Prometheus 6

You probably know from your logs that I work for HP.

From that perspective, I would say that Carly is not so much a business failure as someone with stark strengths and weaknesses. Her strengths, poise under pressure and a sharp mind for marketing, strategy, and rhetoric (plus being a blond woman wouldn't hurt), would probably put her on McCain's shortlist for VP. Like Hillary, she has strong negatives, but probably not at the nationwide scale that Hillary has. If you know her, you probably love her or hate her, but how many people outside of bus/tech know or remember who she is?

She pulled off a visionary merger, against all odds, and against opposition from the likes of the well-loved founder's son. Unfortunately, one of her weaknesses is that she is not an operationally-focused person, at least not well enough to manage a behemoth like HP. And since she carries strong "negatives", she could not rally the management, employee base, and eventually the board to make the company meet its targets.

Mark Hurd, the current CEO, is the opposite of Carly in many ways. He is a lowkey, metrics-focused, detailed oriented taskmaster/asskicker. He could not have executed the merger with compaq, but Carly could not have make the company fit enough to perform. Under Hurd, the company's stock has gone from around 16 to around 50 in a few years, as the street recognizes that performance. All of the problems you read in the register article have been resolved.

In some ways, tenacity and toughness included, she is enough like Hillary to draw some disaffected Hillary partisans to McCain.

Keto,

Why was Carly Fiorina not able to recognize her weaknesses and put together a team that would have focused on the operational details of the HP-Compaq merger?

In any case, P6's point about how some folk in this country are not allowed to fail no matter how much they have failed is still apt. Fiorina pushed and promoted a merger that she could not execute and, worse, would not allow the HP-Compaq teamn of senior managers to put into place. Nonetheless, she is still being promoted by the establishment as if she did.

Hillary Clinton drove her campaign over a cliff and the same group of folk are talking about her as if it is still morning in America. I am not arguing that she is a loser but on all of the essential elements of what it takes to win a presidential nomination she and her campaign have failed by any reasonable standard. Now many of these same folk are arguing that she should be Obama's running mate. This is absurd.

A major part of the problem, in my opinion, is the complete lack of diversity in terms of those who are making these judgments about the Hillary Clintons and Carly Fiorinas of our world. There is no diversity of opinions, perspectives and outlooks offered. Even if there is an occasional black, brown or Asian face on these programs these individuals, by and large, do not stray far from what is considered conventional wisdom.

You probably know from your logs that I work for HP.

Actually, no. The log files created by Drupal sort things out nicely. I only examine access denied, page not found and php errors.

From that perspective, I would say that Carly is not so much a business failure as someone with stark strengths and weaknesses. 

Okay. Maybe I should have said "failed CEO." 

"Why was Carly Fiorina not able to recognize her weaknesses and put together a team that would have focused on the operational details of the HP-Compaq merger?"

Because she has a Hillary-sized ego, and because she isolated the lieutenants that had been running those businesses for literally decades. You can only bring in so much new blood at a time to run a company like HP. The company is consensus driven; isolate too many people and you will never achieve anything. A "high negative" person will never succeed in a HP-like corporate culture.

I think the merger was the right thing to do. And that only someone with Fiorina's skills could have pulled it off. But post-merger, she was unfit to run the company.

The board hired her because they wanted "change", a fresh direction. Once she set the new course, they needed a strong operational leader at the helm, which she is not.

As far as failure goes, well, we know this is not a meritocracy. As they say, membership has its privileges; being the CEO of a global, fortune 12 company does have its perks, fail or no fail.
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"A major part of the problem, in my opinion, is the complete lack of diversity in terms of those who are making these judgments about the Hillary Clintons and Carly Fiorinas of our world."

That's why I tune in to P6, for a daily dose of sanity.

But you have to see this as an advantage for people of color. Today, the old structure that favored well-connected white folks is dissolving, but many cannot see it. Let those talking heads rave about Carly and Hillary. It makes it easier for a gifted, clear-eyed politician like Barack to pull out a victory. In the business side, the same lesson applies.

"Maybe I should have said "failed CEO." "

That'll work.

"I think the merger was the right thing to do. And that only someone with Fiorina's skills could have pulled it off. But post-merger, she was unfit to run the company."

I don't want to quibble with you about something that you know far more about than I do but if Fiorina couldn't manage the merger then she was the wrong person to brin g in to pull it off. As an outsider, I think the board of HP failed to take affirmative steps to ensure than Fiorina's tendency to promote a cult of personality was not checked.

The board should have established benchmarks to see that the merger was being properly implemented instead of allowing Fiorina blow smoke up their behinds. As an HP customer (printers only) I knew that things had changed for the better when she was fired because emails that I sent regarding various problems that I, as a Mac user, had encountered were immediately answered. I suspect that the new CEO accomplished this by asking customers to send emails directly to his office. Fiorina, in my opinion, was full of s@*t. 

The merger she pulled off was a failure. I work with refugges of that merger and the people who I have worked with have said nothing good about it.

"I don't want to quibble with you about something that you know far more about than I do but if Fiorina couldn't manage the merger then she was the wrong person to bring in to pull it off."

Your analysis is as good as mine. I haven't sat in the boardroom when these decisions were being made and discussed. I just pay more attention than most, since I work there.

There are two ways that I examine the merger:
1) M&A Execution: convincing the shareholders, and carrying out the integration, and
2) Post-Merger Performance: How the leadership is able to fulfill the promises of the merger after the integration is completed.

Carly gets an A- for Execution. She get a D for #2, IMO. Hurd gets an A+ for #2.

DS, by what measure is the merger a failure? If I got laid off, I would be pissed off, too (though I don't have the sense of entitlement many corporate folks have; in general--I always expect to get laid off tomorrow for any reason and plan accordingly), but from a shareholders perspective, it's mainly roses.

There are two ways that I examine the merger:
1) M&A Execution: convincing the shareholders, and carrying out the integration, and
2) Post-Merger Performance: How the leadership is able to fulfill the promises of the merger after the integration is completed.

Carly gets an A- for Execution. She get a D for #2,

Sounds very Republican...good spokesperson for McCain.

In these trying economic times, she will get hammered if they really do make her McCain running mate. She is on record saying that Americans are not entitled to jobs, while she was CEO of HP. In a normal universe, that would make you toxic to even be a co-chair of someone's campaign, as Carly is. But I am convinced, after the last 8-9 years that we live on some bizarro earth.

"...there's a class of people who simply are not allowed to fail."

Franklin Raines used to work as an advisor to an organization I once worked for. Just his presence gave an elevated air to everything on those rare occasions when he was around.

The last time I saw him roaming around the halls there was the day before all of his dirty laundry hit the fan and he was never heard from there again. His name was effectively removed from everything associated with the operation literally overnight. 

As far as I know, he and E. Stanley O'Neal, (...Though neither is hurting, I'm sure!) are both still unemployed and with no book deals pending, living in a witness protection program some where...

I don't think either would have been allowed to roll like Fiorina did and still live to publicly tell the tale with their heads held high as she does.

Several weeks ago, the New Yorker magazine ran a long profile about E. Stanley O'Neal. I can't think of any other way to describe it except as being favorable, although a few people had bad things to say about him including his former mentor at Merrill-Lynch. O'Neal may not have another job in the offing but the folks who run the New Yorker and its parent organization Conde Nast seem to think highly of him. I think O'Neal hired a good public relations firm. 

I read that same article. I am not familiar at all with him, and found the article very favorable.

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Yeah, I saw that. It's good.