Memoranda (memos) are the detritus of organizational processes, frequently written only so the writer can point to the message as prima facia evidence of purported communication, concern, action, or principles: mistakes were made, committees have been appointed, or actions will be taken. Some are internal, revealing the jaded reality behind polished exteriors. Some are leaked, some are belatedly discovered in the archives of history, and still others are published and promulgated widely.
Not surprisingly, whether in academia, industry, or government, cynicism often runs high among any memo’s target audiences, for such memos can be turgid and meandering, written and edited by committees. Consequently, most are little read, and even fewer are remembered, much in the spirit of the old Communist adage, “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” The exceptions prove the rule, exposing existential concerns and broader truths, part of an authentic dialog.
Memo Filtering
Long ago, I was privileged to serve as head of the computer science department at the University of Illinois, one of the country’s great academic teams, famous for its work in high-performance computing. In those pre-Internet days, a veritable blizzard of paper memoranda came to me from the offices of the college dean and the university administration. After scanning them, I discarded the vast majority, forwarding only a few of the most relevant to the paper mailboxes of my colleagues, who still good-naturedly complained about unnecessary deforestation. Reminding them that I filtered the chaff and that they were only seeing the “good stuff,” I bided my time.
Eventually yet another memo from the campus reached my desk regarding campus pouring rights and the new campus contract for either Coca-Cola or Pepsi products. Though practically important to the campus for its financial contributions to scholarship, it was largely irrelevant to most. Seizing my opportunity for friendly parody, I wrote an extended, tongue-in-cheek cover memo encouraging my colleagues to engage in shared governance and participatory democracy by attending the upcoming campus town hall and expressing their views on one of the great and important issues of our day – the relative merits of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. I’d made my point, which elicited some laughter and friendly discussion at our next faculty meeting.
Including the Janitor
One of the most famous memos in all of computing, perhaps rivaled only by Bill Gates’ 1995 Internet Tidal Wave memo, was written by IBM President Thomas Watson Jr. on August 28, 1963. The entire memo, directed to the company’s senior leadership prior to an upcoming retreat at Jenny Lake, New York, is reproduced below:
August 28, 1963
Last week CDC had a press conference during which they officially announced their 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing this system there are only 34 people, “including the janitor.” Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers, and only one has a Ph. D., a relatively junior programmer. To the outsider, the laboratory appeared to be cost conscious, hard working and highly motivated.
Contrasting this modest effort with our own vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world’s most powerful computer. At Jenny Lake, I think top priority should be given to a discussion as to what we are doing wrong and how we should go about changing it immediately.
T. J. Watson, Jr.
Condensed to its essence, Watson asks how a pipsqueak little company could develop a world-leading technological marvel that eclipsed the efforts of a Fortune 500 corporation. After all, IBM’s slogan was and is simply THINK. I pondered similar things myself while at Microsoft, as we in the senior leadership looked at the Apple iPad and iPhone with similar dismay during our executive retreats.
At the time of Watson’s memo, IBM was the world’s largest computing company, deep in the development of the IBM System/360, a multibillion dollar, “bet the company” plan to develop an entire product line of instruction set compatible computers. The successful result reshaped the computing industry and ensured IBM’s dominance for the next twenty years. In the years prior, IBM had developed the IBM 7030 Stretch, the fastest computer in the world until the CDC 6600 appeared, a leadership role IBM would not reclaim until almost forty years later.
On being told of Watson’s memo, CDC’s Seymour Cray, the architect of the CDC 6600 and widely known in computing for eschewing bureaucracy, reportedly quipped, “It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question.” Cray, universally lauded as the father of supercomputing, later designed the eponymously named Cray-1, once again the world’s fastest computer. However, this is not a story about supercomputers, but about culture, shared responsibility, and respect.
As Watson noted, IBM had vast development activities and a large cadre of visionary and talented people, luminaries like Fran Allen, John Backus, Fred Brooks, John Cocke, and Gene Amdahl, several of whom, along with Seymour Cray, I have known over the years, and others I was blessed to count as colleagues. Where IBM struggled, by its own admission, was not talent; it was bureaucracy and culture. Some of its best minds left the company to pursue their own ideas, and others were relieved of responsibility when they challenged the orthodoxy.
As an example, John Cocke’s own, legendary work on the IBM 801, which long predated the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) revolution, took years to see the light of day. In a story that has been told and retold, and embellished with retelling until it has become the stuff of legend, John returned from a meeting with management, frustrated and disgruntled by their lack of vision. He gathered his team and reputedly said, “<EXPLETIVE> them! We are going to build the best <EXPLETIVE> computer the world has ever seen.”
With IBM’s tolerance and unencumbered by market niches and product lines, they did just that, though the reality was more nuanced and complicated than this story might suggest. It was a powerful combination -- John’s vision and the quality of his team, each of whom knew this was the intellectual opportunity of a lifetime. Because the project lacked the blessing and imprimatur of any product line, they named it the 801, after the offices where they worked. (The New York Times has a great story about John Cocke and his maverick ways.)
Team Cultures
Mr. Watson’s deprecating allusion to the janitor is telling. As Tolstoy remarked in Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Dysfunctional teams can and do fail in a variety of ways. Conversely, great teams, regardless of the mission and objective, share several common attributes.
First, the team members believe passionately in a greater goal and mission, as something worthy of shared commitment and mutual sacrifice. (“We are going to build the fastest computer the world has ever seen.”) Individually and collectively, they are united in their desire to do something that will be remembered, something others may believe improbable or impossible; they want to make a difference. Whether that vision originates from the team’s leader or from one of its members matters not.
Second, a successful team is greater than its parts. Each team member recognizes and understands they each have a critical role, and if they fail individually, the team will fail collectively. Hence, each depends on the others to not only meet their commitments but to exceed them. They will disappoint or fail their partners. Everything and everyone matter, and everyone knows it, including the janitor.
It is also why being “lean and mean” is often so critical to success. With no distractions, no tangential activities, leadership shielding them from bureaucratic intrusions, and just enough resources to complete the task – but no more – everyone is highly motivated and keenly focused on the goal and the competition. The fierce urgency of now motivates one and all. Venture capitalists know this well; overfunding a startup is as deadly as critically underfunding.
Third, leaders know the buck stops with them. They bear the ultimate responsibility for the team’s overall performance, and they will accept blame if necessary to protect the team. Steve Jobs often talked about the difference between the janitor’s responsibility and that of a leader. As he put it, if the janitor cannot empty the trash because the locks have been changed and the janitor lacks a key, that is understandable. Conversely, a leader must anticipate such problems and clear the path for the team. Locked doors cannot be a barrier.
The Spider-Man rule applies to leaders: With great power comes great responsibility. Sometimes, that responsibility means providing the vision and strategy that animates the team, other times it means holding the bureaucracy at bay. Or, it can mean getting new keys made over the weekend, so the janitor can empty the trash without interruption. In other cases, it can mean buying and personally delivering pizza to fuel the inevitable late nights, or sweeping the floors if the janitor is ill. Good leaders do what needs to be done, instinctively and unhesitatingly, without drama.
Finally, and most importantly, in a great team, everyone is respected for their differential skills and responsibilities. The janitor matters, just as does the Ph.D., the engineer, and the software developer, albeit each with different roles and expectations. As M. L. King, Jr. once said, “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” There is virtue and honor in being a great janitor, just as there is in being a computer architect.
Never forget, the way leaders treat each individual sets the organization’s tone. In the cultures of great teams, the members feel empowered to generate ideas, offer suggestions, question authority, and take the initiative. If the leader respects and values the janitor, treating him or her as an equal and valued partner, the other team members will know, intuitively and immediately, that they too are valued, and they will respond accordingly. This is the working definition of servant leadership.
Feed the Mind, Thank the Janitor
Inertia is endemic to large organizations, where bureaucratic processes can hamper or even strangle innovation. In response, wise leaders often create alternative cultures, research institutes, and skunkworks that let radical innovation flourish unimpeded by memoranda, processes, and bureaucracy. It is precisely this dichotomy – those who work within established paradigms and those who are compelled to create new ones – that Thomas Kuhn explored in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both are needed, and effective cultures support and nourish both.
Unfettered exploration by passionate individuals and committed teams is the fundamental premise of academic freedom and exploratory research, whether in universities or in industry. As Vannevar Bush perspicuously noted in his famous memo to President Roosevelt at the end of World War II, “Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown.” Such individuals and teams rarely read memos; trust me on this.
And the next time you see a janitor, or anyone else engaged in a seemingly thankless but important task, stop, smile, and say thank you; they too make a difference. The word will spread, far faster and far more effectively than via any memo.
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