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Case Study

IBM: The value of values (C)

By John R. Weeks and Jean-Louis Barsoux

2 pages

May 2010

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Reference: IMD-4-0322

This case is about rebuilding a high performance culture at IBM. The case starts in 2002, shortly after Sam Palmisano succeeded Louis V. Gerstner as Chairman and CEO of IBM. By the time Palmisano took over, the company had gone through a painful turnaround and was back on a healthy footing. The challenge for Palmisano, an IBM lifer, was how to persuade fellow IBMers to keep on changing in the absence of a “burning platform”. After ten years of sacrifice and effort, there was a real danger of slipping back into complacency. Palmisano took a bet on an online “jam” – a massive, 72-hour chat room where employees worldwide could voice ideas about the values of the company. The exercise served to showcase IBM’s technology and its willingness to tap into the ideas of its employees. It helped breathe new life into IBM’s values as well as reconnecting IBM with its heritage. Most importantly, it provided Palmisano with a collective mandate for ongoing change that, in 2010, pushed IBM’s results to new record highs.

Learning Objective

This case explores what culture is and how it can be changed, focusing on the particular challenge of building on success. For instructions looking for a broader discussion of IBM’s major leadership and change challenges since 1993, see case IMD-4-0318.

Keywords

Organizational Culture, High Performance, Sustaining Change, Participation, Innovation, Online Forum, Computing, Strategy, Vision, Alignment, Listening to Employees, Customer Orientation, Organizational Behavior, Culture Change

Settings

World/global
1993-2010

Type

Published Sources

Available Languages

English

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This case study is part of a series

IBM: The value of values (A)
IBM: The value of values (B)
IBM: The value of values (C)

This case study is part of a series

IBM: The value of values (A)
IBM: The value of values (B)
IBM: The value of values (C)

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