When Steve Newberry came to Lam Research Corp. in 1997 as
executive vice president and chief operating officer, he and the
new CEO, James Bagley, faced a tough uphill climb.
The company, which supplies semiconductor manufacturing
equipment and services, had quickly grown to $1.1 billion in fiscal 1997, but it was also splitting at the seams because it couldn’t
handle the growth.
“Technologies and products had begun to wane, and it was losing market share, and it was beginning to lose money as a function of getting out of control at that rapid level of growth,”
Newberry says.
Because of the downward tumble the company faced,
Newberry and Bagley knew they needed to enact change if Lam
had any hope of surviving and thriving.
“When we came in, we really had to change the whole orientation of the company,” he says. “It’s really a classic leadership challenge to redefine the vision, redefine the definitions of success,
redefine the strategies and then look at whether the leadership
team … was capable of performing to the level that was needed.”
With that in mind, Newberry and Bagley set to establishing core
values and strategic principles, and then identifying those who
would stay and those that would go.