How Polycom's Andrew Miller adapted to working in new territory

The Big Deal

Polycom's CEO On Business, Viking-Style

Andy Greenberg, 07.29.10, 12:00 PM EDT

How Polycom's Andrew Miller adapted to working in new territory.

The easy deals can be made by anyone. The big, meaningful ones draw on the experience of a lifetime--as well as lots of moxie and luck. Forbes is asking leaders in business and other fields about their pivotal "big deals."

Andrew Miller became the chief executive of video and networking firm Polycom in May 2010. From 2001 to 2006 he was the CEO of Norwegian video conferencing firm Tandberg. He spoke with Forbes technology writer Andy Greenberg about adjusting to a new place and culture, when he left Cisco (where he had spent 11 years) for Tandberg.

Andrew Miller: For me the biggest deal of my career was when I left Cisco, where I was vice president of sales, and agreed to take on the CEO position at Tandberg, which at that time was an $80 million publicly traded company in Oslo.

I was the only American on the executive team of a company that is Norwegian not only by stock market domiciling, but in terms of heritage and culture.

I landed on my first day in Oslo on a flight from Washington Dulles Airport and went through customs. At Cisco, I was used to being greeted by a driver or somebody there from the team welcoming me. In Norway, there was nobody there, no car to pick me up. At that moment I felt literally, completely alone.

I showed up at Tandberg and the then-chairman said to me, 'Andy, you're going to share an office with the president of the company.' And I said, 'Well, I thought I was the CEO and president.' And he said to me, 'We weren't sure you were going to show up, so we hired another president anyway.'

That was my aha moment. For the past 11 years, I felt like I had the backing of Cisco [chief executive] John Chambers, and now I was out there on my own in a foreign land with a foreign culture and not wholeheartedly accepted. It was during the Bush administration and Europeans were viewing Americans very differently. But I had to make it work.

I learned a lot about cultural differences in Norway. It's very dark and cold, and there's a lot of drinking. From a business perspective, it's very consensus driven and less hierarchical than the American style. It's a very family-oriented culture but also one, in terms of business, that I would call Viking in its brazenness and aggression.

So I listened a lot. I did not come in as the ugly American that knew how to run their business. I formed relationships. I spent a lot of time with their families. It really took a year before they believed in me as an American leader.

In the end, I helped open up the North American market and the Asian market to Tandberg. From 2001 to 2005, we grew from $80 million in revenue to $400 million, from an 18% market share to 42%. And I learned a great deal about how people actually do look at life through different lenses and cultures.

--As told to and edited by Andrew Greenberg of Forbes. To see more stories written by him, click here.