Have values

T.J. Rodgers
CEO, Cypress Semiconductor Corp.

Steve Newberry
CEO, Lam Research Corp.

If you want to be successful as an organization, you need to have a common set of
values by which you operate.

“In order to continue to drive growth and
maintain innovation, the main thing is that
you have to keep everybody on the same
page philosophically,” says T.J. Rodgers,
founder, president and CEO of Cypress
Semiconductor Corp.

One of the keys to establishing values is
to look at what is important to you.

“You have to bring your own core personal philosophies of what you’re doing in a
company,” says Steve Newberry, president
and CEO of Lam Research Corp. “For better
or for worse, the company is going to align
to that. … You basically choose what really
is a makeup of who you are as a leader.”

He says to also make sure that those
values are ones that others can get excited
about, too.

“Choose a set of values that aren’t off the
wall,” Newberry says. “… If the values system that you choose, people can relate to
and can ultimately make their own, then it
doesn’t become the CEO’s culture — it
becomes the company’s culture.”