The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively by Helio Fred Garcia

Author:Helio Fred Garcia
Language: ru
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-07-28T18:20:39+00:00

136

The Power of CommuniCaTion

resolution: Hurd agreed to return some of the stock he was

granted while still employed by HP. 24

In other words, HP convinced Mr. Hurd to soften the blow of his

massive severance package.

The board was busy that month. Just ten days after settling the

lawsuit, HP announced a new CEO: Léo Apotheker, who had previ-

ously served as CEO of the German software giant SAP. The board

also elected Ray Lane as non-executive chairman. Mr. Lane, a ven-

ture capitalist, had once been president of Oracle.

Mr. Apotheker was a curious choice. The circumstances of the

board hiring him weren’t known at the time, but a year later, when

rumors swirled of Mr. Apotheker’s pending demise, James B. Stewart

put the pieces together in the New York Times, raising further ques-

tions about the leadership ability of the HP board:

The mystery isn’t why Hewlett-Packard is likely to part ways

with its chief executive, Léo Apotheker, after just a year in the

job. It’s why he was hired in the first place. The answer, say

ptg7913109

many involved in the process, lies squarely with the troubled

Hewlett-Packard board.… Interviews with several current

and former directors and people close to them involved in the

search that resulted in the hiring of Mr. Apotheker reveal a

board that, while composed of many accomplished individu-

als, as a group was rife with animosities, suspicion, distrust,

personal ambitions and jockeying for power that rendered it

nearly dysfunctional. 25

From Warfighting

We should try to shape events in a way that allows

us several options so that by the time the moment for

decisive operations arrives, we have not restricted

ourselves to only one course of action.

Mr. Stewart noted that when the four-member search committee

nominated three finalists to the full board, the other board members

Chapter 6 • Goals, strateGies, and taCtiCs: preparinG and planninG

137

declined to meet with any of the finalists. And when the committee

recommended Mr. Apotheker, none of the other directors chose to

meet with him. So the new CEO was hired after only one-third of

the board had met him. One former board member told Mr. Stewart,

“I admit it was highly unusual. But we were exhausted from all the

infighting.” 26

There was no particular reason to rush the decision. The board

could have waited, either to meet with Mr. Apotheker or to explore

additional candidates. But the board, according to Mr. Stewart,

decided to go with the best choice of a very unattractive group. The

announcement was made on September 30, and noted that the new

CEO and new chairman would start on November 1. 27

Investor reaction was immediately negative. Mr. Apotheker had

left SAP after only 7 months as CEO, embroiled in a scandal involv-

ing alleged theft of trade secrets and copyright infringements from

Oracle. He was virtually unknown in the U.S.

Fortune magazine editor at large Adam Lashinsky pointed to the

integrity questions that led to his departure from SAP and noted that

ptg7913109

Mr. Apotheker didn’t have experience in the middle market or in the

consumer market, where HP is strong.

HP’s board of directors could have taken the easy way. It could

have named a CEO with a proven track record of growth or

innovation. Experience that spanned the bulk of HP’s reve-

nue base would have been a plus too.

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