Influence Tactics
This section will study the use of influence tactics as shown through Grove’s style of managing people at his workplace which has successfully incorporated changes in Intel to become the world’s leading microprocessor maker. Grove has become a world-known leader as he orchestrated the firm’s pivotal shift from memory chips to microprocessors and this organization wide shift in focus could only be possible through influential leaders.
Rational Persuasion (soft 5)
Rational persuasion works through the use of logical and factual information to convince a target strongly in making a change.
Grove style of handling problems in Intel were known to be straightforward, blunt and results-oriented. However, once Grove was heading to Malaysia to help start a new facility and he was advised against bringing his blunt management style in handling the Asians, but to be diplomatic instead. Thus, initially during the meeting with the Malaysian managers, there was a list of problems to be solved, which included the idea of setting up Intel’s first offshore assembly operation in Penang, Malaysia. As there were many controversies, Grove tried to remain polite and passive as well, however realising that after some time, the problems seemed to be going round in circles with no solutions. Finally, Grove exclaimed abruptly that everyone is missing the point and took up a very straightforward and rational presentation of his solutions with figures to indicate that it was much cheaper to product products in Malaysia. This, initially caused the Malaysians to feel taken aback with his straightforwardness, but slowly, each of them joint the discussion through logical and realistic arguments which ended up with feasible solutions at the end. Thus Grove’s use of logical solutions worked in the above situation with managers who were indecisive.
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During the period when Grove had intentions to transform the business of Intel from making memory chips to shift its focus to microprocessors manufacturing, he had to make a decision to lay off 6,000 over staff in order to have sufficient resources to invest in new technologies. This move he made was only logical as it would free up labour cost which could be invested in new technologies. In order to convince the company that his action was most appropriate for future aspirations, he had done sufficient research and development himself and asked, rhetorically: “Who is going to invest $5 billion on speculation.” He managed to influence the company with his confidence to support him as he embarked on his new vision.
Intel Architecture Labs developed the PCI bus technology in the early 1990s. Top management’s initial intention was to bring PCI to the PC industry as an enabling technology for the core microprocessor business. However, Andy Grove was opposed to that idea and disapproved it. Ron Smith nevertheless decided to pursue PCI chipsets as a new business. Through Smith’s determination, his venture delivered more than it had promised, and proved to be a potentially large business. As Smith’s prediction turned out to be correct, eventually, Grove was convinced himself and concluded that the chipset venture was an important business for Intel. Grove was successfully persuaded through factual performance of the product. From then on, Smith had Grove’s full support.
Pressure (hard 5)
This tactic uses demands and threats or persistent reminders from the leader to his employees to get things done.
Grove is known to lead his employees by intimidation to produce results. This is supported by the fact that there is an unending series of productivity reviews for every Intel employee. The productivity review was a constant check on his employees daily on their performances and production quality at work. There would be penalties on the employees if they were to fall short of the standards that Grove expects. As such, employees are pressured to be constantly on their feet for fear of the penalties. In turn, employees at Intel are seen to be driven through pressure and were always working hard, thus showing the effectiveness of Grove leadership through indirect coercion.
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Grove’s assistant, Maloney, mentions that Grove pressures his employees to work beyond their limits in order to meet a deadline that seems impossible to meet. This is as Grove would demand his employees to work past their required working hours in order to get the job he assigned to be completed. Grove would not let the employees leave before they have shown to complete their work. This is as he believes that the fear of working overtime plays a major role in getting the employees to be serious in meeting the deadlines, thus would take the initiatives to set their priorities right at work.
Grove created a tough environment in Intel. Employees were expected to come prepared for any meeting, in which they would be bludgeoned and not be given any chance for mistakes. There was once when an employee could not answer a relevant work related question and he was being shouted at in front of everyone else by Grove. This shows the type of expectation Grove demands from his employees at every meeting in order for it to be productive. Thus we can infer that Grove uses pressure in the form of embarrassment for anyone not well-prepared for work meetings.
Exchange(hard 3)
This involves explicit or implicit offers by the leader to provide a favour for the target to return a favour or an action. Grove has not been spotted using such techniques with his employees. However he did apply this tactic in his dealings with other corporations to generate business.
When Intel first launched their “Intel Inside” marketing campaign, major computer manufacturing firms such as Compaq and IBM initially refused to participate in some elements of their marketing as they felt that “Intel Inside” logo on their product would decrease their ability to differentiate their products from other competitors. However, Grove instead of compromising his marketing efforts, he instead proposed to engage in massive co-marketing campaigns with each of the firms as a form of exchange for them to carry the “Intel Inside” logo on their hardware. Eventually, this was a win-win situation as subsequently each of them bought the idea of using the “Intel Inside” logo while enjoying free co-advertisment for their own brand image and soon, all of them used Intel microprocessors in manufacturing their products.
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This explicitly shows an exchange, as Grove decided to do mass co-marketing for their business partners’ brand name with their microprocessors in order for them to carry “Intel Inside” logo on their products as well.
Legitimation (hard 5)
This tactic involves legitimacy of a request by establishing it into organization policies, rules or traditions. It is usually the most effective and straightforward way a leader can get things done. This could be especially useful for leaders with low referent power as leaders with position power can make changes legitimately while the employees have to abide by them. However, leaders who use such tactics may not necessarily be deemed as low in referent power such as Grove himself, who will require legitimation to standardise his rules fairly across the board.
In order for Grove to maintain top performing staff in his organization and prevent weak producers from riding on or deterring the success of the company, Grove has created a rule to lay-off poor performance employees who rank at the bottom10 per cent in their review ratings each year. This would indeed drive employees to work hard in order to stay in their job with this rank-and-yank policy in placed without requiring much reminder or constant pressure from Grove since it is a known practice.
Secondly, as Grove was the president of Intel, he has all authority to override any other power if he deems necessary. He uses his authority as a boss, to recognise and support employee’s contribution in ideas to improve operations, during times when they are being disagreed by other colleagues or managers. Once Dennis Carter, his technical assistant then, pitched a most radical consumer marketing campaign to the top management, everyone was in disbelief and was strongly against it. However, Andy thought it was good and supported Carter to make it happen.
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Grove was known to be the harsh boss that implements the ‘late list’ as a symbol of discipline and this made many people remember him for that even after he left. All he wanted was to whip Intel employees to be disciplined and ready at all times for any business situations and the late list was one of his tools. He marks down whoever that comes in late for work even by 5 minutes and gives disciplinary actions to those who attained three such records. This deterred employees from coming in late without a valid reason.
Coalition
Coalition uses the help of others to persuade the target to do something or agree on something with the support of others. As with exchange tactic, there were no evidences to show that Grove used support from others to help him influence his employees.
Inspirational appeal (soft 5)
Inspirational Appeal works effectively through arousing one’s enthusiasm by appealing to individual values, ideals and aspirations to align their goals and actions together.
Grove addresses his employees several times a year, reiterating the company’s goals and visions and breaks down the goals into short-term goals regularly. This gives employees a clearer idea on what to focus on while it keeps the morale high in the company with quarterly refreshed motivation. Employees are thus reminded of their goals to achieve which would induce passion in them to work as shown through their behaviour. Employees were willing to accept pay cuts or put in 25% more efforts when required according to the fluctuating economy and needs of the company. Thus, Grove has been effective in passing on his aspiration, without any exchange in return, to his employees.
During the 1980 Microprocessor Crisis, Grove showed a documentary entitled ‘If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?’ to Intel and it had a great impact. Grove wanted to “mount a corporate crusade around it”. This inspired Intel employees and helped Intel to succeed in the microprocessor war. Subsequently, the impact of Intel successfully come back in its microprocessors enabled United States’ with a global share of market in Microprocessors that exceeded Japan during 1985. Later in 2005, an employee emailed Grove saying that he still remembers the documentary vividly.
Grove has become a world influence such that people were inspired by Intel’s transformational success through Grove’s aspirations in the mircroprocesses. Many people wrote to grove for his input concerning managerial issues in the workplace, such as how he uses his vision to influence the future. As such, Grove has a weekly column in the San Jose Mercury News to share his knowledge on both management and technical aspects. Subsequently he has been recognised world-wide as a charismatic leader and created many loyal followers at work. This eases his leadership such that when Grove speaks, he has the ability to stir enthusiasm among his audiences.
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Ingratiation (soft 3)
Ingratiation involves leaders putting the target in a good mood through praise or boosting of ego before making a request or changes. This would ensure that the target will be less resilient to the change.
As Intel had 10 senior executives and not everyone liked on another, thus it would be difficult for all the executives to work as a team while one could easily be angry or get envious with the other. However, Grove’s managerial ability caused him to handle the executives carefully by appealing to each of them individually. He soothed their egos and cajoled artistic talents to make each of them feel special and satisfied with Grove’s attention. This way, when they came together, there would be fewer reasons for jealousy and ultimately they worked successfully with one another as a team.
personal appeal (soft 5)
The use of personal appeal is when a leader uses his friendship and feelings of loyalty of the target towards him to gain support and commitment to his request.
Grove, in hope of building strong loyal employees towards their commitment to the company, believes that it is important to maintain good relationship with the staff as it would be easier to create understanding and solve for any conflict. This is inferred as he would be seen queuing up for food during lunch with the other employees despite his high rank. He would also be seen having lunch with and talking to individuals during the breaks regularly as a form of building up a good repo even with the lower rank who could be the operations employees. These casual talks could help Grove understand the thoughts and attitude of his employees and approach them accordingly making them feel committed to not just a job but a sense of responsibility with a relationship built with the boss.
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Secondly, he believes in scheduling one-on-one meetings with his managers, on a weekly basis, as he feel it is easier to teach and coach his employee effectively on a more personal basis. This will ensure their level of understanding of Grove’s goals at the same time he could understand the problems they are facing. This encourages his managers to open up to him, which is something they might not otherwise do in mass meetings. This makes the employees feel they own the meeting and bring up whatever he is preoccupied with. At a more personal level, Grove is able to appeal to them personally his request on a more friendly tone which would effectively get work done correctly. This would save a lot of time unlike a mass meeting which usually does not put a point clearly in the group of employees.
Before Grove became president of Intel, Moore was Grove’s superior, and Grove was already seen influencing Moore’s decision through the use of their friendship as they were very close friends. Grove was once discussing a feedback from their employees to Moore and Grove mentioned “’I predict, you’ll hate it’. This has caused Moore to change his decision on the action to be taken on the feedback as he has already been subconsciously persuaded by Grove’s opinion that he would not like the feedback given.
Consultation (soft 5)
Consultation involves the target in the planning of a strategy for the change and thus the target would feel a sense of responsibility and pride in completing the change.
As Grove switched jobs to Intel, he started out as the director of operations, though he was equipped with position power, he had no prior experience to the manufacturing works of Intel. As such, he had arranged for ‘private lessons’ with each of his subordinates in the various manufacturing and computer-memory designing field. Gradually as he became more knowledgeable, he managed to offer some reasonable advises as a manager-in-charge. As such, these expert employees felt a sense of belonging as they play a part in moulding the advices to the employees, thus worked harder to improve each time.
Grove held regular meetings with the senior management to engage them in his vision as of how they could delegate power to the employees in order for them to change certain style of operations as seen necessary. He receives feedback from these managers and gets them to plan and strategise together how they can improve the procedures to save time and resources. The managers would in turn feel more responsible in planning feasible strategies to become implemented.
Throughout the years, there has been relentless global competition and the demand for labour has been fluctuating tremendously. However, the staff stayed faithful through the gyration of the business with Intel as Grove shares facts and perspectives of the company through an open forum whereby he gives brief talk to a large group of employees. These open forums are held on a monthly basis, which allows employees to provide feedback and ask questions which would be handled by Grove for a whole hour. Employees could then look forward to the changes if they are deemed feasible to be implemented when they contributed their views during the forums. As such, they would feel a part of moulding the company’s progression towards the goal with a sense of satisfaction in adding value to the company.
Summary of influence tactics
In summary, Grove was seen using 3 hard tactics, namely through legitimating, pressure and slightly on exchange, thus resulting in a score of 13 points. The other hard tactics he was not seen using was through the use of coalition. This could be as Grove had a big ego (BIG 5) and would not want to be seen as using the support of others in helping him gain influence. These hard tactics are usually straight forward and usually necessary for standardizing rules in an organization with hierarchical structure. Grove being the president of Intel, holds position power which leads to him gaining, reward power, coercive power and legitimate power. Thus it is unavoidable that all leaders with rank would inevitably use hard tactics to get work done as the influence is a given.
However more powerful influence would be derived through personal power such as referent and expert power which Grove possesses. This is proven as he is able to utilize all 5 types of soft tactics, namely through rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, consultation, though slightly ingratiation and personal appeal. This gave him a total score of 23 points in the area of soft influence tactics. Soft tactics are most effective for leader which earns the respect and this would be a determinant of whether a leader is truly influential, if he is able to get his subordinates abide by his instructions willingly. Willingness of the employees to commit to the company would be the key success in keeping a group of healthy and happy workers.
The use of hard and soft tactics can be attributed based on the attitude of the leader and it could be proven that Grove is a leader that follows Theory Y such that he believes that his employees are ambitious and self-motivated and could exercise self-control at work to be willing to work hard. With Theory Y, leaders tend to believe in themselves that employees will abide with them. Theory X leaders are seen as authoritative leaders who feels that employees must be coerced to work, which could be linked to Grove using his legitimate power to influence. However, the legitimate and pressure tactics Grove applied were basically necessary to set the standard and culture of the company, and overall, he has positive perception of his employees as seen by his belief in motivational talks and consultative tactics. This is furthermore supported as Grove is a confident and charismatic leader with high personal power and many followers thus explains his greater use of soft tactics, which is more effective as employees are willing and convinced, than the use of hard tactics to lead the company.
Grove believes his employees are ambitious in reaching the company’s goal together, thus the following section reveals how Grove empowers his employees and trusts them to make lower level decisions.
