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The Culture of Evasion
theodp writes "In the wake of Patricia Dunn's resignation, Wired's Fred Vogelstein walked away less than impressed with HP CEO's Mark Hurd's spying mea culpa. He says it smacked more of standard corporate ass covering than leadership, especially coming 3 weeks after the scandal broke. His sentiments are echoed in Computerworld's Culture of Evasion, which was written before Hurd mounted an I-knew-nothing-defense. Hurd claims that he bailed out on a meeting that approved the spying, neglected to read the spying report directed to him, and was clueless about the tracer technology employed in the reporter-baiting false e-mail he personally gave thumbs-up to."
You say evasion, I say AVOISION
For the younger set out there, now is the time to brush up on the transcripts from the Iran-Contra Affair hearings ("I do not recall that meeting, Senator."). The junior Bush has nothing on his father and Reagan's denial of responsibility for what those under them did. At least Nixon was decent enough to leave office.
So, he doesn't stick around for important meetings adn doesn't follow up afterwards to find out what happened, he doesn't read reports directed to him, he "doesn't recall" authorising the infection of a journalist's PC with tracking software and (according to him) he's too stupid to wonder where all the confidential phone records were coming from.
When's he going to be fired for gross incompetence?
No disagreements with the article here. I'm shocked that she didn't resign or that
she wasn't fired the day she stepped down from the chair. Instead she stayed on the board another 3
weeks!! In another, even bigger joke, HP
is co-sponsoring a privacy award!!
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
You know, when a CEO like Hurd insists they are not culpable of any illegal behavior because of sheer incompetence and ignorance of what their subordinates are doing, then they really should be fired by the board of directors immediately. There's really no excuse to keep them. How can any company have confidence in a leader who willfully uses incompetence as a defense to wrong doing?
... standard corporate ass covering than leadership ...
Isn't that what they teach in business schools these days? Falling on your sword is so old school these days when that job can be outsourced to someone else down the ladder.
So he's already moved on to the second envelope? Did I miss the part where he blamed Carley Fiorina for everything? :)
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
One of the most notable being Bill Clinton's memorable "I Smoked Pot But I Didn't Inhale", closely followed by his Monica-and-cigar experiments.
Z.
I work at an high tech company with a reputation for good engineering. The engineers do the same thing. It's really a sign of arrogance more than evasion. These people truly believe that they couldn't have possibly done something wrong, so it must be someone elses fault.
Where are my mod points when I need them?
.nosig
I've often thought this myself. While they're at it they should request that Hurd be de-inducted from the Bay Area Business Council's Hall of Fame. Then they should fire themselves and give back the salaries they drew while serving on the board.
.nosig
The writer has obviously never been a CEO, or even stopped for more than ten seconds to think about what it might be like to be one, and what the reponsibilities are.
... Condemning actions, pushing out wrongdoers and apologizing for mistakes counts as leadership right after a scandal breaks. Three weeks in it looks like standard corporate ass covering.
( Quotes from TFA are in italics )
Maybe he likes to think before he acts, maybe even consult a lawyer or two. Do the stockholders really want a CEO who shoots from the hip? Especially on issues as important as this? We're talking about a multi-million dollar company here that is front page news. The decisions are big, maybe big enough to make or break the company. I'd take a week or three to think if I were making decisions on that scale.
Second, he took no questions, choosing instead to let an investigative attorney who works for him, do the talking.
He hired a pro to do the job right. I'll bet he hires a geek to run his IT dept, and an accountant to do his bookkeeping. Probably even has a professional janitorial staff clean his office. One of the primary rsponsibilities of management is to find good people and then delegate.
Lastly, he refused to do the obvious: acknowledge that HP's leak investigation was a bad idea from the beginning.
When you have an employee who is doing things that - in your opinion as managment - hurt the company, it is your obligation to the stockholders to find out who it is and stop them. Whether they be leakers, thieves, whatever, the CEO is responsible to the shareholders. Had nothing been done to stop leakers, and had that course of action turned out badly, then he looks even worse.
All of the perpetrators involved are much, much richer than you. Not brighter. Not more ethical. Not more deserving.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
It borders on pathological, and is perhaps the biggest day-to-day frustration in dealing with these people. Bad enough when someone's incompetence and/or malicious intent causes me harm, but any rational person quickly reaches the point where their only desire is to go immediately to their offices and beat in their skull with a blunt instrument, screaming all the while that all you want is for them to FUCKING ADMIT THEY FUCKED UP.
Fuck Slashdot
More to the point, wasn't the whole point of Sarbanes-Oxley that it's Hurd's *job* to know about the things he's claiming not to? "I didn't know what my subordinates were doing" isn't supposed to wash any more as a valid excuse, at least not under the law.
The president of my country and his group broke the law hundreds of times, and covered a lot of crimes, including murder, and got away using the exact same excuse. They just pay someone else to do the dirty work, and when the person is caught, they fire him, acting all honest and justice-seeking for firing someone involved in a wrongdoing. Except that the wrongdoing fitted only to his own interests. Yet they say that the people that got arrested were doing it without their knowledge.
Power corrupts.
I just gotta say, I dont like the concept of jailing people .. BUT .. you know if it were a poor unconnected dude like me .. I'd be thrown in jail for it. No attorney or PR folks to conjure up a fancy excuse.
There's multiple phases that i reckon to this sort of thing..
1. Person(s) in authority conjure up an evil plan.
2. They get caught red handed.
3. They defend their actions as justified and within the loopholes and letter of the law.
4. They stall for time. Hope for a decline in publicity.
5. They scapegoat someone. Someone out in the trenches, that's what they're there for in the first place right? Who cares about them? They're more equipped to deal with this sort of trauma after all.
6. They write a book on how integrity is so important and a keystone to their success (unfortunately it's not their own integrity they're talking about).
I took a couple random anthropology classes back in college. One concept that was passingly mentioned was the common classification of cultures as shame-cultures versus guilt-cultures. To suit my argument, I will grossly oversimplify to say members of a guilt society feel bad if they do something wrong, but those in a shame society only feel bad if anyone finds out what they did. It seems to me that the dangers of corporate liability is begining to develop something even nastier (IMHO) than a shame culture. Corporate executives feel bad not if they do something bad, or even everyone believes they did something bad, but if they have to admit that what they did was wrong.
An actual anthropologist might have better insights, but this doesn't look much like "progress" from where I sit.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I made this comment a while back on Mark Hurd's background when HP, Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd were discussed.
He is just a cost cutter, who knew how to play the media and analysts. That was his forte as NCR's CEO. HP is just too big for him. NCR is the size of just the printer division at HP. 10X orders of magnitude.
Now, his incompetence is showing: I didn't know. I didn't order it. I did not know the details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
The good old US of A has become a very corrupt place compared with what it has been. Serious thinkers like Jane Jacobs and Noam Chomsky have pointed this out in recent books. The scandals are out in the open for everyone to see. The powerful pillage their organizations and act worse than the Mafia. At least if I work for a Mafia don, I know where he stands.
The accusations being aimed at Bush should put him in jail for life (if proven; let's be a bit fair).
There is a reason that the populations of corrupt countries live in poverty. A corrupt country can not prosper.
Harmonious Botch posted: ... (quoting someone else in this paragraph) Condemning actions, pushing out wrongdoers and apologizing for mistakes counts as leadership right after a scandal breaks. Three weeks in it looks like standard corporate ass covering.
"Maybe he likes to think before he acts, maybe even consult a lawyer or two. Do the stockholders really want a CEO who shoots from the hip? Especially on issues as important as this? We're talking about a multi-million dollar company here that is front page news. The decisions are big, maybe big enough to make or break the company. I'd take a week or three to think if I were making decisions on that scale."
Why not? We have a PRESIDENT who does - and claims to be PROUD of it!
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Maybe he likes to think before he acts, maybe even consult a lawyer or two. Do the stockholders really want a CEO who shoots from the hip?
He is the Chief Executive for a major company. They have in-house corporate counsel, and probably a major law firm on retainer. Consulting a lawyer takes all of fifteen minutes to set up. (According to the Newsweek article, a major law firm was involved and contacting the parties involved within hours.)
If it took three weeks for the lawyers to craft so much as a press release, it does not inspire confidence. And it means three weeks' worth of front-page stories, full of rumor, speculation, and choice quotes from HP's accusers.
One of the primary rsponsibilities of management is to find good people and then delegate.
One of the other responsibilities is to, well, take responsibility. Nothing wrong with having counsel available, but to refuse to answer even one question about your own company? Worst case scenario, you say, "I can't comment" or "I'll let Mr. Lawyer answer that."
Especially in this particular case, where the central question is was management aware of what the hired guns were doing?
When you have an employee who is doing things that - in your opinion as managment - hurt the company, it is your obligation to the stockholders to find out who it is and stop them.
The "employees" in question were directors. You know, the guys elected by the shareholders to oversee the company?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
I think that penalties should double when someone who is responsible for something fails in those responsibilities and claims that they failed because they are stupid. After all, they had a choice whether or not to accept that position in the first place. By accepting that position the CEO becomes responsible for everything that their underlings do, or fail to do.
Just like a star ship captain.
Yet one more reason to vote with your wallet and choose products which are not HP. Carly may be history, but her legacy is still affecting the company's business practices.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Well, what happened after Bill Clinton got demonized by the RayPooBlicans is that they got a good foothold on a way to discredit him and his legacy... They were looking for ANY angle to bring him down, as he had all the makings of a truly loved president. There was definitely a big contingent of middle-Americans who took offense to the fact that he did not appear to be willing to be brave enough to own up to it.
Forget for one moment all of the Tom DeLays, Enron-connected politicos, Jack Abramoff's and so on, we all know everyone is guilty of this, and those in power right now far more than they want to admit it.
But for whatever reason, and seeing how close the 2000 election was, I think that these denials on Clinton's part actually helped in securing Bush winning those elections instead of Gore. (The "He wouldn't lie to us, because he's one of us" - syndrome. )
Seeing the results of 6 years of Bush policies, one can therefore argue that Bill Clinton's 'truthiness' did in fact have a very big impact, including the number of lives lost in foreign wars, none of which would have happened with Gore in power.
So I think that the HP boardroom scandal isn't all that much besides a case of flagrant violations of civil liberties, or yet another textbook example of the privileged getting caught red-handed and yet still getting away with it.
Way to go, Hurd, maybe someone will start a 'Hall Of Shame' website like fuckedcompany.com was, but for politicians and CEOs?
Z.
Umm .. if we look at their stock price trend of HP over the last year .. you there's a decline. Actually a nearly 20% decline.
q =l&c=
.. today you'd be left with around $800 or something!
.. or better yet hid it under your bed .. u'd still have $1000 .. so what was the point of putting it in HP ??
.. as we know all shareholders are fat and rich and besides they were only to invest risk capital so it's ok to blow it all.
... but if the CEO's get a pass (maybe they deserve it from all the stress a hard working CEO undergoes .. what with the high costs of therapy and all.. i dunno) .. but the point is how come if I steal a candy bar they arrest me ..I maybe even would have to spend a night in jail? Maybe I should have spied on HP executives instead, since they're saying that's legal.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HP&t=1y&l=on&z=m&
That's like if you put $1000 into HP 1 year ago
If you had kept it in a savings account (or even some plain ol' checking accounts)
Oh yeah so they can blow it by wasting their time spying on each other and others. Good job CEO. Thanks for blowing some of the assets and failing to jump on opportunities that may have been around only last year. What use do shareholders have for their money anyway
Anyway whatever
What is this “tracking software” supposedly sent via email? A BackOrifice server named NakedPictures.jpg.exe? A single pixel invisible .GIF hotlinked from one of their web servers that they expected the reporter to blindly forward to people? Anybody have any idea what is being referred to here?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Your point about bush winning because "he's one of us" seems to contradict your earlier point that clinton was such a loved president. In fact, in the case of both cases, the sentiment held by the vast majority of either of their supporters was tolerance, and "at least he's not {x}."
You've got to face the fact that very few people vote *for* a president anymore. It's the mechanism of voting against the other guy that keeps the two-parties in power. Think about how many times you've heard someone from either side warn against wasting your vote. How can you waste a vote by voting for the person you want?
side rant: Gore was no Clinton either. In fact, I believe that Clinton was setting him up to take the fall on a mild recession, thereby setting the stage for a hillary run in 2004. I can think of no other reason for Greenspan's bewildering interest rate hikes in the 18 months preceeding the 2001 inauguration. On the other hand, recalling Bush's warning of that very recession (and its denunciation as "talking down the economy") I can think of no reason greenspan wasn't replaced by Bush following that very inauguration, or indeed any motivation to comply if it was the Clintons' desire, so it's probably wild speculation on my part.
Clinton was widely loathed, but as a conservative/libertarian, I will give him credit for this much: He didn't accomplish very much. And that's the real hallmark of a good civil servant.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
he's done more than you living in your mom's basement, mr libertarian
Maybe Hurd figures he is the Reagan in this piece?
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
And to think that we used to consider the cold war spy games of surveillance, deception, redirection and lies as nasty stuff.
I'm buying Lexmark from now on.
Shouldn't he be doing something useful about it? Like getting ready to move to someplace beyond the reach of extradition?
Doing "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" from a CEO translates to "I'm guilty as hell" to me, and very probably to the state AG who is aggressively pursuing this.
As for the rest of us, is anybody planning to continue doing business with them?
Tech Public Policy stuff
I won't agree with it, but politicians have been known to lie, cheat, and steal for a long time. Sure, this generat ion seems a bit worse than the prior ones, but the fact is that people (including those who run big companies) have personal responsibility and ethics of their own.
I live in BC, Canada. My premiere (governor) was caught drinking and driving. Does that incline me, or any others, to do so? I don't think so.
finally the hurd is finished!
..people in high level positions of authority or in very sensitive and secret positions are HIGHLY vulnerable to blackmail because of secret sexual activities. It is also a very common technique of all intel agencies, which computer-dom has hijacked the term for, it's called the honeypot trap. To this day we have no idea what clinton might have passed on or allowed to happen, etc, to try and keep the affair a secret before it all came out in public.
hint to where this leads, all the way to the present day and what is happening:there's a critical tie between monica and the condit affair, google for it
scuttlebutt has it he was doing coke and arms runs in light planes for his daddy, mostly to keep him busy and away from the real action where the grownups live.
Ok so HP went too far, not sure if law was broken, but George Keyworth's blabbing to a reporter started this. Considering that members of a board of directors often get paid big bucks for attending a few meetings, plus first-class expenses, they owe a fiduciary responsibility to the share holders they are working for and not divulging company information to a reporter. Often boards just go along with the CEO for fear of being kicked off the board and loosing the big bucks they get for little time or work. If you don't believe me check out the annual proxy statements for HP, in 2004 each member of the board received a $200k retainer. Not too bad.
Come on guys, cut him some slack.
...
Mark Hurd clearly said that he takes full accountability to drive the actions to set it right .
Carefully chosen words
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I was always taught that ignorance was not an excuse in the eyes of the law. If you're charged with a certain degree of responsibility (over seeing a number of corporate affairs, driving a vehicle), you're responsible for making sure everything is ok (that these corporate affairs are in order, that the vehicle is registered and insured, etc).
Nail these people to the wall.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I had started a tell all post here, but it's just not worth it.
This type of thing happens all over the place.
The company I work for does it. Hell everyone is doing it.
We have a system that punishes honest people who make mistakes. If you make a mistake, and are honest about it, you can get fired. If you make it someone else's fault, and are good at it, you survive until promotion. Wash, rinse, repeat. Add to this the Peter Principle, and you get corporate leadership that statistically speaking is promoted beyond its ability, and very good at not taking the blame for things.
Not to mention that ignorance is no excuse for not following the law... if you shot someone but claimed you had no idea there was a law against it, it wouldn't matter. You have to abide by the law.
It was stupid he was there in front of a grand jury. There was no point in it.
At the time, I was pretty upset that he lied. Not because I thought he was an honorable man, but because everything was so petty. The republicans were trying their damnedest to nail him on something, anything. The best they could do was to come up with some fairly tame porn.
Now, after seeing G. W. Bush lie about everything from our reasons for invading Iraq, our treatment of prisoners, illegally spying on Americans, secret CIA prisons, etc, I think Clinton was a fucking saint. JFK is a well-respected ex-president with a history of sexual misconduct in the white house. Nixon is a reviled ex-president with a history of spying and lying.
I can see the similarities.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Someone within HP is acting against Mark Hurd, otherwise documents demonstrating his direct culpability would not have surfaced. It appears to me that this information seals Hurd's fate... he will probably lose his job, face criminal charges, and be the target of a class action lawsuit from the reporters from whom he fraudulently obtained phone records.
The question is who is leaking and why.
HP is now the synthesis of Compaq and DEC, and there probably isn't an HP employee who doesn't know of a terminated coworker. Perhaps it is possible that someone with a grudge over a past termination decided to eliminate Hurd.
But then again, the terminations aren't over. Perhaps someone in the crosshairs decided to halt the process by taking out the CEO.
Or perhaps the leaker is directly involved in this chain of activity and is covering themselves by sacrificing the superior.
In any case, HP has not done well with executives from Lucent and NCR/Terradata. Perhaps it is time to consider promoting from within? Where can HP find someone to restore the HP way? Certainly not from outside.
I'm done with your products. I'm tired of your 500 MB Print Drivers anyway. But more importantly, we the consumers, have to take a stand where you'll notice: at the bottom line. So from now on, you're dead to me. I'll buy from a competitor.
Get Bent!
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
If ignorance is no excuse for not being able to follow tax laws which even the people in charge of understanding and giving advice on (the US IRS) can misunderstand upwards of 20% of the time, why is it a reasonable excuse for a someone presented with the information who refused to read documents given him discussing the actions and left meetings discussing the spying? MH could have and should have known what was going on, and chose to be ignorant. If you knowingly evade knowledge, shouldn't that be analogous to the "unclean hands" doctrine in law (you can't evade knowledge and subsequently claim ignorance as a defense)?
As a sidebar, why does "responsibility" at this level not involve any actual negative consequences to the guilty parties? If one takes responsibility for an act, does that not require acceptance of the consequences caused and a good-faith effort to mitigate the consequences? In business, "responsibility" seems to mean "fire a bunch of people not you, wait a while, and get a large severence bonus when you retire'", unless you're not in charge, in which case it becomes "You're fired. Be glad we don't sue you and have you publicly flogged."