Culture; has to be embraced to be maintained!

Travel has always been a part of our lives. Whether business or leisure, rarely did a week pass this year where we weren’t in planning mode for one trip or another. Not for Margo or me is the thought of heading out through the front door on our way to some destination ever giving us pause to wonder why? As our bags are brought up from storage to reside near our wardrobe, our imminent departure begins to look real. Even as our respective cultures differ on so many fronts where we find consistency is in seeing the world.

Culture can be tough to define. Perhaps the best description of culture I came across was: Customs, laws, dress, architectural style, social standards and traditions are all examples of cultural elements. Deconstructing into these elements is helpful but might be a bit too vague for some. Although it is hard to argue with the role customs and social standards play in defining culture. Then again, there are plenty of other obvious examples.

We have car culture; we have cultures based on food and wine. And there is sports culture of course! Closer to home we all recognize cultures based on different competing technologies, products and vendors. Think IBM vs the BUNCH? Too far back in time, perhaps? How about Google vs Microsoft or Intel vs AMD or Nvidia vs everyone else – they all have ardent supporters. The culture they cultivate is as fervent as that following any soccer oops, football, team today.

How is culture reinforced? Huge flags flying at sporting events! Cars that seem to be always painted red? And what about the energy that has gone into reinforcing culture in places as diverse as there happens to be with culinary and fashion as perhaps equally as well-known influencers on culture. Black turtleneck sweaters; sweatpants, and that all important hoodie are as much style as they are substance. And pizza!    

Up and down Silicon Valley it is as if each new start-up is more than keen to put their stamp on their unique way of doing business. Their own modus operandi! The HP Way was one of the earliest expressions of a tech company culture even as today, it has become commonplace to hear tech execs talking about the culture underpinning their company’s practices.

Last year as the New York Jets football team set about hiring a new coach, the team announced that, “Culture is one of those words that is overly used in the sports world, and yet not clearly defined. Why? Well, it's more of a feeling and less of a tangible quality.” The implication being that the team was disappointed with the culture of the team following numerous off-field altercations.

In the United Kingdom it was altercations of a different type that has just led the government to take on financial institutions. CNBC in a December 9, 2022 editorial, UK announces major overhaul of its financial sector in attempt to spur growth, among the many growth shortcomings identified was the lack of executive accountability. “The government also confirmed it will review rules around the accountability of top finance executives — another post-2008 regulation. The Senior Managers Regime, introduced in 2016, means individuals at regulated firms can face penalties for poor conduct, workplace culture or decision-making.”

Whereas the New York Jets were looking to foster a culture of shared feelings, emotions that could be channeled into better on-field performances, the UK government was looking to penalize those in charge who let a negative culture ferment within their institution. Culture, it seems, can go both ways; lifting up a group to do better as it can stymie others.

And yet, simply by associating with our peers we create cultures we can identify with – HPE and the NonStop communities being among those organizations where culture can not only be identified but recognized as continuously evolving.

Part of the attraction of travel is that we get to experience different cultures. Some we understand and can assimilate quickly whereas others take time and a whole lot of patience. The pace of adaptation is oftentimes helped simply by spending time with local folks be they business acquaintances or members of our extended families. There is nothing like sitting down at a meal to get an instant refresher on the culture of a place, be that a lively discussion over football or the fishing or local politics or even handbags and shoes.

Culture has become a common theme of HPE and its CEO, Antonio Neri, has not been shy talking about building, “a culture that revisited the former glory days under Hewlett and Packard and that energized the whole company as it tackled some very challenging projects.” These comments came during a keynote presentation at HPE Discover 2019.

The big news here is the change in culture to be more inclusive, empowering teams to pursue the vision of HPE in ways that produced results faster - the fear of doing something wrong had completely left HPE and according to Neri, “teams were now excited once again by the programs they were advancing.”

Fast forward to a blog post of November 10, 2022 by HPE Chief Communications Officer, Jennifer Temple, where she says, “When Antonio Neri was named CEO in 2017 he declared culture as one of three top priorities along with innovation as well as customers and partners.” What is this new culture? “Our ‘HPE Culture Blueprint,’ a framework of shared beliefs and behaviors that define who we are and how we do things.”

How is it being demonstrated? One aspect of this culture has featured many times in 2022 as it highlights behavior; “Our team members are participating in group volunteer activities around the world to be a force for good, one of our core culture beliefs.”

 

In the post to this blog of February 18, 2019 Of culture, and what we take for granted! I wrote of how changing the culture of the NonStop community and having it embrace NonStop as software may prove more challenging than simply introducing NonStop to new users, new industries and new markets all supporting new applications. Mindsets can evolve and along with changing mindsets, the underlying culture can change too. This is no longer the NonStop of Tandem Computers but rather the NonStop of Hybrid IT – the transformation of NonStop in lock-step with the transformation of IT itself.

As a community, NonStop already has in place the mindset and the culture that best accommodates even greater change in the decades to come. This was clearly on display at this year’s NonStop Technical Boot Camp and if you missed attending this major event of the year, you missed out on not just the sessions but that magical notion of feelings. It isn’t just the New York Jets that recognized the importance of feelings but every culture has within it a recognition that it just feels right to belong.

We have come a long way as a community with a shared culture centered on fault tolerance as delivered with continuous availability as it meets the real needs of business. The original attributes of NonStop listed scalability and data integrity as well, but in the end these two, important as they both became, played supporting roles to availability.

Just as important, NonStop continues to take meaningful strides forward. When so much is discussed about old tech versus new tech, we need to be reminded that NonStop today being offered in traditional and virtual variations, is demonstrably new tech. Who could have imagined just a few short years ago that we would be writing about NonStop in the cloud and nothing screams new tech more than support for clouds!

It is just as important to realize that the success of NonStop has always been meeting the requirements of business wherever those requirements might lead. I was reminded of this earlier in the week after receiving an email from HPE Master Technologist, Frans Jongma. Together, we had been looking at how best to attract NonStop users to greater usage of NonStop SQL/MX.

“A first step might be to take a step back and ask “who could be potential buyers? As I read recently, looking for ‘reasons to sell’ is the seller’s problem and customers don’t care about that,” said Frans. He then quoted from The 7 deadly sins to avoid in crossing the chasm - “The catalyst for driving adoption by mainstream customers is to understand the target customer’s ‘Compelling reason to buy’ – the real mission critical point you are solving.”

This strikes at the very heart of how culture really works and how the NonStop community has excelled in this regard. As a community we have never shied away from difficult conversations just as we have never shied away from understanding that we exist only because we address real requirements.

Not in the simplified manner we so often encounter, “we are customer driven,” which seems to apply more to car manufacturers than to IT but rather, as a positive outcome of the relationship that develops between the enterprise, IT and the NonStop community. It is part of our custom, a key element in our culture, to strive to provide value and that being, value from not ever failing. And with that anchoring our culture it becomes understandable why the NonStop community continues to thrive. To be an influence on our actions, culture requires work and it should never be forgotten that embracing culture is a must if we believe it anchors what we do.

Our attempt at returning to the road with just three bags failed miserably. Not only did we have to add a fourth but the combination proved difficult to manage. But we tried and we now have plans to revisit and choose another option. For the NonStop community, nothing could be simpler.

System upgrades and migrations are a way of life; we don’t continue relying on a foundation when something better comes along. We have those tough conversations and we make those hard calls but ultimately, we all continue to provide the value our enterprise needs.

What better way to end the year than in the knowledge that NonStop continues and that what first attracted each of us to NonStop remains at the heart of all things NonStop today. Our customs and yes, even our traditions, combine to ensure our culture thrives and passes from one generation to the next.

Where will this take us in 2023? The only answer to that is to make sure you find a way to attend major NonStop events worldwide as it will be visible in Scotland and Colorado and you just can’t afford missing seeing culture at work for yourself!