Fiorina 2: Times Coverage Shows Even a Blind Pig Finds Half a Truffle Sometimes

http://www.cometofrance.com/truffles.html

BrooklynDodger is back to the commentary on the Fiorina firing, reacting to the spin cycle coverage in the Times business section. Aside from the Dodger’s connection to science, and therefore interesting in technology companies, this also highlights the ignorance of business reporters and commentators.

Most commentary has focused on Fiorina as the blondie CEO on stage touting herself and the stock as the HP product. There’s been this feminist spin – is it good for the future female MBA?

A bigger story – would have looked back on Fiorina’s role as CEO or whatever for Lucent, which she left for HP. What was her role in the ATT spinoff, in pumping up the Lucent stock, and did that pumping contribute to the horrendous collapse of Lucent later on?

This has so far been ignored [get it? ignored- ignorant] by business commentators completely. The biggest story is the dumping of jobs and products by pump the stock corporate strategies, and the damage caused by the management by fear and the numbers style implicit in those strategies.

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Carl Fiorina? He'd Probably Be Out of Work, Too
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
Published: February 13, 2005

Times: The question was bound to come up: If Carleton S. Fiorina were a man, would the outcome of her turbulent tenure as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard have been different?...

Times: The harsh glare of publicity aside, many management authorities say Ms. Fiorina's failure at Hewlett stems more from being an outsider flailing away at an entrenched culture than from sex-bias issues.

…Specialists make particular note of Anne M. Mulcahy, the Xerox veteran who pulled the company back from the verge of bankruptcy after she was promoted to chief executive in 2001, as proof that the power of cultural…

[BrooklynDodger: Xerox is a business case of how innovation and good products don’t save jobs. Xerox, after starting by having employees who invented the machine that transformed both intellectual and economic life, went on to have employees invent the graphical computer interface which became both the Apple and Windows desktop, the laser printer, and functioned as a unionized corporation in the wasteland of the employer-dominated electronics industry. The Dodger appreciates the back from the brink theme, but fears what might have been done to pump up the stock price and therefore borrow the money needed to survive.] {Dodger had to look this up; at first the Dodger thought a Xerox employee invented the inkjet, but that was someone at HP.}

Internet: The original laser printer called EARS was developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center beginning in 1969 and completed in November, 1971. Xerox Engineer, Gary Starkweather adapted Xerox copier technology adding a laser beam to it to come up with the laser printer. According to Xerox, "The Xerox 9700 Electronic Printing System, the first xerographic laser printer product, was released in 1977. The 9700, a direct descendent from the original PARC "EARS" printer which pioneered in laser scanning optics, character generation electronics, and page-formatting software, was the first product on the market to be enabled by PARC research."

Times: "Anne Mulcahy was an insider who knew the Xerox values and was of the Xerox culture, and I've seen the Xerox people rally around her," said William W. George, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. "Carly was an outsider who just didn't fit in."

"Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard used to wander around and visit the labs," he added, referring to Hewlett's founders, William R. Hewlett and David Packard. "Carly liked big forums and public meetings [Dodger: Lording it over {Ladying it over?} employees] but was not out there with the people. Carly tried to impose a centralized style on a decentralized company, a marketing culture on a company with an entrenched engineering culture. And there was a cultural rejection of her approach throughout Hewlett." Indeed, management professors reacted to the news of Ms. Fiorina's resignation with spirited and often contradictory assessments of her strengths and weaknesses. Few put much emphasis on her being a woman - and those who did said it had helped her.

… Still, many who know Ms. Fiorina say that her personal style simply did not work at Hewlett-Packard. The company, they say, had always stressed collegiality over hierarchy, autonomy over oversight, innovation over pomp, and a low profile over bombast. Ms. Fiorina made few friends in that environment.

[Dodger: this next comment is really ignorant; it glories in management by fear, a domination strategy usually made necessary by not knowing much about the product or process the executive is trying to manage.]

"Carly revels in risk, and has a tough, relentless style," Ms. Wellington said. "A quieter, less abrasive, less in-your-face style might have bought her more time, more allies among employees and kinder, gentler treatment from the media." …"Women still have the stereotype of nurturers and team builders, and that wasn't Carly," Ms. Wellington said. "She was a tough boss, hard critic, stern judge, [Dodger: read self important jerk] and women still don't get approbation for those traits."

Dodger: It's okay for a leader to know what a good job is and ask people to do it; but "tough boss" usually means refusing to acknowledge the barriers to doing a good job, "hard critic" means trashing people without explaining what would be better [because the tough boss doesn't know], and "stern judge" means punishing someone who is usually the victim.