Applied Leadership Development Program
  • Home
  • Core Programs
    • Applied Leadership Development Program (ALDP)
    • Relationship Training
    • Executive Coaching
  • Products
    • Books
    • Leadership 360 Assessment
    • Motivation Assessment
    • Relationship Support Assessment
    • Versatility Assessment
  • Leadership Insights
    • How is Our CEO Performing?
    • Breaking the 4th Wall of Inequality
    • Be Mindful of Socialized Observations
    • Becoming a Leader Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery
    • Unsheltering The Organization: Collaboration vs. Coordination
    • COVID-19 Time Is on My (Our) Side
    • Distress In A High VUCA Coronavirus Pandemic
    • Diversity is Not Just a Numbers Game
    • Resolving Conflicts Like a Grownup
    • Your Career in the 2020’s: Roaring, Boring or Crashing
    • Nine-Step Leadership Guide to a Beautiful Holiday Family Gathering
    • Can Companies Afford to Leave Relationships Among Employees to Chance?
    • BP’s Leaves Alaska – Leadership Lessons
    • It’s All About The Glow
    • Leadership “Top 40”
    • Leading a Holiday Family Gathering
    • Versatility: A New Imperative for Leaders
    • Fracturing the Ice
    • Dumb and Dumber
    • Is Your Team “High Performing?”
    • The Cure for Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
    • Leadership in a Fortune Cookie
    • Trump’s Empathy
    • United Airlines: A System Failure?
    • Leadership Above the Clouds
    • Fake News
    • Lessons for Leaders
    • Wells Fargo’s “Scandal”
    • Destressifying
    • A Topical Update
    • Empathic Effort vs. Empathic Accuracy
    • That “Culture Thing”
    • Governors as Leaders- Leadership Insight
    • Organization Transformation
    • Own Your Self Story
    • Are You Talking to Your Boss?
    • Ask for a raise?
    • What Message are You Sending? The role of messaging in performance management.
    • GM Leadership Lesson Update
    • Something Went Wrong With The Process
    • Outliers and Behavior
  • Speaking
  • About
    • Why Us?
    • Our Team
    • The 9 Steps
    • Testimonials
    • News
      • Frontiers 184: Beyond BP – The Next Chapter
      • C.A.P. Podcast on Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs
      • Interview with Houston Business Journal: Here’s what makes a great CEO
      • Interview with Executive Leadership
      • Press Releases
      • Interview with Central Valley Business Times
      • William McKnight Interview
      • We Are What We Do
      • Leadership is About Behavior at Happi
      • Happi
  • Contact
23
Sep

Critics Fault H-P’s Board, Not Just CEO

Posted by Al Bolea in Leadership with 0 comments.
The HP saga is a good example of what leadership is not. In the seminar we start with “Setting Direction” because that is the ultimate job of a leader. HP has had three CEOs in four years and has now hired Meg Williams.
Here are some notable quotes from the media and the connection to the Leadership Seminar:

Conversations

  • “Ms. Whitman is a strong communicator and leader…she is a people person.”
  • “Among Mr Apotheker’s gaffes is the leaked memo in which he urged executives to pinch pennies.”
  • “He was fired because of the botched announcement on the possible PC spinoff …and a poor report card from employees.”
Performance Management
  • “Mr Apotheker has lowered the financial outlook for HP after each of the three quarters he presided over.”
  • “He lacked the ability to get down deep into the business and understand the dynamics that were going on.”
Building the Team
  •  “The CEO failed to rally his troops well..”
  •  “He did not inform the head of the PC unit about plans to spin it off until days before the announcement.”
  • “The board did not see an executive team working together or working on the same page.”
Setting Direction
  • “He was not clear on the strategy, not articulating clearly what the direction was.”
  • “He was replaced because of his poor execution and a lock of leadership.”
Pathology of a Crisis
  • “Fault is with the HP board of directors who have failed to set a clear direction for the company.”
  • “It’s the latest crisis for a Silicon Valley icon that has moved from a family-oriented firm under two co-founders to a behemoth that shed its folksy ways under a series of outsider CEOs”
CRITICS FAULT H-P’S BOARD, NOT JUST CEO
By Joann S. Lublin
September 22, 2001; The Wall Street Journal

As Hewlett-Packard Co.’s shareholders cheered the possible ouster of Chief Executive Leo Apotheker, some critics warned the deeper problem may lie with the company’s board.

Just weeks ago, H-P’s directors approved and publicly supported Mr. Apotheker’s plan to remake the company despite a poor reception from H-P’s investors. Now, people familiar with the matter say, they are debating whether to fire him.

The fumble comes about a year after the board came under criticism for the way it handled the investigation and dismissal of Mr. Apotheker’s predecessor, Mark Hurd.

While corporate governance experts gave H-P’s directors credit for what appeared to be a quick move to deal with Mr. Apotheker once it became clear he wasn’t working out, they expressed concerns about their failure to set a clear direction for the company.

“It’s hard to think of another board that has failed as consistently as this one,” said Nell Minow, a corporate-governance author and longtime shareholder activist. “The H-P board is a serial offender. If Apotheker’s vision and execution failed, it is the fault of the board that selected him.”

H-P declined to comment and an outside spokeswoman for the board wasn’t immediately available for comment.

H-P’s board has spent an extraordinary amount of time in the spotlight for questionable decision-making over the past half decade. The string of missteps has persisted despite two major shakeups in its ranks—one following Mr. Hurd’s exit and another after a divisive investigation into board leaks in 2006.

“The board’s caught in this infinite loop,” said Harvard Business School management professor Rakesh Khurana. “They’re searching for an identity in a rapidly changing market with new CEOs, and it’s not clear that the board has yet solved its own issues.”

Mr. Apotheker arrived last November—three months after H-P’s board forced Mr. Hurd to resign amid concerns over his relationship with a female contractor to the company. Critics challenged the board over whether the firing was necessary, and again after it agreed to a $35 million exit package that didn’t keep Mr. Hurd from joining competitorOracle Corp. shortly after his departure.

Mr. Hurd joined H-P in 2005 following the ouster of his predecessor Carly Fiorina and a tumultuous proxy fight over H-P’s acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. That fight pitted members of the founding Hewlett and Packard families against Ms. Fiorina.

It didn’t take long for a new problem to emerge. In 2006, a scandal erupted over “pretexting”—impersonating people to get their phone or financial records—amid a board-driven probe into possible press leaks by the company’s own directors. That ultimately contributed to the departure of Patricia Dunn as H-P chairman.

H-P’s latest lineup of directors—which includes five chosen in January—doesn’t bear the blame for all of that, but the history is heightening scrutiny of its current decisions.

Executives and recruiters in the industry questioned the decision to bring aboard Mr. Apotheker, who had run software companySAP AG and had little experience in H-P’s main lines of business. Mr. Apotheker also spent only a short time atop SAP, leaving abruptly in February 2010, less than a year after taking over as sole CEO the previous May.

“It’s pretty rare” to see a board force out a new CEO after less than a year, said Espen Eckbo, head of the Center for Corporate Governance at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, referring to the H-P board’s fast turnaround. To put the company back together, he said, the board needs to “come up with a consensus on the CEO recruiting strategy and where the basic value drivers are.”

  • 0

There are no comments so far

Leave a Comment

Don't worry. We never use your email for spam.

Don't worry. We never use your email for spam.


Latest Posts

  • How is Our CEO Performing?
  • Breaking the 4th Wall of Inequality
  • Be Mindful of Socialized Observations
  • Becoming a Leader Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery
  • Unsheltering The Organization: Collaboration vs. Coordination
  • COVID-19 Time Is on My (Our) Side
  • Distress In A High VUCA Coronavirus Pandemic

Sign up to receive Leadership Insight articles.

Contact

ALDP©
Applied Leadership Development Program
Copyright 2016 · Applied Leadership Development Program |