I just wondered, why would they hire Meg Whitman. It seems the board could pluck someone off the street and get him to "execute" their visionless strategy just as well. I hereby submit my name for consideration when they fire Meg next year. I require only a 1-5 million severance.
She wasn't plucked off the street. She was already a sitting HP board member and will remain on the board. The board of directors promoted from within.
Of course, it's hard to tell since AppleInsider bungled her employment status in the very first paragraph.
The inept board of directors has taken control over the company. Before, CEO Apotheker was a board member but just one of many; Ray Lane was the non-executive chairman. With Apotheker's ouster, the board has installed outside director Meg Whitman to the CEO role, and moved Ray Lane status from non-executive (outside) chairman to executive chairman (and thus an official employee of HP). This was a board power play to wrest control. My guess is that she was brought in as a director eight months ago specifically for this scenario. This way, her appointment seems "legitimized" since she know nows the company business after just eight months in a director's role, which is what: two board meetings?
The director slot vacated by Apotheker will be filled with an outside director, likely someone who strongly supports Meg Whitman.
She wasn't plucked off the street. She was already a sitting HP board member. The board of directors promoted from within.
xsu wasn't saying or implying that Whitman was plucked off the streets. They were saying that if all she is going to do is follow through on plans and strategies already in place under Apotheker, then they could have simply place anyone in that position for the same results.
She wasn't plucked off the street. She was already a sitting HP board member and will remain on the board. The board of directors promoted from within.
Hiring a director to take over is not your classic case of promoting from within. A CEO answers to the board. So Whitman is not getting a promotion. She was also what you call an *outside* director. So she wasn't hired from within.
Furthermore, Whitman was laying in waiting. She saw this coming and set herself up (after the failed election) to pick up the pieces. Brilliant corporate maneuvering. Just brilliant.
Hiring a director to take over is not your classic case of promoting from within. A CEO answers to the board. So Whitman is not getting a promotion. She was also what you call an *outside* director. So she wasn't hired from within.
Furthermore, Whitman was laying in waiting. She saw this coming and set herself up (after the failed election) to pick up the pieces. Brilliant corporate maneuvering. Just brilliant.
When I wrote that it was hiring within, it was referring to the fact that the board picked one of their own directors. The classic "hiring within" means picking another employee of the company. Like I said, this was a power play by the board, not a power play by senior executive management.
My guess is that Ray and Meg cooked up this plan shortly after her election defeat but need to buy some time to distance her from the elections.
Steve didn't worry too much about corporate gamesmanship, what the competition was doing, how the economy would go, what bailouts would happen, what the Board would think and so on. He trusted that the dots would connect, even when life "hit him with a brick"...
What a marvelous post! And what a management/creativity lesson.
Indeed I have been told that if you want to be really creative and produce a quantum leap for yourself and/or the industry, you've got to focus on creation and forget everything else. Above all, forget competition - its like with professional running: if you look to the side, you lost your focus just enough to lose the race. If you benchmark, if you look for what others are doing, you've lost it already, even if you don't know yet, because you've infected your creativity with someone else's rubbish. Distraction proof yourself and you'll do fine.
And to get this focused you really have to get the best people to ensure they take good care of task at hand so that you can get to focus with no distractions. See how Apple managed to hire the best? See how Apple has it's future secured out of careful planning and strategic vision? See how to build up a company that is future proof?
1) attract the best executives by finding the ones who need to love what they do and do what they love, ie heart-centric people;
2) envision, define, strategize, plan, leave execution to executives. Plan for different scenarios. Have contingency plans, redundancy;
3) groom a specific chief executive into a point where he knows your head like it was his so that in the future, with the drawn plans at hand, he can ask himself "how would Steve go about this?";
4) test, test, test, execute when successfully tested. Take sick leave, start living the lifestyle ahead of time. Time it precisely to produce the least negative effect (get out in August when most people are thinking of cold beers and tanning better than a famous CEO resigning).
5) Plan it in a way that the new CEO have a big blast presentation guaranteed with huge announcements so that people believe he was obviously the right pick.
6) start living the new position, doing the same as before but with a different name.
The above sentence is not a joke this time around.
Meg Whitman was hired as a marketing expert to guide an already founded .com business to greater marketability. Bunk to the idea of her being a tech visionary.
But look what happens when the sales guy becomes the head of the company...... (marketing = sales.. sort of)..
Comments
I just wondered, why would they hire Meg Whitman. It seems the board could pluck someone off the street and get him to "execute" their visionless strategy just as well. I hereby submit my name for consideration when they fire Meg next year. I require only a 1-5 million severance.
She wasn't plucked off the street. She was already a sitting HP board member and will remain on the board. The board of directors promoted from within.
Of course, it's hard to tell since AppleInsider bungled her employment status in the very first paragraph.
The inept board of directors has taken control over the company. Before, CEO Apotheker was a board member but just one of many; Ray Lane was the non-executive chairman. With Apotheker's ouster, the board has installed outside director Meg Whitman to the CEO role, and moved Ray Lane status from non-executive (outside) chairman to executive chairman (and thus an official employee of HP). This was a board power play to wrest control. My guess is that she was brought in as a director eight months ago specifically for this scenario. This way, her appointment seems "legitimized" since she know nows the company business after just eight months in a director's role, which is what: two board meetings?
The director slot vacated by Apotheker will be filled with an outside director, likely someone who strongly supports Meg Whitman.
She wasn't plucked off the street. She was already a sitting HP board member. The board of directors promoted from within.
xsu wasn't saying or implying that Whitman was plucked off the streets. They were saying that if all she is going to do is follow through on plans and strategies already in place under Apotheker, then they could have simply place anyone in that position for the same results.
Unfortunately that hasn't been true for years - it's made in the Netherlands.
Yet another example of outsaucing...
Haha! Hilarious! Nice one!
and although it has already begun laying off webOS engineers
WOW...kind of short sighted isn't it? Surely HP could use those engineers on something else, no?
Take a look also at what happened with AOL/Techcrunch. Ariana Huffington kicked Mike Arrington's butt out of there with ease.
After this, there should be no more talk of women not being tough enough to go toe to toe with the old boys network in business.
She wasn't plucked off the street. She was already a sitting HP board member and will remain on the board. The board of directors promoted from within.
Hiring a director to take over is not your classic case of promoting from within. A CEO answers to the board. So Whitman is not getting a promotion. She was also what you call an *outside* director. So she wasn't hired from within.
Furthermore, Whitman was laying in waiting. She saw this coming and set herself up (after the failed election) to pick up the pieces. Brilliant corporate maneuvering. Just brilliant.
Hiring a director to take over is not your classic case of promoting from within. A CEO answers to the board. So Whitman is not getting a promotion. She was also what you call an *outside* director. So she wasn't hired from within.
Furthermore, Whitman was laying in waiting. She saw this coming and set herself up (after the failed election) to pick up the pieces. Brilliant corporate maneuvering. Just brilliant.
When I wrote that it was hiring within, it was referring to the fact that the board picked one of their own directors. The classic "hiring within" means picking another employee of the company. Like I said, this was a power play by the board, not a power play by senior executive management.
My guess is that Ray and Meg cooked up this plan shortly after her election defeat but need to buy some time to distance her from the elections.
Steve didn't worry too much about corporate gamesmanship, what the competition was doing, how the economy would go, what bailouts would happen, what the Board would think and so on. He trusted that the dots would connect, even when life "hit him with a brick"...
What a marvelous post! And what a management/creativity lesson.
Indeed I have been told that if you want to be really creative and produce a quantum leap for yourself and/or the industry, you've got to focus on creation and forget everything else. Above all, forget competition - its like with professional running: if you look to the side, you lost your focus just enough to lose the race. If you benchmark, if you look for what others are doing, you've lost it already, even if you don't know yet, because you've infected your creativity with someone else's rubbish. Distraction proof yourself and you'll do fine.
And to get this focused you really have to get the best people to ensure they take good care of task at hand so that you can get to focus with no distractions. See how Apple managed to hire the best? See how Apple has it's future secured out of careful planning and strategic vision? See how to build up a company that is future proof?
1) attract the best executives by finding the ones who need to love what they do and do what they love, ie heart-centric people;
2) envision, define, strategize, plan, leave execution to executives. Plan for different scenarios. Have contingency plans, redundancy;
3) groom a specific chief executive into a point where he knows your head like it was his so that in the future, with the drawn plans at hand, he can ask himself "how would Steve go about this?";
4) test, test, test, execute when successfully tested. Take sick leave, start living the lifestyle ahead of time. Time it precisely to produce the least negative effect (get out in August when most people are thinking of cold beers and tanning better than a famous CEO resigning).
5) Plan it in a way that the new CEO have a big blast presentation guaranteed with huge announcements so that people believe he was obviously the right pick.
6) start living the new position, doing the same as before but with a different name.
The above sentence is not a joke this time around.
Meg Whitman was hired as a marketing expert to guide an already founded .com business to greater marketability. Bunk to the idea of her being a tech visionary.
But look what happens when the sales guy becomes the head of the company...... (marketing = sales.. sort of)..
But Steve Balmer is a sales guy....
Exactly.
LOL