Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

christmas — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 01:20:44 -0000

Creative christmas!

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

bwu — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 10:47:40 -0000

Robert,

Do not put words in my mouth, read what I wrote!
I am not wrong because I have just stated facts as opposed to opinions (there is a difference).

opinion
1) i don't think the means justified the ends--neither did patricia. What was done was clearly unethical (in my view), and possibly illegal.

fact
2) The board was informed when the chair authorized an investigation and agreed that it needed to be done. They were apprised that the investigation was ongoing at every board meeting. They (including the chair) did not know the details.

question
3)Who is culpable?

1) nobody on the board
2)jsut the chair
3) the entire board

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Robert Scoble — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 13:51:42 -0000

bwu: there's a big difference between using lawful methods (and a voluntary lie detector test IS lawful) and doing private snooping and breaking into people's privacy (including that of reporters). The fact that you can't see the difference and that you justify the means because of the end mean we can't have any further conversation on this issue. You're wrong. Patricia is wrong. She's a cancer here and the fact that you think the means justify the ends demonstrates why this cancer needs to be purged.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

bwu — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 11:00:08 -0000

Robert,

The question is, what did she know? She requested that a secret investigation of all boardmembers be initiated. She did not want to know the details of the investigation because she herself was being investigated, and, incidentally, all the other board members knew that there was a secret investigation going on and agreed to do it. If the investigation resorted to illegal and/or unethical means (i think pretexting is legal but definitely unethical) and yet she did not know any of the details, is she culpable? If the other board members (including Keyworth and Perkins) knew about the investigation, arent they culpable as well?

Perkins wanted an aggressive investigation (including a lie detector test for all board members) "until" he found out it was his buddy. Then he changed his tune and now he is trying to rewrite history.

A real bad apple as far as I can see--along with his leaker buddy.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Robert Scoble — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 20:09:51 -0000

bwu: I'm not gonna stick up for the leaker either, but he didn't break any laws that I know of. He also didn't hand over social security numbers of his fellow board members and tell a private firm to go digging.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

bwu — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 19:40:04 -0000

Alot of uninformed, stupid people here who don't seem to read.

I'll put all of us in the chairpersons position:

What would you do if you had a person leaking confidential information on your BOD and you didn't know who it was?

Would you:

a) try to find out who it was.
b) ignore it because the stock is doing well.

If you answered a), would you:

a) Ask each of the people whether they had leaked information

b) go to a seance and ask a spirit.

If you answered a) and nobody stepped forward and admitted leaking anything would you:

a) create an outside committee that not even you were on (because you may be the source of the leak) and ask them to use all legal means to investigate the source of the leak.

b) go to a seance.

As I read the reports, patricia dunn chose a) in all cases. I assume that most of the angry comments on here would prefer seances.

As a sidenote, the real bad guys in this are the leaker and his best buddy perkins (who had to know of the leaks) who put HP in this position to begin with.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Dave — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 10:43:47 -0000

LayZ, you're correct - my use of the word "fire" was completely inappropriate. Replace it with the word "dismiss", okay?

Dunn has clearly damaged the reputation HP has and likely has hurt their stock price too. There are proper - and legal - procedures in place for HP to terminate the relationship. They should be actively seeking such avenues TODAY.

Robert, my words about you reading in between the lines were not due to whay Dunn may - or may not - have done or known to be illegal.

Rather, they were in your inference that Keyworth resigned because of this versus other actions of Dunn's like bypassing proper channels.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

veryfunny — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 10:03:13 -0000

Scobble you are really funny:

"Now compare that to what Patricia Dunn, chairwoman at HP apparently did. Lying. Breaking the law. And invading people’s privacy."

Your nations administration is doing this now for nearly 8 years and nothing happens, after all it's leadership by example that defines the values of a society. Forget about HP Way and all this other marketing blabla, its same as Fox News.... EMPTY words. Look at what they do and not at what they say and you will realize what person or nation you are facing. After all it's just about MONEY in corporate america. The rest is just decoration, to make it not look too ugly.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Maurice — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 08:27:44 -0000

LayZ

I take the point shes not an employee - probaly a worker (or the equivelent in us terminaology) but I dont think the boad members are above the law or company policys.

The board member of that casino firm that got arrested was sacked PDQ I seem to recall.

The HP board is obvoisly not workling the Non execs are suposed to look after the interests of the owners.

There should ahve been a motion of no confidence at that meeting.

ps I am avaible to stand as a non exec if your Listneing Tom ;-)

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

noname — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 03:03:23 -0000

Wa. Eye opener.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

togoeast — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:40:54 -0000

Hmm. Sounds like one of the 'good old boys' is crying foul. What a bunch of silliness. This closed society of directors/CEOs/Chairmen often plays above the law. This time, one of their own is crying like a baby. How many times in his life has he played above the law and not been caught? How can I feel sorry for these people who think they are different from the rest of us? They should all be fired and prosecuted, just like a rank and file employee would be for the same act.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Robert Scoble — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 23:54:06 -0000

LayZ: well, the board should meet ASAP and fire her. Is that good enough? And, if they aren't willing to do that, then the shareholders should boot the whole lot out and start over from scratch.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

LayZ — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 23:37:30 -0000

Scoble, HP can't just up and fire her. You understand how a board works, right? She either has to resign or the board has to ask her to step down. HP's CEO has little to no power here. For the record, I don't disagree that she should step down for whatever good is left of the company. But, you can't just summarily fire her. Try to be more rational in your thoughts.

@43 Yes, it's apparent you have only a little background in HR. She is not technically an employee of HP so what authority does HR have here?

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Robert Scoble — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:28:09 -0000

John: I agree. I don't plan on letting this one slide.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

John Hunter — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:16:19 -0000

The best most of us can do is expose such bad behavior. It is up to those who control the votes of shareholders to act (which includes those representing most posting her probably - as anyone with an index mutual fund or large cap... probably owns some HP stock). If there are board members that were not in on it, they can either try and oust those that knew, or resign, or face the consequences.

Most likely the consequences won't be much, but if the behavior is not accepted and publicity continues eventually action will be taken. As soon as most significant thought leaders turn away though the effort will likely stop. Keep up the good work publicizing such bad behavior.

One potential area for pressure against those who take such action is through other boards they sit on. And through places they might want to speak. If a business school brings her in to speak what does that say about their commitment to ethical behavior. I'm sure the school has classes on ethics but what do their actions say?

From HP's web site: "She also serves on the advisory board of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, as well as the conference board's Center for Corporate Governance, and serves as the director and a member of the executive committee of Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco." You might ask the conference board's Center on Corporate Governance how to oust a board chair that has broken the law and violated the policies of the company and see what they suggest. I can't imagine they would respond to me. But they might get enough pressure if you ask them (and others take on your cause) to be compelled to respond. I think that question is exactly the type of thing they are in business to address.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Neuromancer — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 19:00:58 -0000

Robert/LayZ

I commented earlier but i though id come back as i have some background in HR (lets just say i'me not a civilian in this area) and I’ve seen people do fucked up things before but this drives the coach out to the middle of the bridge and sets fire to it at both ends.

Layz yeh shit goes on but an employee (ok she might only be a worker but lets not get to carried away with technicalities here) admits in front of a large number of people that they A broke criminal Law and B violated so many things in the Hp employees hand book its just not funny.

She has effectively committed and admitted Gross Misconduct which is Instant Dismissal time - why the Senior non exec didn't stop the meeting consult with HR and the CTO/Security and dismiss her on the spot. Or alternatively hand her a piece of paper and a pen – in the old days a bottle of whisky and a revolver might have been on offer as well.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Robert Scoble — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 18:29:55 -0000

Simo: totally agree with you.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Mihir Gandhi — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 18:23:41 -0000

Unrelated, but Brian Valentine is leaving MSFT.
http://seattletimes.nwsourc...

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Simo — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 18:20:35 -0000

Just for a small sense of perspective. The chair of an international corp spying, and quite possibly breaking the local law by the act of spying, on members of the same corp board is bad. Very bad. But president of a nation setting up secret prisons with no judge, no jury, no police and not even a lame legal loophole like g-bay to hide behind , http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/..., that’s a whole new super supreme league of bad.

If that head of state is in charge of your country, and you haven’t called for a vote of no confidence (or equivalent), shame on you.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

met — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:45:42 -0000

Is this because she's a woman? :ducks:

:( Now I will have to throw out my inkjet printer. They should have some warranties for printers against such incidents.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Robert Scoble — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:37:49 -0000

LayZ: you walk her to the door and say "thank you for your service you aren't needed here anymore."

She's getting compensation for her role, right? You just stop the compensation. In my book that's called "getting fired." And, yes, board members can be fired. Maybe not in the same way I'd be fired, yes, but it was clear that she was trying to fire another board member. So why can't I call on the board to do the same thing she did? What, just cause I'm not a billionaire I can't say that she should be removed from the board? Got it.

Maybe it'll take a stockholder meeting to do it, but it's the right thing to do.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

Podesta — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:12:19 -0000

I am still reading various articles about this. The problem I'm having is overcoming my own disbelief. I keep thinking that no one could have judgment as bad as Patricia Dunn has displayed. I realize that has already been disproven, but my mind keeps saying 'no way.' Then there is the impotent response of other board members. These peoople are leaders?

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

LayZ — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:27:27 -0000

@29. In my best John Madden impression: "Here's a guy that is a Vice President of a company that doesn't understand how a Board of Directors is set up or works"

Fire her? How does one FIRE a board member?

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

LayZ — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:23:42 -0000

@25 If it happened at the board level, I agree. But it is naive to think it doesn't happen. MS has huge problems with leaks. I gotta believe they do EVERYTHING possible to track them down and deal with them. And I mean everything. The only reason we heard about this is because of the amaturish way the board member when about, and because it was a board member. Again, to think this doesn't happen in a more clandestine manner in corporate america almost daily is naive.

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

samcollins — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:04:58 -0000

I used to work there at some point and ironically all employees had to undergo an Ethics course every six months. So, I guess for employees it was necessary, but not for the Big Kahunas? Totally unethical behavior on her part and now I know why Fiorina got $20 odd million when she was fired. Dunn should be fired without a single penny in severance and HP should sue her for damage to their reputation and seek money from her.