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October 9, 2006 12:56 PM PDT
Newsmaker: Fiorina says board let emotion trump reason
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February 9, 2005
Former HP Chief Executive Carly Fiorina has shown impeccable timing. Her book "Tough Choices" hits shelves this week, just as her former company has found the spotlight over its controversial probe of unauthorized media disclosures.
Fiorina said leaks are a problem but told CNET News.com on Monday that they are just a symptom of a dysfunctional board.
Now, 18 months after being shoved out of HP's doors, Fiorina is looking to not just talk up her book but also to figure out what to write in the next chaper of her life. And a political career is a definite possibility.
"I think it is certainly something I would consider," she said, adding that "public service is an option that has been of interest to me."
In a wide-ranging interview, Fiorina offers her thoughts on HP's board, being spied on and how it's still a man's world in business.
Q: In the past, you seemed to avoid discussions of gender politics and the role it was playing in your career, but in the book, you talk quite a bit about the ways in which your career has been different as a woman. How big a role do you think gender plays in business?
Fiorina: When I was a CEO, my job was to be a CEO. My job wasn't to focus on or talk about the things that were personal to me. My job was to talk about and focus on the things that mattered to the company. The reality is, as I talk about in my book, that business is not yet gender-blind. And so, as a result, my experiences were different as a woman than a man's experiences are. Those are facts.
How big a role do you think that played in the fact that you are not still CEO there?
Fiorina: I think first, as I try to say in the book and as I think subsequent events may have punctuated, my ouster at HP had nothing to do with performance. My ouster at HP was an abrupt emotional decision that was explained after the fact.
You talked quite a bit about the board and its inner dynamics in the book. Given all of that and the experience you have had with them, what did you make of it when this whole leak investigation came out?
Fiorina: On the one hand, I was shocked and sad about how these things and why these things would happen. It strikes me as a breakdown in judgment at many levels. On the other hand, it lifted a veil on the dysfunction of the board and some of the same players. So, in some ways, it may help people appreciate what I was dealing with.
Listen up
On the leak scandal
Carly Fiorina calls it a "breakdown at many levels."
Download mp3 (291KB)
On the Compaq merger
Merger was essential, Fiorina says, in transforming the company from laggard to leader.
Download mp3 (624KB)
Don't call it a turnaround
HP's transformation has been a long time in the making, and Fiorina says she deserves more credit.
Download mp3 (450KB)
One of the things that has come out is that among the phone records they went after were yours. What were your thoughts, personally, when that came out?
Fiorina: My first thought was to be angry about it. Now I just find it sad.
In the book, you talk about, particularly after a January 2005 Wall Street Journal story, being upset about the leaks. Do you share the feelings the board had, in terms of being upset about the leaks?
Fiorina: I think leaks out of the boardroom are a symptom of dysfucntion that has to be dealt with. Dysfunction occurs in a boardroom when people's personal agendas overcome their set of responsibilities. That's what was going on. My focus was to repair the board dysfucntion. The leak was a symptom of this dysfunction. We had to deal with it.
We were focused not simply on who leaked but also on an assessment process. Let's talk about how we interact as a board. Without trust and the ability to have open give-and-take--disagreement absolutely but disagreement in confidence--a board can't function.
Two of the questions I think a lot of people are asking are, "How much of this is commonplace? How much of this goes on at every company?" Are there only a couple of techniques that were used in HP's leak probe that are outside the bounds of what corporations should be able to do? Or was it all kind of out of bounds?
Fiorina: It appears the investigation got completely out of hand both in terms of the techniques and the tactics used, but also in terms of forgetting what the real issue was, which was board dysfunction.
In the book, you point to a lot of things that were going on on that board, one of which was a personality clash between Jay Keyworth and Pattie Dunn. How much do you think that contributed to the eventual situation?
Fiorina: The veil has been lifted on a set of personal animosities and personal agendas that created dysfunction that got worse after I left. Personal agendas create dysfunction when people can't put them aside.
Obviously, you are going to be talking about the book for some period of time, but what's next?
Fiorina: Time will tell. I'm very busy right now, though I have freedom. I enjoy the work that I do right now, in addition to the book, the boards that I serve on, the causes that I am engaged in, the speaking that I do. I haven't made a determination yet in terms of what the next full-time commitment is. I think I will know it when I see it.
What do you think the chances are that a political office would be among the things you would consider?
Fiorina: I think it is certainly something I would consider.
Do you have an interest in that area?
Fiorina: I think public service is an option that has been of interest to me and I assume will continue to be.
Turning back for a bit to the proxy fight, I'm curious about which things stand out the most to you from that period of time.
Fiorina: The merger was an absolutely essential move to make to transform Hewlett-Packard from a laggard to a leader. It was a tough set of choices. Those choices were made in a very difficult time--technology recession, bear market, terrorist attacks, economic downturn. The context was horrfic. But the moves that had to be made, frankly, saved Hewlett-Packard.
This was a company that was lagging further and further behind. It was a company that had become a bureaucracy. It was a company that was so internally focused, it had forgotten about customers. It was a technology company that no longer innovated. The merger had to happen. Did it create resistance? Change always does, and the resistence to change at HP was particularly intense, but it was a move that had to be made.
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16 comments
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yet, self-ordained gifts to corporate H-P non-success , Fiorina and
Dunn.
But I sure do find CNET typos very entertaining. Way-to-go CENT!
Oops, I mean CNET.
But then again, her information is past history anyway, so why is she indeed repeating all her mistakes , errors and poor options for all to see?
Perhaps the title should read "I did it the wrong way and learned nothing and went nowhere anyway!"
Fiorina: I think it is certainly something I would consider."
Carly said, "no American has a God given right to a job", as she was off shoring HP jobs as fast as she could. Remember this when you vote.
If the business world is that much against women, the explain Carol Bartz, Carly!
No, your arrogance and incompetence caused your removal. Your gal-pal Dunn is cut from the same cloth. The last thing young women need are role models that are stupid, vain, arrogant image-obsessed witches like you.
There are plenty of important woman CEOs around, the difference is they don't wear their sex on their sleeves or play the blame-game when they screw up.
GO AWAY!
That said, I assess Fiorina and Dunn were hosed, given up, used and tossed under the bus.
I've been in many a corporate board rooms, and just about every time I leave I feel like I need a shower and a priest, or both.
I have literally spun men around in their seats and looked at their backs... being asked by one man what I was looking for... I replied, "a dorsal fin!"
Beginning with Fiorina and through Dunn, HP started to show some life, and dare I say, some "Stones." It seems to me, that the "ink first and only" dolts on the board didn't much like the new direction and they started to undermine these two CEO's - leaks being only one tools used to bring them down.
In the Army, and in my company, we measure people by what they do - what they do is what they are.
I loved that about combat arms units - they were blind - to all but what a man was. I'd give a thick nickle to be able to share that ideal with the well dressed "gentlemen" of HP's board.
Fiorina may not wish to say it, so someone has to, she and Dunn were not treated fairly. Creepy little men do not know how to do that - they do not know how to fight, much less live by a code that places everything ahead of one's self.
Although I must admit, her mud-slinging, truth-twisting, responsibility-dodging ways should serve her well in her political career.
Cheerio, lady..... ;)
OK, are we reporting here, or doing some gender biased, 'self-promotionarial' charity work. I am not sure what made this correspondent try and eek this out but, 'value added sour grapes' I don't think so.
First of all we are not entertained by extending the voyueristic 'celebrity' watching as might be supposed and I find nothing redeeming in this article, sorry.
Secondly, she is just as responsible for supporting and escalating the shoddy, careless, punitively prosecutional vindictive culture of hp as any previous or current dictator.
Had she actually had the gumption or intestinal fortitude to provide a little credence that hp is rife with an out-of-control mindset, we could possibly begin to entertain the remote possiblity of her getting incidentally swept up or an oversight of negligence.
That's another nail in,... lol.
OK, are we reporting here, or doing some gender biased, 'self-promotionarial' charity work. I am not sure what made this correspondent try and eek this out but, 'value added sour grapes' I don't think so.
First of all we are not entertained by extending the voyueristic 'celebrity' watching as might be supposed and I find nothing redeeming in this article, sorry.
Secondly, she is just as responsible for supporting and escalating the shoddy, careless, punitively prosecutional vindictive culture of hp as any previous or current dictator.
Had she actually had the gumption or intestinal fortitude to provide a little credence that hp is rife with an out-of-control mindset, we could possibly begin to entertain the remote possiblity of her getting incidentally swept up or an oversight of negligence.
That's another nail in,... lol.
fleeced out of and enjoy her retirement?
Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com