Sublime

Leaders of Great Groups find the right niche for each excellent contributor.

The point is not that every company should necessarily adopt the specifics of the HP Way, but that Hewlett and Packard exemplify the power of building a company based on a framework of principles. The core essence of the HP Way consists of five fundamental precepts.* 1) The Hewlett-Packard company exists to make a technical contribution, and should

hindsight, I would have started with our leadership team of five.

Successful groups reflect the leader’s profound, not necessarily conscious, understanding of what brilliant people want. Most of all, they want a worthy challenge, a task that allows them to explore the whole continent of their talent. They want colleagues who stimulate and challenge them and whom they can admire. What they don’t want are trivial d

When we started, we wanted to build a company that we would like to work at and we kept applying that criterion. I remember, when we first hired people in the original days, John and I would take turns hand-delivering a dozen roses to the spouse if it was woman, a bottle of cognac if the spouse was a man, and then champagne to the employee. We did

couldn't figure out what a receptionist would do. And executive assistants, we don't have those either. So on the subject of hiring, I don't look at a head count budget when I think of hiring people. I wait until I see the need for someone—when I can carve out a job description that's 80 percent full on the day someone starts—and that's when I'll o