The Lenovo Way: Managing a Diverse Global Company for Optimal Performance

CHAPTER 5

Global World, Global Thinking

        Lenovo Principle 4: Walk the talk. You can’t expect employees to embrace change unless the leaders are already living it.

Three years after the merger, we were still far from building a cohesive team. We hadn’t drilled down far enough into the issues and cultural differences that were dividing our people, and even our most senior leaders were still at odds, each continuing to blame the others for holding Lenovo back on the path to growth. As a result, our Eastern colleagues were clinging to their old business practices, and our Western colleagues were importing their own styles and processes from their previous employers: Dell, IBM, McKinsey, and others. The thinking was, “Well, no one has shown ...