I'd actually like to take a step back from the hate-fest going on in the comments here and evaluate this. Before you downvote me, at least read what I have to say.
This email is a classic example of poor communication. It's very clear that the guy is frustrated and is taking it out via an emotional response. However, we don't know the whole story here, do we? From my reading, it sounds like this has been an ongoing problem for awhile now. Keep in mind that this was in 2001, not exactly an easy time to be running a software company. I can imagine the frustration of running a large company with thousands of employees and seeing a lack of results, coupled with evidence of employees not spending much time at work. What would you do in such a case? Not necessarily with regard to the email, which I think we can all agree was in poor taste, but with regard to the actions he says he's going to take.
Additionally, we don't know if this memo did in fact kill morale at the company. We know that the company has done well over the last nine years, and that Mr. Patterson was recently honored as one of the best bosses in the country. The Wikipedia entry specifically mentions the metric of great performance relative to compensation, so he's obviously creating value.
I guess my point is that everyone makes mistakes, especially when they're frustrated and facing a large problem. And make no mistake, managing a software company with several thousand people in 2001 would be a challenge. I'm not saying this was the right approach, but what exactly would you do? And more importantly, if you've never faced management at that scale, why do you think it would be more effective than his approach?
To get where the author of this memo got (CEO of a publicly traded corporation), work essentially has to be your life. I mean, your #1 priority, ahead of friends, family, fun, and everything else. I have never seen an example of such a person at the helm of a large, multinational corporation, who does not, generally, appear to fit that description. This memo illustrates the total disconnect between that sort of person, and the other 97% of us for whom work ranks a distant 5th-10th on life's list of priorities.
So, in some sense, it's understandable. Inexcusable, but I at least get the place from where this sort of vitriol is coming from. He really thinks he can get people to care as much as he does. In some ways it's amazing that he made it so far while remaining so deluded.
And the irony might be that he gets a company that outwardly looks exactly like he wants. The sheep willing to conform will stay and others will move on. Now I'm not saying anything about productivity, that's another question then.
Whatever the problem is, I would bet that this memo doesn't solve the problem in any way, just makes it worse. No serious person should ever write "The pizza man should show up at 7:30 PM to feed the starving teams working late." And I seriously mean never.
"We are getting less than 40 hours of work [...]" implies that it's the minimum, so I guess that's what's in the standard employee contract. But "NEVER in my career have I allowed a team which worked for me to think they had a 40 hour job." implies he wants a tired, unmotivated, angry person to do work for him.
What would I do? Take a look at the actual issues. If employees are not at work during the time they should, just because they got used to that - first warn, then after some time find the biggest offender and fire him/her (based on not doing the time agreed in contract) to show the rule is executed. But I don't believe that's the reason - there's no point in holding a meeting late at night, because people will just sleep until that time, or do something completely unrelated. You cannot make anyone do work. Just for fun - you can try the most trivial method - 5 why-s. Try to think of 1 scenario that starts with "bad results" and is fixable at step 3/4 by forcing employees to stay at work for additional time. (in most cases you'll find bad project organisation, strange scheduling policies, conflicts of interests, etc.)
If they don't want to stay the standard hours at work, there's an underlying problem somewhere. If they don't want to stay additional hours at work, there's nothing you can do legally, apart from providing incentives (and that still doesn't guaranty that they will do any more work).
Also the guy SHOUTS in the email. Outside of internet, if you have to start shouting to make your point, you lose respect / have weak communication skills / you're probably wrong - it doesn't help you win the argument anyways.
Why do I think I could do better? Because I can identify a list of things that would make me leave the company asap, if my manager was acting that way, which is exactly the opposite of what he wants to achieve.
I can imagine the frustration of running a large company with thousands of employees and seeing a lack of results, coupled with evidence of employees not spending much time at work.
I just want to shove in that it's not a case of "not much time", employment is a business transaction between adults - a contractually agreed amount of time for an amount of money.
If the employees are putting in the time they and their employer agreed they would, it's not fair or accurate to say it's "not much" time.
If the contract is specified by results instead, then the employer also has no right to say "not much time", only "not good enough results".
In the startup world we know that the strongest motivation is internal, and that despite the cultural expectation of long hours, we can't really force the issue. Instead we have to hire people that are internally motivated by passion for what they do, and a desire for greatness. If, in a startup, you have to crack the whip you've probably already failed.
In the corporate world you don't have the luxury of hiring only the best and brightest most internally motivated people. There's the law of averages for one thing, but also there tends to be a lot more grunt work, bureaucratic overhead, and the individual has much less opportunity to make a difference anyway. There are good reasons for these things; once you have a profitable, repeatable business, bureaucracy and processes ensure the money keeps coming in and mistakes are learned from on an institutional level, there is less incentive to innovate because the risk-reward structure is completely different.
Despite the fact that we know this is bad for morale, we don't know that morale and intrinsic motivation were getting this company anywhere. It's entirely possible that the low-level employees were losers (in the Gervais principle sense) with no personal stake in the company other than to milk it for a paycheck. If that's the case then perhaps motivation by fear is a legit management strategy. In other words, even though it may be true that brilliant hackers would never put up with a managerial environment like that, maybe they never would have worked there anyway.
Instead we have to hire people that are internally motivated by passion for what they do, and a desire for greatness.
I think you're missing an important part of the picture: Startup employees generally want to get rich too. If the startup they work for does phenomenally well, that should happen.
In the corporate world, not only does an individual have less opportunity to make a difference, they usually get pretty much no payout even if they do something really outstanding.
What struck me about the memo, is the constant references to 'the problem', without ever defining what the actual problem was. People not working long hours might be a symptom of a problem, but it is not a problem in and of itself.
You ask how we'd tackle the problem, but I don't know how anyone can answer that without knowing what the problem actually is.
This might have been communicated, or evident, outside of this memo, but it sounds like he's trying to fix a problem that doesn't necessarily exist, based on questionable metrics.
Have to say that as the leader of the company he's failed abysmally.
>My measurement will be the parking lot: it should be substantially full at 7:30 AM and 6:30 PM....The lot should be half full on Saturday mornings. We have a lot of work to do.
His response is about bullsh!t metrics - not about the work. There's not one mention of productivity, of not meeting targets, of poorly performing staff. The management may, or may not, be doing so - but the sole defining reason for his diatribe is the lack of attendance during what he perceives as reasonable work hours (~65hours/week).
Why wasn't the focus on not meeting targets? on improving productivity? on making progress?
This email is a classic example of poor communication. It's very clear that the guy is frustrated and is taking it out via an emotional response. However, we don't know the whole story here, do we? From my reading, it sounds like this has been an ongoing problem for awhile now. Keep in mind that this was in 2001, not exactly an easy time to be running a software company. I can imagine the frustration of running a large company with thousands of employees and seeing a lack of results, coupled with evidence of employees not spending much time at work. What would you do in such a case? Not necessarily with regard to the email, which I think we can all agree was in poor taste, but with regard to the actions he says he's going to take.
Additionally, we don't know if this memo did in fact kill morale at the company. We know that the company has done well over the last nine years, and that Mr. Patterson was recently honored as one of the best bosses in the country. The Wikipedia entry specifically mentions the metric of great performance relative to compensation, so he's obviously creating value.
I guess my point is that everyone makes mistakes, especially when they're frustrated and facing a large problem. And make no mistake, managing a software company with several thousand people in 2001 would be a challenge. I'm not saying this was the right approach, but what exactly would you do? And more importantly, if you've never faced management at that scale, why do you think it would be more effective than his approach?