Conference 7.286::digital

    
    I get regular mail from my management concerning DEC.  They get it,
    usually from the dow jones news service, and send it to me.  I don't
    know whether to consider it "offical" or not.   I also get lots of
    "rumor du jour" mail from my managment.  "Offical"???? who knows.
    
    I would rather have something I could count on and believe in rather
    than something from dow jones (that K.O. usually refutes the next day)
    or some offically sponsored rumor. 
    

   Don't apply common sense and what you know about management
   in other companies to Digital!  The reason there are no
   official pronouncements from management is that they don't
   know what's happening either!  How can they tell us what they
   don't know?  Digital provides some quasi-official channels
   like Livewire and Management Memo, but because they're
   electronic, many managers never sees them.  My boss and I try
   to keep each other informed, he tells me what trickles down,
   I tell him what's bubbling up.  Works ok for us.  We still
   have to sort out the conflicts though.
   
Dick

    I agree .0. That's 1 of the BIG problems with this company. Most of the
    higher level managment people responsible for getting this type of
    information to the employee could care less.

    RE: .2 MGMT MEMO still comes out in hard copy. Though it is in
    VTX it hasn't gone completely electronic yet. But a lot of managers
    through paper out as fast as it comes in.
    
    		Alfred

    
    	Most of the time, I find out what major changes are happening at
    	Digital from the Boston Globe, local news (WBZ, etc.), or from my
    	neighbors who don't even work for DEC. It is the rare case when I
    	find this stuff out at work. The fact that the news MAY BE on VTX,
    	Livewire, etc., is not an excuse; that is not an acceptable medium
    	for disseminating information on the state of the company. I'd much
    	rather be able to ask questions of the messenger. To me, this is
    	*the* major failing of this company.
    
    	And, yes, as an employee, I feel that I have a right to know what
    	is happening within DEC.
    
    	It wasn't always this way. Used to be, this company was more open
    	and honest in it's communications to it's employees. It isn't that
    	way anymore; too many people playin C.Y.A.
    
    	John
    

    One reason why there are problems with official communication from the 
    top of Digital is the assumption, on the part of top managment, that memos
    of meeting minutes, decisions, etc. that they send to their peers and
    reports will be "cascaded" down the organizational hierarchies.  The 
    cascading often doesn't happen, and the top management has no view on 
    this communication failure.  Their direct reports tell them what they 
    expect and want to hear ie. that the communication was made.
    
    It's a little like you asking your secretary to send a mail to Mr. X.  
    She reports that the mail is sent.  If you never hear directly from Mr. X, 
    you never will know that the mail wasn't sent !  Of course with 
    secretaries, it's easy to control them.  This isn't the case with
    upper managment.
    
    Unfortunately, the above explanation is not pure speculation, it really 
    happens and too often.
    
    David
    

   I have often found that "official" memos were sent out.  It just
   takes 2-3 weeks to reach me.  I am forever P.O.'ed at receiving a
   memo from my boss (who does forward them the same day he gets them)
   which:
   
   	1. have 6-8 forward headers on them,
   	2. the original message is of importance to my job assignment
   	   or career, 
   	3. the original has a deadline date on it, and
   	4. the deadline was 5 days ago with the memo dated 3 weeks ago.

    
    	Information hording does occur - frequently. If you ever get the
    chance to talk with your local VP, odds are high that they will reveal
    all sorts of information the somewhere down the pyramid, someone
    decided was to important for others to see. 
    
    	There are lots of reasons for this, and most are not really valid.
    Keeping secrets in Digital is a tough thing to do.  If it is an issue
    that may seen to ben threatening to whole blocks of individuals, it
    quickly surfaces in rumors which spread like wild-fire and go thru
    a billion edits on each hop.   It has usually been shown that straight
    talk - while sometimes surely causes a comotion, does far less damage
    than trying to hide the unhideable.
    
    	

    I find the "official" memo's from KO that have the "dictated but not
    read" as the most infuriating.  They darn near incite riots, they
    demotivate, and they offer him the opportunity to say "I never said
    that" it was mis-transcribed.  Heavens... If you're gonna lay it on the
    line.... at least proof the darn thing!  
    Lorelei
    

    KO at Friday, 4/24 pres conf. "I don't have an obligation to inform anyone,
    not employees, or stock holders etc, on what I'm doing (what's going
    on)".  Roughly taken from Monday's Boston Globe article. 
    
    Ken said it!  The Boston Globe printed it!  I believe it!
    

    A couple of days ago WBZ Boston radio replayed portions of an
    interview with Ken Olsen, where he denied the reports (attributed
    to have come directly from Jack Smith) of the impending 10,000-15,000
    layoffs, castigated the press for "negative stories" about Digital,
    and said massive layoffs weren't a solution when they don't know what
    the problems are yet.  (Not direct quotes, from memory, but close;
    there was a direct implication that he didn't know what the problems
    are yet, and that the press was to blame for a lot of it.)
    
    Chris

    By the way, DEC was the front-page big story (with big 120-point
    type and the like) in Boston's #2 newspaper yesterday; the headline
    read either "Shuffling the DEC" or "Re-shuffling the DEC", can't
    remember exactly.  The story was both factual and unflattering,
    pardon the redundancy.
    
    Chris

    I attended the DVN telecast on April 15 and heard someone ask about
    Jack Smith's layoff statement, as carried by the newspapers.  Ken Olsen
    stated that, if that's what the papers said, then Jack Smith had been
    mis-quoted, or words to that effect.
    
    It seems to me that Ken Olsen and Jack Smith have lately been
    contradicting each other.  I'd like to see both of them on DVN agree on
    whether layoffs are planned or are not planned.  It might help the many
    employees who are losing sleep trying to decide whether or not to
    retire on May 29.  And if they are not planned, then all the statements
    to the contrary could easily be construed as coercive.
    
    george

    Do you think jack and kenny would show if asked to meet the press.??
    

Just saw this tacked on the wall in one of the cubes here....


		DUE TO BUDGET CUTS, THE LIGHT 
		AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS 
		BEING TURNED OFF. Effective 
		Immediately.
				The Management


This seemed like the appropriate topic to put it in.

Bob.

    lack of communications,what is the point here.??
    
    
    
    Now I put a coal on the fire.....
    

                  <<< Note 1872.16 by GSMOKE::GCHARBONNEAU >>>
                                  -< 1872.15 >-

    lack of communications,what is the point here.??
                                                 ^ too easy :-)
						   next boggle, please?

    I don`t know what your point is here.I got my point across.If not you
    wouldn`t have corrected it..
                                Next lesson, please???????
    
    Are we having fun yet???????
    

Re: .15

Anyway, the light at the end of the tunnel was the headlamp of an oncoming
train...
								- Ian W.

   Earlier in this not I posted my beef with getting "corporate" memos
   in an untimely fashion.
   
   Remember the Simm's Memo reminding us of policy and the use of
   conferences back on 30-Jan-1992?  I first found out about this memo
   in the DCU conference.  It was posted in several others very quickly.
   
   I just now received my copy through the forward chain provided by
   OFFICIAL DIGITAL CHANNELS.  It's obvious this memo was of great
   importance due to the timely fashion in which I received it.

    Now I get it..Communications is defined as speed..Thank you .20
    All this time I though people couldn`t understand me...
    

    Good communications isn't really just speed - but what we call the
    information "float"- the time its takes for the message to go from the
    message sender to the receiver.  That float used to be huge, when
    communication technology was strictly paper-based.  Now, with
    telecommunications, DVN, E-mail, that float should be shorter.  The
    frustration comes because it isn't.  Some companies have handled it
    well, some haven't.