A CEO's strategies for success

Piyush Patel shares the management practices that have transformed Cabletron into four nimbler business units.

By Piyush Patel
Network World, 04/30/01

Editor's Note: Network World asked Piyush Patel to describe his career path and share his management techniques. While this article focuses on engineers, his advice can be applied to any technical employee you manage.

Patel, shown right, founded Yago Systems in 1996 and became senior vice president of engineering at Cabletron Systems when Cabletron acquired Yago in 1998. He became Cabletron's chairman and CEO in 1999. In 2000, Cabletron restructured by creating four subsidiaries - Aprisma Management Technologies, Enterasys Networks, Riverstone Networks and Global Network Technology Services.

People say I'm determined, driven and demanding. I have to be, and I encourage all of my team to be just as driven. It's my entrepreneurial spirit, combined with my engineering background, that has helped me achieve business success. I don't mean to imply that we can't ever take a vacation, but I believe we need to always be on top of our customers' needs, our business deliverables and evolving market trends.

Today, in my role as CEO of Cabletron Systems, I am using my entrepreneurial drive and engineering experience to transform Cabletron from a single, large slow-growing company into a family of agile start-up companies focused on high-growth segments of the market.

My engineering skills are helpful in my job as CEO. For example, I use my ability to drill down to detail while keeping an eye on the big picture, to look for the root cause of a problem and to systematically solve that problem.

However, I've also learned a lot more about customers, partners, market trends and people along the way. Here are a few of the management techniques I've acquired:

Foster creativity among your staff. While I began my career at Intel and Sun leading custom microprocessor teams, my real trial by fire was when I founded Yago Systems in 1996 and became an entrepreneur and a first-time CEO.

At Yago, I assumed many roles. I was CEO, engineer, receptionist and controller. During the day, I learned the switchboard. On the weekends, I learned accounting. I have a great deal of respect for every individual contributor in our company because I understand that each plays an integral role in ensuring our success.

However, I believe that fostering the creativity and passion of engineers is one of the most important lessons I have learned. When I first came to Cabletron, I knew that one of the challenges would be motivating our engineers.

To that end, I increased research and development activities and created teams focused solely on nextgeneration products. In addition, I implemented policy lowering and, in some cases eliminating, the cost of all caffeine products within the company. As a result, Cabletron was "abuzz" with energy and innovation.

Reward commitment. Focused, motivated engineers make it possible for small start-up companies to defeat industry giants and develop products more quickly. It isn't enough just to hire talented engineers. To be successful, engineers need to have faith in their leadership, be excited about the products they're building and have good incentives.

If the parking lot is full early in the morning and late in the evening, I know it's because our people want to be there. Overall, we've made our employees more passionate about their work by bringing a sense of ownership into the equation. I believe in our employees and respect their commitment to their jobs. Because of this, our employees are rewarded for creativity and motivated to work harder. This has also given us a good platform for recruiting outside talent.

Courage counts. Turn good, well-thought-out ideas into real business strategies, and then think of more good ideas.

In a competitive industry, the ability to execute is as fundamental to business as the ability to innovate is to engineering. I experienced that environment at Yago and was driven to recreate it at Cabletron. When I transformed the corporation into separate operating companies in 2000, I instilled in each the drive to stay ahead of the competition.

As innovation cycles shrink to three months, teams must quickly respond to the shifting needs of the market. I constantly challenge our engineers to not only conquer the task in front of them, but anticipate the one that lies ahead.