After the Hurd
The following is a guest post by Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is the managing principal of Boswell Group LLC. He advises CEOs, investors and politicians on the dynamics of leadership, corporate culture and governance. The opinions expressed are his own.
About the only thing that’s clear in the story of Mark Hurd’s downfall last week as CEO of HP is how much we don’t know. Statements issued by HP, by Hurd, and by Hurd’s accuser reveal remarkably little about what was unquestionably a bad week for everyone involved.
Yet there are some meaningful clues if we read between the lines.
Mark Hurd
HP’s hot, steamy mess
The following is a guest post by Patrick Dailey, a senior human resources executive, who worked for Hewlett-Packard as vice president of global talent management during the time period when Compaq was being integrated into Hewlett-Packard. The opinions expressed are his own.
A hot, steaming mess was kicked to the curb late on Friday.
Messes like this are intentionally dumped on Friday afternoons following the closing bell to avoid notice. They are supposed to cool down over the weekend and hopefully be taken over by something new come market open on Monday.
But there was no way that this mess would go unnoticed, even after a late Friday afternoon announcement.
The executive responsible for creating it acted stupidly and was justifiably removed from his post.
But, the real story here is the back story.
Arguably the most sensationalized female plaintiff’s attorney, Gloria Allred, has been hired by Jodie Fisher, a 50-year-old single mother who made a sexual harassment complaint against Mark Hurd, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and has her own sensational profile, appearing in provocative reality TV shows and movies. After HP curtailed Fisher’s lucrative marketing services agreement with them, Allred was hired and expected to advance the sexual harassment complaint.
“Malfeasance can cause a CEO to loose his job”
At least he didn’t lose it!
“incremental to the $15 million to $40 million”
Incremental? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
“epic-center” – what on earth is an epic-center? Is that some kind of super cool epicenter?
Spellcheck is no substitute for reading it before you publish it.
You seem to slight the board’s decision and this may due to the fact that neither you nor any of us know enough of the details on Hurd’s systematic and intentional misconduct.
With due respect to your psychic abilities – one thing is evident from this and history that the only thing “scientific” about business is – financial accounting. This is what got AlCapone in trouble and so did Mark Hurd.