•You will hear part of a conversation among an interviewer, John Chambers and Carly Fiorina, CEOs of two companies. •For each qu

M: (interviewer): Good Morning, nice to meet you, Carry and John. Do sit down.
M: (John Chambers) / F: (Carly Fiorlua) :Thank you,
M:  (interviewer):  You’ve both been able to develop strong effective cultures. Cisco’s been able to hire a 1, 000 employees a quarter even during the peak of the war for talent. And both of you enjoy an unusually low turnover levels, despite  being  located in a  mobile  Silicon Valley, What do you do to recruit and retain the employees who will best fit into the culture you’re trying to cultivate and to weed out those who don’t?
F:  (Carly  Fioriua):  I  think  the  thing  that Hewlett-Packard has always been wonderful at is the loyalty of its employees. What we were not so good at is dealing with employees who were not performing up to par. And so one of the changes we’ve had to make is to get much more focused about what is an acceptable level of performance. And if that performance is not occurring,  then we have to act with that employee. We have to coach them to better performance, we have to put them in a job that is more suited to their skills; or if beth of those things fail, we have to help them find another opportunity and let them depart with dignity, but let them depart. And se that’s really been the focus we’ve historically been very good at attracting people.  And interestingly, people have come to Hewlett-Packard not just because of  technology,  but  also  because  of  the company’s  values.  They  like  what  the company stands for. That’s turned out to bo a competitive advantage for us, and I think the same thing is true of John and his company.
M: (John Chambers): I would agree. I think HP has the strongest culture in the valley and much of it very,  very good.  Keeping the culture is probably the most challenging thing we face, so we literally put it on the board for everybody, in terms of what the culture it along with the three to five year goals and one year objectives. And then you’ve got to reward people in terms of the culture that you’re creating, but it’s more important to have them in a nurturing environment that has the right culture. And it’s amazing how powerful that is in    retaining    employees   and    attract them—particularly the ones that you want.
M: (interviewer): In terms of staying in touch with employees, I want to ask you both about this, but I want to start with you because you’ve got something called these birthday breakfasts. Tell us...  I mean, it seems so astonishing to me that you could pull this off in a large company,  but I don’t want to  be inaccurate, so you tell me what you do.
M: (John Chambers): Well, it again starts with what you are trying to accomplish and this is just one of the tactics that you use. And the birthday breakfasts are the most effective way we interface to our employee base.  Once a month, if you have a birthday in that month, you get to come and grill the president for an hour and a half. And any topic is fair, we don’t invite directors or VPs to come, and it’s my best way of keeping the fingers on the pulse of what’s occurring. Every session I learn two or three things that I did not know going in, and when you hear the question again and again and again from one session to the next, it means that you’re not answering effectively or your answer was wrong.
M. (interviewer): You’re on his board, right?
F: (Carly Fiorina): Yes.
M: (interviewer): Do you like this idea?
F: (Carly Fiorina): Yea, I think...
M: (interviewer): I mean, do you have a version of this?
F: (Carly Fiorina): Yep, I think what the principle that John is outlining which is absolutely critical   is   leadership   cannot   become disconnected  from  customers,  disconnected from employees. Every time I visit a city, I go and spend time with the employees in that location for O and A, for walking around, for what’s on your mind, for what’s going on. So I think every leader has their own set of tactics, but the principle of staying connected is the same.
M: (John Chambers): Then there are other ways