"We went from a single-focus company to at least a dual-focus company. I guess it goes to prove that management attention does make a difference."
Grove made these comments after he had left Intel (INTC), and was asked in an interview about the reason the company had a number of problems. The quote above was part of his answer.
I've probably said on managersrealm in a hundred different ways how important a single, powerful vision is for a company and the foundation to its successs.
Here's another reason why it needs to be repeated and reminded of so many times. Sometimes when we read these things, we think it's related to smaller businesses that struggle because of not knowing who they are or not sticking to their core values. Yet this is done among Fortune 500 companies more than could be imagined.
Business history is strewn with examples of huge companies that do this very thing. Why do you think so few companies from just 100 years ago exist anymore?
When Intel kept their microprocessor unit and then tackled the entirely different communications are, a whole set of problems emerged that may not to this day been solved.
As Grove also said, "At one level, if you lay out all the problems, you can get a completely different explanation for each of them. But the only thing that's common among them is that we collectively have spread our attention across more things."
Grove is being overly kind here because he was referring to the CEO that had followed him. But he was saying that problems weren't being solved and brought to conclusions. People were spread across two different businesses and purposes which involved alternate solutions. The business has suffered as a result ever since.
The problem is they saw a huge, growing market in communications and just weren't able to resist entering into it. To do it they had to leave their vision and core purpose in order to do it.
Grove even says that the company probably is even beyond being a dual-focus company. It just shows us how important it is to stay on purpose. If they wanted to enter communications they should have invested in a totally separate entity and not had any overlap in their operations. The overlap has created a confused company that is struggling to find its way to this day.
They have the carrot of an industry with great potential growth that is still dangling on the stick as they following it around wherever it goes. The company has suffered for years as a result. Every bit of this comes from the confusion that came about from a company defining itself as more than one thing and having more than one vision.
Other Andy Grove Resources:
Andy Grove's Rational Exuberance
The Digital Age . . . driven by the passion of Intel's Andrew Grove
The History and Influence of Andy Grove
Andy Grove enters new post-Intel role as activist capitalist
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