IBM Cuts 13,000, but Maybe It Should Have Laid Off One

A few months ago the Harvard Business Review did a piece on CEOs and pointed out the average tenure of an external CEO was 18 months, which suggests that a lot of CEOs are simply not qualified for the job they were selected for. Recently the HP board came to the conclusion that their high profile CEO, Carly Fiorinia, wasn't doing her job.

A few months ago the Harvard Business Review did a piece on CEOs and pointed out the average tenure of an external CEO was 18 months, which suggests that a lot of CEOs are simply not qualified for the job they were selected for. Recently the HP board came to the conclusion that their high profile CEO, Carly Fiorinia, wasn't doing her job and took the incredibly painful path of replacing her with another who had a proven track record in the specific areas they felt HP needed more work. In that instance it wasn't a qualification problem but rather the willingness to do a job they wanted done.

This isn't unusual in business . At all levels people often get jobs they simply are not suited for. But at the top level the process of selection and correction is vastly more visible and often seems, after the fact, to reflect more on the competence of the related boards then on the competence of the CEO.



Source: Wired News