Did she clean her ears?
She certainly did not open her mind, nor heart.
One of the first things I do in my Consulting Practice when I take on a new project - is to go around and interview 10-15 key stakeholders / thought leaders involved in the business. I listen to all the different points-of-views, collect the nuggets, and build / solidify my hypothesis.
I have often wondered what process Carly Fiorina followed, when she took the CEO job at HP! If she were contemplating ideas such as buying Compaq, did she even try to get some perspective around why and why not? It wouldn’t take a rocket-scientist to have figured out that the business was commodity, and one with declining margins.
The other exercise I often do is to assess the core differentiated assets of the business. Fiorina decided to go broad and tried to become everything to everyone. I heard her speak soon after she took the job, and she was describing her fascination … “Did you know we also do … ?” That fascination subsequently became her mega advertising campaign. A bold, wrong move, which positioned HP exactly nowhere.
Where I am going with this is to ask the fundamental question to HP’s Board and Executive Recruiters: “Did you not figure out, that Fiorina doesn’t know how to listen?”
Followed by, “How do you figure out during an interview process whether your star candidate knows how to listen and can draw objective conclusions?”
