A few months ago Metcalfe began talking openly within the company of his desire to move up to the presidency. He has had four P&L jobs at 3Com, he points out. Three of them have been start-ups. This is the first time he's taken over an operating division. "My résumé needs this," he says, "if I'm going to be president. My board thinks of me as a start-up guy. They see me as a visionary. A visionary is someone who can't do anything else, who needs to be kept around like a child. I need to shake the start-up image, show them that I can run a big division."
His most valuable contribution to this job so far, Metcalfe allows, was his recommendation (after suitable study) that DSD should be split into three smaller units. "My boss," he reports, without even a hint of irony, "said that was a good recommendation and would figure heavily in my year-end bonus."
Not that Metcalfe's ascension to the presidency of 3Com is assured. It isn't yet.
Krause has his plan, too. It gives him at least seven more years with the company before he moves into his public-service phase. Before then, as the company hits certain growth milestones, Krause will expand and restructure 3Com's executive levels so that the management will always be in place to move the company through subsequent growth stages.
The way Krause has things laid out, three major new jobs will be created over the next two to three years -- a chief operating officer, a chief marketing officer, and a chief administrative officer. All three will report to Krause. A few years later Krause will add another management layer by naming a president whose responsibilities will embrace both operations and marketing. Then two to three years after that, as the schedule now has it, the president will also become CEO, and Krause will complete his second phase as chairman.
Obviously, says Krause, it will be the COO who should move up to the presidency. One of his most important current responsibilities, he says, is to be sure that the board has plenty of qualified candidates to choose from when it's time to fill that key slot. He ticks off nearly half a dozen names in the pipeline, only one of which is the founder's.
Metcalfe knows he's got to compete against others in his company. "I may not make it," he says. But now at least he knows where he's going.
WHAT METCALFE LEARNED FROM KRAUSE
Bob Metcalfe, the "visionary" founder of 3Com Corp., has worked for Bill Krause, the manager he hired to run the company, for eight years. What has he learned? he was asked.
* How to keep a calendar. "Bill," says Metcalfe, "is disciplined by what he says he's going to do. Also, have you noticed he doesn't seem to have many files? He has only the right ones."
* How to sell. "I came from the world of academe, where the goal was to win the argument. He came from a world where the goal was to get the order. He taught me the difference. When I'm down on this, I call it suffering fools gladly. Anyway, it's a fundamental biological change I went through under Bill's guidance. Even today, Bill's answers to customers' questions are different. My answer would be 'No.' His would be 'Yes, but. . . . ' He has a tendency to accentuate the positives and move them to the fore, so I listen to him. What he does works."
* The value of planning. "Now, I like to have plans. I even use them. Bill still wants me to plan more than I would if left on my own."
* To keep on arguing. "We don't avoid abrasion. We still abrade. We call each other on things all the time. He's commanding and pushy and can be scary, so he relies on me to call him on it when others won't. A good example is my inventory turns. He's got a feather up his ass on raising them above five times a year. He's wrong, and I'm not giving up on that."
WHAT KRAUSE LEARNED FROM METCALFE
Bill Krause, the experienced professional manager, took charge of founder Bob Metcalfe's company eight years ago. What, he was asked, has he learned from the entrepreneur?
* How to be a better public speaker. "I plagiarize his ideas, phrases, and jokes all the time -- with his permission, of course."
* What's important. "Bob has demonstrated to me the value of principles and integrity -- above all else. If people don't respect you for your integrity, then what else is there?"
* How to get people interested. "One of my weaknesses is I'm so determined that the company be successful that I don't provide enough opportunity for people to fail. For people to take risks, you have to be willing to let them fail. Also, you want them to think something was their idea. That was the genesis of our first personal computer-related product. It wouldn't have gotten off the ground if Bob hadn't bought one of the first IBM PCs and set it in the middle of our engineering group, right outside [then senior engineer] Ron Crane's cubicle. Bob didn't tell anyone to do anything, but Ron took the bait."
* How to lighten up. "Bob has a quality that John Kennedy had. He knows how to break tension with humor -- in a meeting, for instance. My tendency is to be a fairly serious kind of guy. I have also learned from Bob how to play, that you should extract from your day some fun."
