Lou Gerstner wrote, "People truly do what you inspect, not what you expect." … Lest we forget, these "inspection pages" exist because chief executives are "people" too.

Peter E. Greulich

Arvind Krishna's Overview Home Page
Published July 22, 2021
Updated April 6, 2022
This page was initially published on February 3, 2020. It has been updated to reflect the loss of James (Jim) Whitehurst. One has to wonder how many Red Hat employees have followed the former IBM President's example? ​Since IBM paid $3,000,000 per Red Hat employee for the company, the losses could mount up pretty quickly. No one apparently knows all the reasons for Jim's departure.

​Maybe he is saving the details for his "Who Ever Thought That Elephant Danced?" memoir.

It would be a best seller!
Evaluating Arvind Krishna: IBM’s Tenth Chief Executive Officer
  • Arvind Krishna Does Not Have Time to Waste
  • Arvind Krishna's Critical Performance Metrics
Arvind Krishna​ Must Act Quickly
As Arvind Krishna was determining what he would do first, he should have considered prioritizing three activities:
  • Return IBM’s Human Resources organization to its original function and purpose as a Human Relations organization. This will improve employee productivity by increasing employee engagement, passion and enthusiasm. A human resources organization should not be the right arm of finance to help the corporation achieve quarterly, earnings-per-share targets.

  • Focus on maximizing stakeholder value to rebuild a sustainable stakeholder ecosystem. It was this ecosystem of customers, employees, shareholders and societies that supported the corporation through its first eight decades. This means rejecting the two extremes of maximizing shareholder value: shareholder-first and -foremost and me-first and -only.
  • Take goodwill impairments now and start with a clean slate: neither IBM nor Kyndryl should start their new life apart with intangible assets of over 50%.

  • Ensure that James M. Whitehurst sticks around.
As always, the perspectives shared here are not Wall Street quarterly perspectives but a businessman’s perspective of years, decades, and, at times, centuries. So, don't expect to find insights into minor bumps on the business roadmap like one or two quarters of revenue growth. After all, Ginni had some of these positive, short-term growth "irregularities" too, but she still turned in horrible year-over-year and long-term revenue growth numbers.
Two other American industrialists who believed in adapting the Golden Rule to business were Thomas J. Watson Sr. and J. C. Penney.
​​IBM’s way forward is contained in this quote of Owen D. Young, former Chief Executive Officer of General Electric and a former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank.
"What is right in business requires, in highly complicated situations, that the golden rule be applied by men [and women] of great understanding and knowledge, as well as conscience. They must be technicians in the sense of making the connecting link between the golden rule on the one side and the most complicated business transaction on the other."
Owen D. Young, Delivered from Dr. Fosdick's New York Church, 1929
​Mr. Arvind Krishna has a hard task in front of him: restoring the engagement, passion and enthusiasm of 307,600 employees—already down from 383,000 employees at the end of his first year. If he is to bring IBM back, he will have to be a technician in Mr. Young’s sense: an individual who understands human nature first and technology second. This should be—no, must be—his overriding first initiative.

Unfortunately, I have worked in one of Arvind's organizations. Unless he has transformed "himself" in the last decade, he may have the desire but lack the ability to transform "his corporation." Although he is a "pleasant" individual, he is first and foremost a technologist with little sales sense.

It is in this respect that Jim's loss will be most felt: Salesmanship.

Cheers,

​- Pete
 Arvind Krishna's Critical Evaluation Points and Key Performance Metrics
After two years in the corner office, Arvind Krishna owns IBM's performance. This is the set of web pages that is updated at the end of each year with the most current yearly results and will continue until he relinquishes the corner office to his successor.
​Hopefully, when he retires I will publish the third update in the "THINK Again" Series from "THINK Again: The Rometty Edition" to "THINK Again: The Krishna Edition."

Until then, enjoy this information.
At the end of Arvind Krishna’s first fiscal year as chief executive officer his performance markers were nine downers and a flat note.

​It was not a very impressive start. Is Arvind Krishna proving to be evolutionary, revolutionary, or more of the same?
James (Jim) Whitehurst is gone
Let’s graph Krishna’s 2020 performances, and then put those performances within the context of the corporation’s 21st Century results. 
​Wednesday, July 15, 2020 marked the end of "The First 100 Days" for Arvind Krishna, IBM’s chief executive officer, and James M. Whitehurst, the corporation’s new president. ​

​What does this one-hundred-day checkpoint reveal?
Arvind missed his chance for change
Is there an IBM “New Deal?” ​Or is Arvind serving up the same old Gerstner-Palmisano-Rometty (GPR) stuff?
The announcement of the breakup of IBM will only exacerbate the company’s current most-pressing problem, not cure it.

​The spike in stock price is a “Wall Street” phenomenon, not a “Main Street” or “Stakeholder” affirmation of the decision.
A John Akers' déjà vu moment
​Reality will set in soon enough because when it comes to business fundamentals, Main Street and corporate stakeholders have proven themselves better able to understand long-term realities than Wall Street.
Martin’s chief executive track record (CFO) is that of a financially-minded individual whose actions seem to indicate that he has little understanding of what it takes to build, maintain, and grow a sales organization.

​From the press release it is stated that Mr. Schroeter was IBM’s CFO from 2014 to 2017.
Really! After this IBM performance?
​Does his track record as IBM's CFO indicate that he was a good choice?
© 2022 Peter E. Greulich. All Rights Reserved
​
Information posted on this site recognizes the legal right of copyrighted material. The following material is considered in the public domain effective January 1, 2022: (1) works published in the United States prior to 1927, (2) works published in the United States after 1926 but before 1964 with a proper © copyright notice that were not renewed in their 28th year, and (3) works published in the United States before 1978 that have no © copyright notice, and (4) all unpublished works created over 120 years ago. Other documents used here that do not fit these criteria are used in good faith and a belief that such usage would withstand a test of fair use. Any concerns with the public domain or fair usage of material on this site will be removed until a discussion can resolve the matter with its permanent removal or republication. Just use the "Contact" menu item above or the "Contact Us" hyperlink provided here: [Contact Us]