Some -- but not all of you -- follow EMC quite closely.
Your reasons may vary, but you do seem to pay attention to us. Thank you for that.
Many of us have just returned from our annual leadership meeting. Think in terms of a hand-selected group of about 400 individuals from across EMC's vast holdings -- coming together for three days to reflect and renew ourselves for the challenges ahead.
I couldn't resist the temptation to offer up a short blog post with a few personal thoughts.
Maybe you're interested, maybe you're not ...
A Corny Story, If I Might?
When I was eight years old, one of my favorite toys was a Hot Wheels racing set. Think about an oval track with a battery-powered device with two spinning wheels. The cars would come cruising into the box, the spinning foam wheels would grab them, and -- pow!! -- the cars would go shooting out the other side.
It worked OK when used with two normal 1.5 volt batteries. It worked even better when I figured out how to apply 36 volts using a cast-off transformer.
At least, until my parents got upset with the wall craters that were resulting from cars launching off the track at 4x normal speed :)
Well, that's how I'm feeling about this meeting. Way too much voltage applied; now let's see if we can keep this thing on the track ...
Emotions Run High
For those of us who've been here for a while, it's always great to catch up with your colleagues and what they're doing these days. People move around a lot at EMC, and I like to keep track of what everybody is doing.
Even better, about 25% of the audience were there for the first time. They were either new hires (typically from Oracle, HP, NetApp, etc.) , or came to us through an acquisition.
Getting their unfiltered reactions is priceless: you get to see things through a very fresh set of eyes.
Veteran or new: the energy level started high and only got higher throughout the event. People were literally bouncing around with enthusiasm by the end.
How many three-day corporate meetings can you say that about?
The Outside Perspective
About a third of the agenda was given over to creating the all-important outside perspectives. We had some amazing external speakers (including the brave choice of Jonathan Harris!). More importantly, we had a customer CIO panel chartered with the mission of giving us unvarnished feedback on what we could do better, and what our large IT competitors were doing well.
Even though we collectively felt we had a lot to be proud about in 2011, it wasn't hard to realize that the real challenges lie ahead. Some of it was quite humbling indeed.
The Execs Speak
Like any corporate gathering, we all want to hear from our leadership: their assessment of where we are, and what we need to do going forward.
Paul Maritz gave a deeply insightful analysis on how one of VMware's core challenges involved transforming how our customers operate. Not a new thought, but certainly good to hear :)
Pat Gelsinger delivered his trademark terabit-speed overview of technology, including previews of what we'll be seeing from product groups during 2012. Trust me, we will have no shortage of cool new technologies to talk about this year and beyond ...
Howard Elias did an excellent job on the services side, and made it clear to all of us that higher-value consultative services were now an integral part of our more meaningful customer engagements.
David Goulden (our CFO) did his usual stellar job creating economic and strategic context for EMC, and sharing the continual process innovations his team was investing in. I know this sounds strange, but most of us really look forward to David's presentation each and every year.
And then there was Joe. My, was he masterful.
Once he told the cameras to turn off, he went far and deep, expressing his personal perspectives and emotions about what we'd accomplished, and what we were capable of going forward. He had one key slide around aspects of a successful leader which I hope to share here before too long. At his conclusion, he received a spontaneous and long-lasting standing ovation. We were all deeply moved.
Personal note: many of us believe Joe deserves the same level of recognition that the other more-well-known titans of tech deserve. Under his leadership, EMC has achieved truly amazing things. Better yet, he's a really great guy :) As an example, the dynamics were obvious when Paul, Pat and Michael Capellas joined Joe for an unscripted exec Q&A session on stage.. The questions were great, the answers were honest and transparent -- but you could see the great chemistry working between them.
That's what great leaders do -- build great teams.
Meet The New (Old) Strategy
Great companies don't change their strategy every year, they just refine what they're already doing. EMC is no exception: we saw even more depth, engagement and refinement around our three strategic themes: cloud, big data and trust.
No surprises for us; no surprises for our stakeholders.
We did get great validation that our chosen focus areas were working well with customers and partners; creating the impetus to continue to double down as before.
But there was a new note: transformation. You couldn't look anywhere at the event without seeing "TRANSFORM: IT + BUSINESS + YOU".
Although interpretations might vary, one meaning might be that EMC has the power to transform IT, how our customers do business -- even the careers of the people we work with.
We see our potential role to change the world around us. Powerful stuff indeed.
While no strategy has any guarantee of success -- even with diligent execution -- it wasn't hard to see that we had the right strategy, and had achieved a critical mass of execution already.
We Don't Take Ourselves Too Seriously
At EMC, we do like to have a bit of fun -- sometimes at each other's expense. There were a few on-stage pranks (BJ Jenkins, I'm looking at you), and plenty of witty and spontaneous exchanges: exactly the type of thing you see when everyone's very comfortable with each other and having a good time.
There was plenty of time during breaks and evening to mingle and connect. I often think that more useful work gets done around a meeting than during it, but that would be a tough call here, simply because so many useful things happened during the meeting.
Rather unique this year is that we were all encouraged to tweet at #EMCleadership. I think that speaks volumes in regards to our management culture: open, transparent, engaging, etc.
We also love our little contests. This time, everyone wore name badges with Microsoft Tag barcodes, linked to a quick social profile: picture, favorite song, etc. Of course, we had to have a contest and prizes for the people who could scan the most people during the event.
The same people try to win every year (BJ, looking at you again). And, of course, each year serious effort is spent on trying to game the contest (e.g. reading the same badge over and over, scanning all the unclaimed badges, etc.)
All big fun :)
The Road Ahead
We all left the meeting feeling extremely positive. We collectively felt we had the potential to make a meaningful positive impact for our customers and partners in 2012.
It was clear that all the big pieces were in place for 2012 and beyond: the vision, the strategy, the execution and the leadership team.
I wish you could have been there :)
great summary chuck... that type of leadership team energy is all too rare in the corporate world. ...and you're right, I wish I was there :-)
Posted by: Jameshorton | January 11, 2012 at 11:13 PM