Lawrence Weinbachfrom Unisys Corporation to Yankee Hill Capital Management

This is a case about a rising-star leader who flew for a while, but fell. Unisys Corporation has

been in business for more than 130 years. Unisys contributed to the computer revolution with the

first commercial large-scale system, its 29,000-pound UNIVAC computer back in 1951. As you

know, the mainframe computer business gradually declined as smaller computers and PCs took

over. Like IBM, Unisys had to change its business focus. Larry Weinbach took over as CEO of

Unisys with the strategy of steering the company away from mainframes and toward services, and

de-emphasizing commodity PCs.59

Lawrence Weinbach understands the importance of good communications. In fact, he won the

Excellence in Communication Leadership (EXCEL) Award. The EXCEL Award is the highest

honor the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) gives to nonmembers,

Course Title:Advance Management and

Leadership

Exam Date: August 25, 2020

Instructor: Dr. Parveen Roy Program: MBA

Session: Evening Semester: Spring 2020

Time: 24 hours. Marks: 28

usually to CEOs of major companies. Weinbach's communications strategy was credited as a

principal factor in his success in boosting employee morale and productivity while at the same

time generating a financial turnaround.

Here are some of the communications methods Weinbach used to transform Unisys from

primarily a computer company to a full-service IT company. A major challenge was to change the

culture through communications. Within three or four days after taking over as CEO, Weinbach

sent a letter to customers and shareholders introducing himself and telling them that if they had

any questions or concerns, to write to him and he would personally respond to them. Weinbach

also hired a vice president of corporate communications, who reported directly to him.

As an outsider, Weinbach realized that the employees had lost some confidence in the company

and themselves. To regain their confidence, he went on the road and talked to 12,000 employees,

asking them to send him ideas to improve Unisys. Within six weeks, Weinbach received 4,500 e-

mails, and he answered about 2,000 of them himself before the task became too difficult for him.

He then developed "Ask Larry" on the intranet in order to respond to more generic questions, and

he followed this with a monthly newsletter to all employees so that employees could feel like they

were a part of what was going on in the company.

Weinbach transformed Unisys from a hierarchical flow of information to a more decentralized

flow of authority and communications, in which the person with the information needed could be

contacted. Having been in the service business, Weinbach knew that the key to success was first,

getting people motivated and then ensuring that they were willing to follow where he wanted the

company to go; that is, to follow his vision. Weinbach believed the vision had to be simple.

The vision of Unisys is illustrated through its "threelegged stool," which focuses on customers,

employees, and reputation. All three values are equally important and each is represented by a

leg; if any one is missing, the stool (Unisys) falls. In fact, all employees were given a three-

legged-stool pin to remind them of the Unisys vision. Weinbach always wore the pin, and if

anyone asked him what his vision for the company was, he just pointed to the pin.

Unisys managed to sign up Compaq Computer, HewlettPackard (HP), and Dell Computer to

resell its breakthrough server, called the ES7000. However, a few years later they stopped selling

it to focus on their own designs, and Unisys was struggling to make the leap from being a

computer company to an e-business services company. Unisys was not competing effectively with

IBM and HP IT services. It was losing money again, and Unisys replaced Weinbach with a new

CEO; its current CEO is Joseph McGrath, who plans to step down at the end of 2008.60 Unisys is

still in the Fortune 500 (number 400 in 2007).

Rather than look for another job as CEO, Weinbach decided to start a business with his son Peter

Weinbach- Yankee Hill (YH) Capital Management, with offices in Connecticut and New York.

YH is a service industry specialists advisory and investment firm.

Questions:

1. Which major concepts of chapter 6 (communication, feedback, coaching, and conflict)

were Weinbach's primary focus as he took over as CEO of Unisys and why?

2. Do you see any or all of the three (personal, story and future) dimensions of effective

leadership communication in Weinbach's communication with his customers, stakeholders

and employees. Explain your answer.

3. Did Weinbach use leadership coaching? If yes, how?

4. Which conflict management style did Weinbach use as CEO?