Control Data Founder Has Few Regrets : Norris Pleased by Legacy
William C. Norris seemed to scrape against the rest of the business community all his career. By the time he retired in January, his reputation as a visionary was rubbed nearly away.
Many say that Norris stayed overlong at Control Data, the computer company he founded 29 years ago, and that he squandered his company’s soundness on “foo-foo social projects.” When he quit, the analysts began counting the months until new management’s influence would obscure Norris’ imprint.
Bill Norris, who still is testing the fit of retirement, doesn’t appear worried about his legacy.
“Control Data’s direction is fixed for the next 50 years,” he said in a recent interview as his big, farmer’s hands restlessly shuffled sheaves of unneeded papers.
Norris thinks Control Data will be able to overcome the troubles that pushed it $567.5 million in the red last year and at the same time continue to address “society’s unmet needs” as business opportunities. Analysts, many of whom had always fretted over the company’s socially responsible bent, say a complete recovery requires that Control Data adopt a more traditional posture, care more about its bottom line and purge internal inefficiencies.
Those decisions will fall to Robert M. Price, Control Data’s new chairman and chief executive who was president under Norris for five years. Norris remains a director of the company and said he will continue to pursue long-term projects for it.
His 74 years have thinned, dulled and whitened his hair but not constricted his view of the world. He retains his preference for long-range planning over day-to-day responsibility.
He concedes that his style may have permitted some of the company’s problems to develop. “Yes, I placed more attention on the long-term future of the company rather than day-to-day operations. . . . But I never met an executive who was good at planning for the long term and at the same time grinding out those day-to-day decisions about what the company’s going to do.” Even had he been more attentive to the encroachments on Control Data’s markets by the Japanese, “I don’t think it would have made all that much difference,” he said.
Norris has blamed much of the slide at the suburban Minneapolis company on outside forces that were beyond its control. Founded in 1957, the company was one of five companies called the “bunch” (along with Burroughs, Univac--now Sperry, NCR and Honeywell) that siphoned some business for large and medium-size computers away from giant International Business Machines. In less than 30 years, Control Data’s sales exceeded $5 billion. But with age and size came lethargy, and Control Data was blindsided by Japanese technological and price incursions to its lead in the market for disk drives.
Disk drives are costly to manufacture, and the peripheral products division continued to sap the company’s strength. The slowdown in the computer industry’s growth, which began in late 1984, has magnified Control Data’s problems.
Some analysts trace the friction between Norris and the investment community to soon after the company’s founding when Norris ignored their advice and took his new company public. Others have said that the management’s focus was whipsawed by Norris’ scattered social interests and that the company lacked clear direction.
Although the company has said that less than 5% of its assets are “employed in so-called societal-need businesses,” many of them have failed to yield profits and thus have become easy targets for Norris’ critics--and the first place they point when recommending cuts.
The company had long been advised to shore up management and, in 1980, Price was named president and given the onus for the daily responsibilities of the company.
Price “is very supportive of the (new) role that I have and his support is very crucial to my success. I have no doubt it will continue.”
Although Price is expected to continue paring back Control Data’s expansive operations, Norris doesn’t see that as an about-face from his tenure.
Control Data is “not covering as broad a spectrum of products, it’s doing fewer things, primarily in the scope of its peripheral products,” Norris said. The peripherals products division, which became the wellspring of the company’s river of losses, is targeted for an overhaul. The company hopes to make $100 million by selling Ticketron and is sprucing up its Commercial Credit Corp. operation, perhaps as a prelude to offering it for sale again.
The decline in revenue because of operations that have been sold or eliminated has been less than 10%. “Control Data is still a very big company,” Norris said.
Norris’ drive pushed the company on when a lot of other companies slipped by the wayside. “Norris was at the head of Control Data during a lot of high points,” reminded Michael Hamilton, a securities analyst at Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood in Minneapolis who has tracked Norris and Control Data for more than a decade. “But he overstayed his welcome, and placed too much emphasis on social programs. . . . Some bad managerial decisions were made. But a visionary can still make bad strategic decisions and that’s where I would categorize Bill Norris,” he said.
Loyal Following
Norris’ image and the company’s standing as a good corporate citizen have also earned them a loyal following among some employees and, said Norris, the emulation of about a dozen other companies who have taken more socially responsible positions.
“Many creative, intelligent” people want to work for a company that has a broader purpose than quarter-to-quarter improvements, he said. “A lot of people are attracted to Control Data because they liked our strategy. Control Data has the highest rate of acceptance from college recruits.”
Once those people went to work for Control Data, though, they seldom had a chance to meet up with Norris. Norris was not a subscriber to the theory of “management by walking about” that attributes increased enthusiasm and performance to informal, amiable relationships between management and employees.
“I know I’m no Lee Iacocca. . . . But you don’t stimulate people very long by walking around. They have to feel the company is on the right track.”
And besides, Norris is shy--the kind of shy that manifests itself in a reserved demeanor. Framed by deep creases along his broad forehead, his face has settled into a frown and is surprised only occasionally by a laugh.
He self-consciously recalled that, on a first visit to an office, he followed a vice president into the building and hung back silently during introductions. “A lot of chief executives would have been charging ahead,” he said.
Analyst Hamilton said: “Norris may be shy, but when he wants to give you his opinion, he doesn’t have trouble doing it.”
Indeed, Control Data’s financial problems gave Norris an even greater opportunity to express his unorthodox views. “This has given me a forum, so it has its plus side. But I’d rather not have had the problems.”
Still, he takes the long view. “If you can’t stand adversity, if your strategy comes apart because of problems, it’s not a sound strategy . . . and our basic strategy is sound.”
