
To
be a
hero-CEO,
spend time withyour
smallestcustomersand
lowest
employees.
I
Pardon Me, That's My Throne I41
Carly
Fiorina, ousted from Hewlett-Packard in 2005, fell short
as a hero-CEO. She adorned
TV
and magazine covers
-widely
seen as a glamorous hero. She led
HP
through its merger with rival
Compaq. Initial results were rocky, as mergers often are. At first she
seemed bigger than life. But HP's culture was built on the "man-
agement by wandering around" style of cofounder David Packard.
She seemed aloof. If employees don't adore you, a wannabe hero-
CEO
won't endure. She seemed more comfy with media and her
board than her smallest customers and lowest employees. It's here,
in my
view,
she fell s
hort
and lacked support from underneath when
things got tough
-so
she got axed.
Of
course, she made out ok with
a $21 million parting gift.
IS But in my opinion no one will ever
make her
CEO
of a top-tier firm again. Done .
This leads to a basic rule: Every CEO,
every month, must spend time with normal
bread-and-butter customers and bottom-of-
the-erg-structure employees. Forget this and
you're lost. Ivory tower CEOs get by with it
briefly, easing their own
lives
-but
eventually
fail.
Top CEOs never forget what makesthe firm tick. It'swhy employ-
ees adore
hero-CEOs-he
or she isn't aloof, seems like one of them, is
comfortable with and interested in
them-b
ut is bigger than life.
Mind
you-Fiorina,
O'Neal, Semel, Countrywide's Mozilo,
and ...