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Same Old, Same Old at HP?
theodp writes "Computerworld Editor-in-Chief Don Tenant expresses astonishment at HP's cluelessness in the wake of its boardroom leak investigation fiasco, noting that HP CEO Mark Hurd's choice for a new Chief Ethics Officer was Hurd's go-to guy at NCR when the boss wanted internal leaks investigated." From the article: "It seems incomprehensible that no one at HP could foresee that appointing a former Hurd colleague to the ethics oversight position might be perceived as a shameless attempt by Hurd to keep from being further sullied by the scandal. But there's another dimension to all this that's even more baffling. Nearly two weeks before HP announced Hoak's appointment, BusinessWeek ran a story that recounted how Hurd had to deal with a number of internal investigations at NCR, including probes of leaks of sensitive information on Yahoo message boards."
Um. The problem is that Hurd might have been involved in the scandal. If he was involved, bringing in his good buddy isn't going to do anything to help the shareholders. If he wasn't involved, an unquestionably impartial(notice the unquestionably) party would still be better for the shareholders.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
over the previous HP ethics officer who approved the pre-texting effort ...
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
You may think the leaders of the great companies are exceptional and unique people. You are very wrong. They are just like you, for good and bad. The insight into HP has revealed this quite well. They are probably a little arrogant and eloquent, but you will quickly get that in a matter of a year.
So why do they have millions of $$ and all the perks and you little? A large part is chance.
Assuming you are reasonably competent with a good attitude, you will surely be a project manager. With success, you will oversee all projects in your division, and then probably become division manager. Now, if your division is successfull, you will be promoted fast to corporate leadership, and again, now you need success of the whole corporation to get further, and with that you will quickly run the company.
You can at any time, and you should, jump ship, and continue the career for a new company, just like playing frogs.
The catch in all this is simple: Luck and Selection. If your first project is a failure, your career stops. It does not matter what the reason was. This is true all the way, so:
1. Only work for a company that sells what you do. Only than can you reach the top. An IT guy in a hospital will never run the hospital. Physicians will.
2. Only pick sure successes.
3. Jump ship if neccessary, and do it early. Dont ride a failure to the bottom.
The HP managers just lucked out on the above due to good times or other random global events, and managed not to screw up early on.
Just go for it.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Why is it that the boards of extremely large companies tend to make bad decisions over and over again?
My theory is that there are two components. In the case of a public company, the CEO and board are under constant investor pressure. This is one of the only downsides of the internet and instant access to information. In the 50s, 60s, 70s and before, almost no one was individually in the market (though their pension funds might be.) The worst thing a board had to worry about was a bad article in the Wall Street Journal. Even then, some guy on his yacht or in his country estate would get the news a day later, and ask Jeeves to call the broker and sell. Now, all that has to happen is for one disgruntled employee or board member to post something on Yahoo Finance. Instantly, every trader in the universe starts selling within seconds and you have a 20% drop for the day. Look at what happened with Airbus after the fact that the A380 was behind schedule and way over budget. If I were a CEO, the climate would tempt me to make some decision, any decision, to keep the investors from selling.
The second thing has been around forever. No one in a company, unless they are really fearless, wants to stand up and tell the executives they're wrong. Some companies are more tolerant than others to this, but I've worked in a lot of dictatorships.
You make the product only as good as you have to in order to avoid mass revolt from your customer base, with the support to match. The fact that most consumers will get pissed off but not actually do anything about it allows this business model to remain viable.
People are more tolerant of crap computers than they would be of, say, a dishwasher. People are used to their computers crashing, getting infected by malware, and losing their data. If their dishwasher stopped running in the middle of a cycle, failed to sanitize their dishes so someone got sick, or destroyed all their dishes, you can bet your ass the dishwasher manufacturer would have torches and pitchforks outside their doors. But the average HP computer buyer (on the consumer machines anyway) would rather get a cheaper computer than one that runs correctly.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.