IMD-4-0320 © 2010
Weeks, John; Barsoux, Jean-Louis
By the time Palmisano took over, the firm had gone through a debilitating turn around and was back on a healthy footing. An IBM lifer, the challenge for Palmisano, was to persuade fellow IBMers to keep on changing in the absence of a “burning stage”. After ten years of effort and sacrifice, there was a real risk of sliding back into complacency. Palmisano took a bet on an on-line “jam” – a huge, 72-hour chat room where employees globally could voice ideas about the values of the firm.
The exercise serve to display case IBM’s technology and its openness to tap into the thoughts of its workers. It helped breathe new life into IBM’s values in addition to reconnecting IBM with its tradition. Most of all, it supplied a collective mandate for ongoing change to Palmisano that, in 2010, pushed on IBM’s results to new record highs. Learning objectives: This case investigates what culture is and how it can be changed, focusing on the particular challenge of building on success. For educations looking for a more comprehensive discussion of change challenges and IBM’s major direction since 1993, see case IMD-4-0318.
Subjects: Organizational culture; High performance; Sustaining change; Participation; Innovation; Online forum; Computing; Strategy; Values; Vision; Alignment;Listening to employees; Customer orientation; Systems, Processes
Settings: Globa; Computers; 320,000 employees; 1993-2010
