page 102

(12) Values trump results- Values are what guide our behavior when no one is looking and no one can find out- page 105

(13) Whenever people stop striving for improved performance, inevitably execution gets sloppier and results deteriorate- If you want to make a positive impact on the financials of a company or a business or a product line, you have to understand what people are actually doing. Then you need to understand how their actions must change to produce better results. And you have to understand how to motivate people to behave differently- page 114

(14) Alignment results from shared goals- Collaboration results from shared measures of success. Both common purpose and common metrics must be clearly defined and clearly agreed upon. Collaborative decision making is the horizontal movement of information and decisions across and among many chains of command. Command-and-control decision making is defined by the boxes and lines on an organizational chart. Horizontal collaboration is defined by processes and the hand-offs from one group or person to the next. It is perhaps best captured by who communicates with whom- in meetings, in emails, and in phone calls- pages 138 & 139

(15) Goal setting is essential to performance. Set goals too low and people can overachieve the goal and yet still under perform against their competitors and the market; set the bar higher and people may miss the internal goal but still over perform against external targets - page 153

(16) "I have believed all my life that leadership has nothing to do with title or position. Leadership is about the integrity of one's character, the caliber of one's capabilities, and the effectiveness of one's collaboration with others. Anyone can lead from anywhere are anytime. I have seen people lead from lowly and well as lofty positions". Managers control resources but people follow leaders. Managers produce desired results within known boundaries and defined conditions. Leaders take risks, take action, create some excitement and create something new - Leaders are made not born. Leadership doesn't just happen; leadership can be taught and developed. pages 168, 183 & 221

(17) The HP Leadership framework as designed by Carly Fiorina (a) Strategy and Aspiration (b) Structure and Processes (c) Rewards and Metrics (d) Culture and Behaviors - page 184

(18) Regarding change- a quote from Charles Darwin "It is not the strongest of the species who survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most adaptive to change". Change, particularly systemic change of a company's entire framework, requires communication that is authentic, clear, persistent, consistent and ubiquitous. Because people hear competing messages, or resist the message, or just don't hear it at all, my rule of thumb is that real change generally requires ten times the amount of communication you originally plan. - pages 202 & 203

(19) When Carly Fiorina took over as CEO of HP, their products and services were being marketed under 150 different brands - she consolidated all 150 brands into a single brand- the original HP brand with the word invent added underneath- pages 193 & 205

(20) Alignment and trust are achieved through transparency, common information, and candid and on-going dialogue- page 212

(21) I don't believe in prolonging pain for an organization. If you have to lay people off, let them know as quickly as possible; don't let the rumor mill run rampant for months while people worry if they are on the list. I also don't believe in humiliating people. You don't have to hand someone a pink slip and walk them out the door. Everyone deserves dignity. Everyone deserves a human touch. Everyone, even those who must leave, has made a contribution, even if that contribution is no longer necessary or up to par - page 236

Homemade Peanut Butter Ice Cream

When I was a young lad growing up with five siblings in rural west Tennessee, my dearest mother, Eunia Mae Harris (picture inset) would make us special desserts for our birthdays. How she had time to bake and prepare requested desserts in addition to the washing, ironing and preparation of three full meals a day, not to mention her participation in all sorts of farm chores including tractor work in the fields, is beyond my understanding.

One such dessert stands out above the rest and was not even a request. My parents had only recently acquired their first refrigerator (this was back in the '50s in rural America) and my Mother would often freeze ice cream in a double ice cube tray after removing the cube separators. She would make all sorts of fruit flavors from our orchard but one day on a lark she added some smooth Peter Pan Peanut Butter to the ice cream mix and it was an instant hit with us kids. Later this recipe was transferred to an old crank homemade ice cream freezer and now to this day I still prepare a version of my mother's homemade peanut butter ice cream. I have made my special ice cream for many friends and acquaintances, to some acclaim.

Here is the recipe if anyone cares to taste the absolute best ice cream in the world- that is assuming you like peanut butter!

First choose your freezer- I recommend a self-coolant model ICE-20 made by Cuisinart.
Next you will need a blender and the following ingredients.
(1) 1 quart of half & half
(2) 1 quart of whole milk
(3) 1 cup of smooth peanut butter
(4) 3 cups of granulated white sugar
(5) 3 whole eggs
(6) 4 tbls heavy whipping cream

Assemble the ice cream freezer - place the frozen canister into the container, add the dasher and cover and then start the motor and let the canister turn freely while you prepare the ingredients.

Preparing the ingredients-
Add the 1 quart of half & half; 3 cups of sugar and 3 eggs and blend for 2 minutes and then pour into a large container for final mixing.

Add the 1 quart of whole milk; 1 cup of peanut butter and 4 tbls of heavy whipping cream and blend for 2 minutes and pour into the mixing container.

Stir the ingredients in the mixing container with a wooden spoon until well mixed and then pour into the ice cream canister.

The cream should freeze semi-hard within 30 minutes. Remove canister and enjoy your ice cream!

For all ice cream lovers, I recommend a definitive book on ice cream by Gail Damerow entitled Ice Cream! The Whole Scoop