Beyond Memories #2: Asking for feedback

Beyond Memories #2: Asking for feedback

Andy Grove taught a class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for much of his tenure as CEO of Intel.  Shortly after I started working at Intel, but long before I came to know Andy, I took advantage of his offer to allow two Intel employees to attend each class.  I sat at the back of the lecture hall, next to two other guests, one of whom I recognized as another highly regarded silicon valley CEO.  The class was an engaging, provocative and incredibly insightful discussion of an IBM case that covered the period during during which I had worked at IBM.  I had to practically sit on my hands to avoid the temptation to get directly involved in the discussion.  

When the class was over, I stood up, energized to go back to Intel and get to work.  But there was Andy:

“What did you think?” he asked.  

I assumed he was talking to CEO on my right, or the woman on my left.  But, not so -- he was talking to me.  I blurted out a few platitudes, and managed to thank him for allowing me and the other Intel employees to attend these sessions, and headed back to the office.

On the way home, I considered Andy’s challenges to the Stanford students: e.g. had IBM focused on the right things at the right time?  What did they/we not see coming?  How might they/we have responded to early indications of the vast disruptions ahead?  I began to wonder why Andy was teaching the class at Stanford, and not at Intel.  We at Intel had similar issues and needed to be thinking like this.

Shortly after I got back to the office, there was Andy in my cubicle.  “What did you really think?”, he asked.   Replaying my thoughts in the drive over, I told him it was a great class. It made me think more clearly about the challenges at Intel.  But with the chutzpah that often takes over my mouth, I asked why was he teaching the class at Stanford and not at Intel.   

“It wouldn’t work”, “Employees wouldn’t take it seriously,” “I don’t have time for that” he replied.  

I countered that it wouldn’t take much of his time.  The materials were prepared.  I’d be his teaching assistant and take all administrative responsibility.  He  would just have to show up and do the teaching (Q & A style) just as he did at Stanford.  It would be just as much, if not more fun to provoke his employees as it was the students.  

“No, not worth it,” said  Andy as he stomped off toward his own cube (yes his workspace was a cube like everyone else’s).  My first direct interaction with my CEO and I had angered him!

But at 8:15 the next morning when I arrived, there was Andy, waiting.  “Is your offer still good?” he asked astonishingly.  

Thrilled, I instantly agreed.  Within 2 months, there he was, provoking Intel senior managers, drawing parallels between the cases and Intel issues past and present.  

Andy asked for feedback from someone he didn’t know (me) and had no particular reason to respect.  He brushed off my initial accolades.  He pushed for more. He listened to the answer.   He bluntly disagreed.  Upon reflection, he changed his view, and came to agree with an alternative analysis and recommendation.  He allowed someone else to take responsibility, and run with it.  He ultimately gave it his all, and helped to develop a cohort of Intel managers.  I remember some of the learnings, as well as the critiques and the support I received during the class (where I did participate), and I still hold dear the course materials of that class some twenty years later.  

Here are 2 highlights from the list of ‘class learnings’:

• Strategy is what an organization does, not what it says
• Organizational dissonance, often the result of autonomous behavior at the boundaries of an organization, is a strategy driver