Everything Starts With The Customer.

I Think Values Are Really, Really Important, But I Also Think That Too Many Values Are Just Words.

Until I Came To Ibm, I Probably Would Have Told You That Culture Was Just One Among Several Important Elements In Any Organization's Makeup And Success - Along With Vision, Strategy, Marketing, Financials, And The Like... I Came To See, In My Time At Ibm, That Culture Isn't Just One Aspect Of The Game, It Is The Game. In The End, An Organization Is Nothing More Than The Collective Capacity Of Its People To Create Value.

The World Is Full Of Ceos That Think That Just Because They Write A Memo Or They Write A Letter Inside An Annual Report Or They Give A Little Video Speech That Gets Sent Around The Company, They Think That's What's Really Going To Affect Employees.

If The Practices And Processes Inside A Company Don't Drive The Execution Of Values, Then People Don't Get It. The Question Is, Do You Create A Culture Of Behavior And Action That Really Demonstrates Those Values And A Reward System For Those Who Adhere To Them?

The More Successful Enterprises Are The More They Try To Replicate, Duplicate, Codify What Makes Us Great. And Suddenly They're Inward Thinking. They're Thinking How Can We Continue To Do What We've Done In The Past Without Understanding That What Made Them Successful Is To Take Risks, To Change And To Adapt And To Be Responsive. And So In A Sense Success Breeds Its Own Failure. And I Think It's True Of A Lot Of Successful Businesses.