Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #564884 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

a good book after you get used to the painfully dry style.
They say engineers (myself included) are generally poor writers; then David Packard must be an absolute genius. David Packard's book (as has his company been one) is an important contribution and a must read for company executives. But it does require patience and dedication -- like the one he and Bill Hewlette had to endure to make HP a success! Once you get through the first 6 or 7 chapters the book becomes and absolute GEM. Until then -- and unfortunately you almost have to read the first few chapters -- the book is a positive cure for sleeplessness. HP's dedication to innovation, its financial frugality (which shows up in Dave Packard not hiring a good ghost writer or editor) and the importance of Management by Objectives, Decenterlized Organization, and Management by Walkign Around, Expected Returns on R&D are only some of the Gems hidden in this book; but you do have to mine to get to them and IMHO it is a worthwhile pain to go through. What also comes through is how HP slipped their biggest chance of dominating the chip and computer market by not taking the risk and cancelling the OMEGA project. Reading David Packard's fatalistic justifications is worth 10 times the price of the book. Also little credit is given to the inventor of the calculator that made HP a house hold name, and no mention is made of procurement of Appolo(until in Appendix 2)!!! Admittedly, I am at fault for having difficulty with this book. I read it after reading "Hard Drive, Bill Gatees and the Making of Microsoft Empire" by Jamve Wallace and Jim Erickson. These gentlemen are professional writers/journalists that know how to grab ones attention and keep it. Reading them before "The HP Way", which incidently and surprisingly was rated the best business book of 1996 by Amazon readers, is like watching the movie Titanic, and then going home to suffer through 6 hours of Mr. Rogers!!! But I do still recommend the book not to mention that I am more inclined to one day work for the comapny! Cheers, --- Esfandiar

An unassuming revolutionary
This little book should be seen as a core text on modern management techniques. David Packard was obviously not the life and soul of the party. His writing style is plain and dull, and you may find that you learn more than you really need to know about resistance-stabilized audio oscillators (Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard established their business in the late nineteen-thirties in their now world-famous garage in Palo Alto, California, making electronic measuring instruments.)
What shines through this book, however, is Packard's essential decency: a thoughtful, hard-working man with strong principles concerning a company's responsibilities, both to the community from which it springs and to the people whom it employs. The refreshing thing about Packard is that he is not in any sense paternalistic. He is crystal clear on the fact that the aim of the company is to make a profit - but in pursuit of the company's overarching aim: to make a contribution. Packard wants to make a product that improves people's lives and advances society. He wants to contribute something to the institutions of the community in which the company works - because without these institutions it would be harder for the company to do its job.
Packard's management philosophy is simple, but seldom practised: decision-making should devolve to the level that is closest to the customer and to the real world; employees should be given a wide latitude of freedom in working towards established objectives; employees should, in every sense, share in the company's success; talent should be nurtured; employees should be offered job security where possible; people who buck the corporate trend may not necessarily be wrong; innovation is key, and it starts at the grass roots; the people who actually manufacture the goods have an important contribution to make as to how they are designed.
In following these 'enlightened' management principles, Packard and Hewlett created a company that by 1997 was ranked 16 in the Fortune Global 500, with a turnover of $38 billion and $2.6 billion in profits.
I was sceptical about the passionate support that some people express for 'The HP Way'. I read this short book, with its admitted lack of pace and verve, and it proved that the ways in which we have hoped that the corporations of the future might be managed are not only possible, but potentially hugely successful.
There are potential pitfalls, however, in how such principles may be interpeted once the founding fathers of the corporation are no longer involved. When Hewlett and Packard retired from active management, John Young took over as the first professional manager of the company. A later CEO and Chairperson, Carly Fiorina, was famously dismissed in 2005 after six years as at HP. One of her concerns had been that HP had become '1000 tribes' and that the various HP sub-brands no longer had any coherent identity. Greater focus on what consumers wanted from HP (and huge cost-savings) could be achieved by bringing these tribes together. Fiorina said that creating this horizontal collaboration was not the same as centralising control.
Was this an esential act of modernisation and market focus or was Fiorina abandoning the founders' core belief in devolution and 'The HP Way'? Probably the former, though Fiorina seems to have failed to persuade key figures at HP - especially key members of the board and the sons and daughters of the founders, who were also significant shareholders - that it was not the latter.

Venture spirit reminder
I've read this book to find out what motivated the people and companies in Silicon Valley which many other contries want to have one in their territory. It gave me lesson that the venture needs to be based on the acknowledgement of the understanding that the world is complex. Once take this granted,you can understand Hewlett and Packard did a great job and put a milestone to those who still can't understand the complexity of the society