Integrating Hewlett-Packard and Compaq may have been the easy part. Can HP now beat Dell and IBM at their own game?
Roy Harris, CFO Magazine
September 01, 2003
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By Todd Datz
August 15, 2003, CIO

A partnership guru provides some pointers on developing lasting relationships..
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Commitment

Emotional commitment is critical for being an effective dynamic leader. For these leaders, commitment is about emotional vesting, perseverance, and passion. The sense of reward they derive from their accomplishments feeds more than their pocketbooks: It feeds their souls.

The word “emotion” is used with restraint in business. It is often equated with weakness and instability. Emotional vesting does not mean losing emotional control. Nor does it mean burdening your coworkers or superiors with emotional problems. Emotional vesting means that the individual has the capacity to have strong and passionate expectations for positive results. It means working with commitment and not clocking in and out on a rigid schedule, but rather as the workload and projects demand. Vesting in the activity means that the desire for success is high — and so are the rewards.

The Environment for Emotional Vesting
Some shortsighted companies may rationalize a high level of emotional vesting by individuals as an excuse not to be concerned about the organizational environment. If employees love their work, the might say, then the working conditions will not matter. That is a very dangerous rationalization, though it may work in the short term.
But, as pressures of growth and market changes case work to be restructured or redefined, the environment and the corporate culture will become a more compelling factor in attracting or retaining people. Lack of attention to a consistent corporate culture is certain to drive away emotionally vested dynamic leaders. What is common in highly political and bureaucratic organizations is that the emotional vesting is psychologically beaten out of people.
Eventually, they protect themselves emotionally from such hurt by not giving their all to make success happen, individually or organizationally.
One sure-fire way that organizations can foster emotional vesting is through fun. Says Valerie Salembier, publisher of Esquire magazine, “The Esquire staff is incredibly committed to what we are doing, but it’s also fun. We’ve created a work environment where there is a lot of laughing going on.
There are so many ups and downs every single day, it is like a big roller coaster ride. As such, one needs to make sure that the people on the team are enjoying what they do so that they can leave at the end of the day happy. All of us believe passionately in this magazine, and because of that we can create the best product and do the right thing for the customer.”

June 2000
ALIGNING THE INTERNET AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

Online customer support is the wave of the future. As e-commerce continues to surge, the most effective way for a company to improve customer service and enhance customer retention is to web-enable its call center. Industry trends point clearly to heightened customer use of e-mail and Internet requests, with expected response times diminishing from hours to minutes.
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By T.C. Doyle & Sonia R. Lelii, VARBusiness
From the May 07, 2003 issue of VARBusiness

When Rich Tear, president and co-founder of CSCI, a privately held VAR based in San Diego, first heard that his then-top vendor partner had agreed to merge with Hewlett-Packard in what would later turn out to be the biggest merger in high-tech history, his first reaction was, “Oh Compaq, not this.”
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Looking beyond the bottom line will ease tensions
By Erin Flynn
Diversity Channel Now Correspondent
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