Wag More, Bark Less

It also made me think about the piece I worked on with current managing editor of Fortune, Andy Serwer, back in May of 2000. Entitled, "Two Questions about Cisco: Is John Chambers the Best CEO on Earth? (and) Is It Too Late to Buy His Stock?" We're in the middle of our quiet period as we report earnings for Q108 next week, so I cannot comment on the second question even if I could. As to the first question Andy asked, I'm certainly in the affirmative camp. I've been at Cisco for nearly 9 years and have been working with our CEO for most of that time. He is good. He is smart. He's also a nice guy, which really goes a long way when working with him. He is demanding, but also willing to listen. And, most importantly, he's willing to change with the times and, in most cases, lead those changes.

Case in point is our new video blogging at the company. We've done a couple video blogs with him and after the second one he said, "Every week I'm in the office, I want to do one of these." He recognizes that video and blogs are important ways to communicate and he's willing to invest his time in doing it and not just talking about it. This anecdote is certainly indicative of how he approaches change...he embraces it.

This sounds a bit like a suck-up-to-the-CEO blog entry and it isn't meant to be. It is just a stream of consciousness entry on what I'm feeling as a Cisco employee of late, which, really the Fortune piece brought to the forefront. If you've followed Cisco in the past few years, you know we're doing okay. I think that a "wag more, bark less" approach has contributed to some of our success.

And, because I haven't found a way to make a picture of my aforementioned son relevant to this blog entry, I'll just post it here and let you know that he is definitely a "wag more, bark less" kind of guy as well.