Thread regarding Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) layoffs

"4 - Figure out what they want to to hear and tell them that."

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Winner-winner, Mammoth dinner! (Maybe dinosaur or trilobite dinner?)

So has it been since time immemorial, so will it be till we all (or near-all, overwhelmingly) develop a conscience, and listen to it!

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I am actually optimistic that this glorious day will dawn soon. Peace and prosperity will prevail... If we can prevail against the urge to vengefully kick to the curb (and / or spit on), those few who have failed the tests. Prominent test being, be authentic; do not "tell them what they want to hear" just to get ahead. ... Anyway, when That Day comes, we will have to reach out and forgive and "educate"... Yes, "educate", really... Those who have failed. Take NO vengeance; THAT is reserved for our REAL "bettors"! Meg and Minions, are you ready for some lessons? I hope so!

Lots of good suggestions but ..

HPQ is pretty much HP's printing with CPQ's PC taking over the original Hewlett-Packard Company. HPE is what is left from the original Hewlett-Packard Company. All gone.

1 - Be only in it for the money.

2 - Remember, if you were rich you wouldn't be at HP E or Q

3 - Remember, if you won the lottery you would quit.

4 - Figure out what they want to to hear and tell them that.

5 - Delivery on any goal regardless of it's value. If they want you to wear a dress, wear a dress. Just do the best you can to give them what they want.

6 - Tell them of your loyalty while being only loyal to yourself. Start again at #1 if necessary.

7 - Consider a job at HPQ or HPE like getting a college degree. Learn everything you can. It will serve you when you leave.

8 - Collect the money in a large bag and when you have a lot - then.

That's what I did and I left with a large bag of money.

There have not been any internal promotions in my org since 2015. Lots of outside hires though.

"This is compounded by policies of forced-distribution performance reviews (you MUST push the other guy down, so that you can rise)"

When HP switched to that, I knew it was the beginning of the end.

buy knee pads, pull your pants down and bend over, and do other's work... that's how at HPE.

Hi OP,

Sometimes good work DOES get rewarded, yes!!!

However, always keep in mind random chance; AKA, “excrement happens”, AKA, “good deeds never go unpunished”. Meg Whitman gets rewarded for being an incompetent but greedy hack. And how many people can you name who got killed for doing and saying the right things? Jesus, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Junior, and who knows how many others… Getting laid off isn’t quite up there with getting killed, but, as you can read right here, and imagine, and see frequently at HPE and other places… Many raft-loads (RIF-loads?) of diligent workers get laid off for being not-quite-as-skilled-at-back-stabbing as the next worker, especially under “forced distribution” (which doesn’t exist at HPE, according to lying HPE management, speaking yet again of getting rewarded for doing bad things). Oh, add that to your list of things you have to do (at HPE anyway) to get into management… You have to LIE about forced distribution reviews! You (as a manager at least) can only tell the truth about THAT item, AFTER you are laid off!

Thank you, @M3ofuSF-2mxt. This advice is very good and useful.

I can't disagree with what a lot of people have said. It's difficult to maneuver in this company given the bad practices that are reinforced by compensation and rewards.

Here's the thing: focusing on doom and gloom, saying there is no fixing it, is what's perpetuating the problem.

Here's an honest answer on what is actually in your circle of influence. And if enough people attempt to do the right thing, it can change the company as a whole, because the right things produce better results.

Focus on what has "value add", and drive to get that accomplished, without dropping quality practices. I've been in a position that was about ready to cut my product/group (I was the only one left) and so I had no choice but to focus on what really mattered and get results quickly. I partnered with who I could, found out what was important, and built a solid base for my work so I wouldn't have to keep revisiting previous mistakes. Do what makes sense, follow process where it makes sense, and don't get consumed by the details. No startup ever got off the ground fighting over how many spaces to use for indenting or whether the background should be blue. Make a decision and move on, but allow yourself flexibility to change and adapt.

You need to promote yourself, and your work. If something isn't useful, don't force it. Think about the company as a whole. Will polishing that widget ever make a huge difference? Or is it an internal tool that may change when processes change. It's important to gauge the level of work/quality that needs to go into something, while also making sure the value that it generates moves forward.

Ego gets involved in all areas, and sometimes it's worth conceding to someone else's ideas if ultimately it doesn't matter but it gets the value out there. Think like the CEO of a startup. People aren't going to do everything the way you want them to, but you want the value of your ideas to make a difference, so focus on the end result. If your idea is that much better that it's worth fighting for, make sure you can communicate that clearly so others can share in your perspective.

So to sum it up: remove ego, communicate clearly, focus on the larger picture, keep focused, push the value proposition forward, and promote good teamwork. When people start seeing the value your creating, and when you can separate what's valuable from what's not, that's what differentiates you from 90% of everyone else.

Totally agree. I was back stabbed. Problem was I did not handle it correctly. Creeps!

OP, forget it.

I would suggest a good attitude, teamwork, hard work, ethical behavior. But, many of these companies haven't the slightest idea what real teamwork is. Many of t he employees don't either. It's down to survival. I've never seen so much backstabbing and gotcha games in all my life. More energy is spent trying to grab someone else's credit than actually just doing a good job on one's own or in a team. Especially bad in HPE. Guess it rolls down from the top. So, forget IT corps...

IT company? Run... Run away fast...

To the OP: Doing something positive? Like actually being successful in leading IT?

Those days are long gone, this is an industry spiralling down the great corporate sink hole.

There no longer is excellence, just survival.

If you want to do a good real job, be recognised for it and rewarded, look elsewhere than big IT. Go try doing IT for an end user corporation itself, the three letter boys are just a graveyard of broken careers and families.

Yes, and CPQ had already gone way downhill by that time. CPQ in the REALLY old days was good... Startup, and maybe a decade (plus?) past that. Then "Emperor Eckhardt Pfeiffer"... I could tell you stories about that particular a$$hole... Took it for a sharp downhill turn. Acquisition of DEC (Digital) was another nail in the coffin...

Reading lot's of Compaq this, compaq that comments. Just a reminder, the HP management structure was replaced wholesale with Compaq management with the merger. HP went from a bottom up company to a top down overnight with the CPQ merger. You reap what you sow.

Good stuff flows downhill, bad stuff flows downhill... In a workplace where the top management has decency and common sense (Compaq in the old days), you CAN get ahead by doing good and right things, and serving the customer!

Many-many companies (like HP, HPE) find out that, as time goes by and the company gets ever larger, the bad drive out the good... This is compounded by policies of forced-distribution performance reviews (you MUST push the other guy down, so that you can rise), and making it near-impossible to re-hire those who have been laid off. The ruthless sharks take over the business.

If you want to get ahead, and stay ethical... Find a good and decent team at a start-up! But that is risky, of course!

OP again.. what I meant is, there's nothing like "become a program manager, whip a program into shape, get it out on time, make sure people on the team deliver...." or anything like that?

I am the OP. So, there's nothing positive that I can do to move up? Is everything really negative?

Well, collectively we’ve done a pretty exhaustive job of listing what-all you’ll want to do to climb that ladder to sukk-cess…

We’ve missed a category generally related to hypocrisy. You DEFINITELY want to be several flavors of hypocrite!

You want to learn exactly what religion your biggest bosses belong to, and join up. Of course, you generally want to keep religion out of the work place, in the USA and most modern nations. But do join up… And then, you MUST keep in mind, the principles of the founder(s) of your religion are not NEARLY as important (except for paying lip service to), as is doing the exact opposite! “Love your neighbor”? Forget that! Just like on the corporate org chart, it is all about EXCLUDING as many people as possible! So you’ll want to insist on the strictest adherence to orthodoxy, dogma, and the finest points of the rituals. Forget “praying unseen, to the unseen God”… You will want to pray as loudly and as publically as possible. … If the top bosses are New-Age, you will want to “be more spiritual” than the next person. For a humorous (but sad-but-true) take on that, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kDso5ElFRg , about “Being Ultra Spiritual”.

In matters of “being green”, you will want to PREACH it! But then, you will also want to be the biggest “conspicuous consumer” on the block (biggest house, fanciest car and sailboat, vacations, “trophy wife” or “trophy husband”, etc.), because you’ve got to be have the “appearance of success” in order to succeed.

As you get closer to the top, you will want to invite many-many people over to your large, expensive mansion, and dine on fine foods and drink the best wine, at your “charity event”, where you flaunt your wealth, and goad those poorer than you, to give-give-give! More-more-more!

@M3ofuSF-1tmc is largely correct, however, one word of caution while you are anything but layer 2... be careful who's career you stake yours one.

Whilst your boss is who's butt you must kiss, be aware that if his butt kissing skills are poor or he makes a decision that places him on the loosing side in the next internal power struggle, you go down with him.

Sometimes the right strategy is actual to publicly distance yourself from your boss and embrace somebody else outside of your immediate chain of command.

Also don't imagine that after all this scheming and powerplaying that you are guaranteed to succeed. Your own personal "management skills" have little to do with any success, its pure luck that you don't meet a bigger shark in the shark tank.

Basically, if you want to climb the greasy pole, you are going to get covered in grease.

Short answer: Sell your soul to corporate management, and to the stockholders (or at least, to the APPEARANCE of being concerned for the stockholders).

Longer answer:

Always express far-far more interest in “devising policies” (including checklists that encapsulate the previous goofs of your co-workers, and near-useless lists of bureaucratic processes, etc.) and pretty-looking Power Point slides, than in doing real work.

(In more details about the above… Your checklists that encapsulate the previous goofs of your co-workers? Lists that your co-workers must adhere to, to prevent future goofs? Include in them, items that are NEVER going to be encountered again! Your objective is NOT to provide an actually useful checklist; it is to embarrass your co-workers).

Use the latest buzzwords at all times.

Never speak unpleasant truths to power.

Tell the management what they want to hear… And if your boss’s boss disagrees with the boss, of COURSE you are going to side with the boss’s boss!

Do NOT make decisions that you might be held accountable for! Fence-straddle on the important issues!

Make other people’s decisions for them, but then, hold them accountable when things go bad.

If there’s blame to be had, be sure to shunt it off to someone else, not you, even if you ARE the guilty one.

If there is credit to be had, grab it! Whether fairly or not, just grab it!

If the above is too blatant and risky (obvious), then at least engage in “touching” important projects… Talk about them all the time, and mention them in your reports, even if you are doing NOTHING associated with the important project… Make it at least vaguely APPEAR that you have something to do with it.

Dress for success!!!

Hob-nob with the important folks, and name-drop constantly!

When dining with “important people”, make sure that you appear to be an “important person” yourself. Now, I am NOT making this up; I have read it in “how to succeed”-type propaganda… Do NOT pass your empty plate to the waiter or waitress; YOU are WAY too important to do that! And a dropped piece of silverware? Do NOT pick it up; let the low-brow “help” do that! I kid you not!

Make your management-type decisions as if they were from God on High, and unquestionable… They are NOT subjective value judgments or wild guesses; they are matters of unquestionable FACTS… Because you said so!

Spend all your time “looking up” to your bosses, and s---ing up to them, and ignore your underlings, pretty much. You KNOW who is important, right?

Always be serious; Have your sense of humor surgically removed. A sense of humor makes you seem human and approachable; this is NOT a top-management way to be!

Following the policies, processes, and buzzwords outranks the heck out of serving the customers… Just remember that! If the customers can be served without angering the bosses, then it is OK to serve the customers, sometimes… Only if you can get someone else to do it! Don’t let them see you getting your hands dirty!

Work on your “boss rays”, and being too important to do things for yourself. You’re too busy on “strategic” things, you know…

Last but not least… Always recall… It is NOT about being “good” or ethical… It is about APPEARING to be good or ethical!!!

A lack of any genuine ethics... AKA, utter ruthlessness! A total focus on making the stock go up, for the next quarter, and who gives a hoot about anything past that? 'Cause I got my golden parachute ready to go! (Well, that's towards the very top, and at the very top). At the lower levels, success = simply, um, shall we say, "polishing apples" for the boss, to keep it polite... And throwing your underlings under the bus, on demand...

The White Male (Mark Hurd) wasn't much different.

That is why this ship is sinking. Neither white male or Indian

Last I checked, Meg is neither Indian nor a White male.

White male

Be Indian