OOPS! 5 CEOs that Should Have Already Been Fired (Cisco, GE, WalMart, Sears, Microsoft)

by | May 12, 2012 | Current Affairs, Defend & Extend, In the Swamp, In the Whirlpool, Leadership, Web/Tech

This has been quite the week for CEO mistakes.  First was all the hubbub about Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo, inflating his resume to include a computer science degree he did not actually receive.  According to Mr. Thompson someone at a recruiting firm added that degree claim in 2005, he didn't know it and he's never read his bio since.  A simple oversight, if you can believe he hasn't once read his bio in 7 years, and he didn't think it was ever important to correct someone who introduced him or mentioned it.  OOPS – the easy answer for someone making several million dollars per year, and trying to guide a very troubled company from the brink of failure. Hopefully he is more persistent about checking company facts.

But luckily for him, his errors were trumped on Thursday when Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P.MorganChase notified the world that the bank's hedging operation messed up and lost $2B!!  OOPS!  According to Mr. Dimon this is really no big deal. Which reminded me of the apocryphal Senator Everett Dirksen statement "a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon it all adds up to real money!" 

Interesting "little" mistake from a guy who paid himself some $50M a few years ago, and benefitted greatly from the government TARP program.  He said this would be "fodder for pundits," as if we all should simply overlook losing $2B?  He also said this was "unfortunate timing."  As if there's a good time to lose $2B? 

But neither of these problems will likely result in the CEOs losing their jobs.  As obviously damaging as both mistakes are, which would naturally have caused us mere employees to instantly lose our jobs – and potentially be prosecuted – CEOs are a rare breed who are allowed wide lattitude  in their behavior.  These are "one off" events that gain a lot of attention, but the media will have forgotten within a few days, and everyone else within a few months.

By comparison, there are at least 5 CEOs that make these 2 mistakes appear pretty small.  For these 5, frequently honored for their position, control of resources and personal wealth, they are doing horrific damage to their companies, hurting investors, employees, suppliers and the communities that rely on their organizations.  They should have been fired long before this week.

#5 – John Chambers, Cisco Systems.  Mr. Chambers is the longest serving CEO on this list, having led Cisco since 1995 and championed much of its rapid growth as corporations around the world began installing networks.  Cisco's stock reached $70/share in 2001.  But since then a combination of recessions that cut corporate IT budgets and a market shift to cloud computing has left Cisco scrambling for a strategy, and growth.

Mr. Chambers appears to have been great at operating Cisco as long as he was in a growth market.  But since customers turned to cloud computing and greater use of mobile telephony networks Cisco has been unable to innovate, launch and grow new markets for cloud storage, services or applications.  Mr. Chambers has reorganized the company 3 times – but it has been much like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Lots of confusion, but no improvement in results.

Between 2001 and 2007 the stock lost half its value, falling to $35.  Continuing its slide, since 2007 the stock has halved again, now trading around $17.  And there is no sign of new life for Cisco – as each earnings call reinforces a company lacking a strategy in a shifting market.  If ever there was a need for replacing a stayed-in-the-job too long CEO it would be Cisco.

#4 – Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric (GE).  GE has only had 9 CEOs in its 100+ year life.  But this last one has been a doozy.  After more than a decade of rapid growth in revenue, profits and valuation under the disruptive "neutron" Jack Welch, GE stock reached $60 in 2000.  Which turns out to have been the peak, as GE's value has gone nowhere but down since Mr. Immelt took the top job.

GE was once known for entering and changing markets, unafraid to disrupt how the market performed with innovation in products, supply chain and operations.  There was no market too distant, or too locked-in for GE to not find a way to change to its advantage – and profit.  But what was the last market we saw GE develop?  What has Mr. Immelt, in his decade at the top of GE, done to keep GE as one of the world's most innovative, high growth companies?  He has steered the ship away from trouble, but it's only gone in circles as it's used up fuel. 

From that high in 2001, GE fell to a low of $8 in 2009 as the financial crisis revealed that under Mr. Immelt GE had largely transitioned from a manufacturing and products company into a financial house.  He had taken what was then the easy road to managing money, rather than managing a products and services company.  Saved from bankruptcy by a lucrative Berkshire Hathaway, GE lived on.  But it's stock is still only $19, down 2/3 from when Mr. Immelt took the CEO position. 

"Stewardship" is insufficient leadership in 2012.  Today markets shift rapidly, incur intensive global competition and require constant innovation.  Mr. Immelt has no vision to propel GE's growth, and should have been gone by 2010, rather than allowed to muddle along with middling performance.

#3 – Mike Duke, WalMart.  Mr. Duke has been CEO since 2009, but prior to that he was head of WalMart International.  We now know Mr. Duke's business unit saw no problems with bribing foreign officials to grow its business.  Just on the basis of knowing about illegal activity, not doing anything about it (and probably condoning and recommending more,) and then trying to change U.S. law to diminish the legal repurcussions, Mr. Duke should have long ago been fired. 

It's clear that internally the company and its Board new Mr. Duke was willing to do anything to try and grow WalMart, even if unethical and potentially illegal.  Recollections of Enron's Jeff Skilling, Worldcom's Bernie Ebbers and Hollinger's Conrdad Black should be in our heads.  How far do we allow leaders to go before holding them accountable?

But worse, not even bribes will save WalMart as Mr. Duke follows a worn-out strategy unfit for competition in 2012.  The entire retail market is shifting, with much lower cost on-line companies offering more selection at lower prices.  And increasingly these companies are pioneering new technologies to accelerate on-line shopping with easy to use mobile devices, and new apps that make shopping, paying and tracking deliveries easier all the time.  But WalMart has largely eschewed the on-line world as its CEO has doggedly sticks with WalMart doing more of the same.  That pursuit has limited WalMart's growth, and margins, while the company files further behind competitively. 

Unfortunately, WalMart peaked at about $70 in 2000, and has been flat ever since.  Investors have gained nothing from this strategy, while employees often work for wages that leave them on the poverty line and without benefits.  Scandals across all management layers are embarrassing. Communities find Walmart a mixed bag, initially lowering prices on some goods, but inevitably gutting the local retailers and leaving the community with no local market suppliers.  WalMart needs an entirely new strategy to remain viable – and that will not come from Mr. Duke.  He should have been gone long before the recent scandal, and surely now.

#2 Edward Lampert, Sears Holdings.  OK, Mr. Lampert is the Chairman and not the CEO – but there is no doubt who calls the shots at Sears.  And as Mr. Lampert has called the shots, nobody has gained.

Once the most critical force in retailing, since Mr. Lampert took over Sears has become wholly irrelevant.  Hoping that Mr. Lampert could make hay out of the vast real estate holdings, and once glorious brands Craftsman, Kenmore and Diehard to turn around the struggling giant, the stock initially took off rising from $30 in 2004 to $170 in 2007 as Jim Cramer of "Mad Money" fame flogged the stock over and over on his rant-a-thon show.  But when it was clear results were constantly worsening, as revenues and same-store-sales kept declining, the stock fell out of bed dropping into the $30s in 2009 and again in 2012. 

Hope springs eternal in the micro-managing Mr. Lampert.  Everyone knows of his personal fortune (#367 on Forbes list of billionaires.)  But Mr. Lampert has destroyed Sears.  The company may already be so far gone as to be unsavable.  The stock price is based upon speculation of asset sales.  Mr. Lampert had no idea, from the beginning, how to create value from Sears and he surely should have been gone many months ago as the hyped expectations demonstrably never happened.

#1 – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft.  Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company.  Not only has he singlehandedly steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, handsets and tablets) but in the process he has sacrificed the growth and profits of not only his company but "ecosystem" companies such as Dell, Hewlett Packard and even Nokia.  The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value – and jobs.

Microsoft peaked at $60/share in 2000, just as Mr. Ballmer took the reigns.  By 2002 it had fallen into the $20s, and has only rarely made it back to its current low $30s value.  And no wonder, since execution of new rollouts were constantly delayed, and ended up with products so lacking in any enhanced value that they left customers scrambling to find ways to avoid upgrades.  By Mr. Ballmer's own admission Vista had over 200 man-years too much cost, and its launch still, years late, has users avoiding upgrades.  Microsoft 7 and Office 2012 did nothing to excite tech users, in corporations or at home, as Apple took the leadership position in personal technology.

So today Microsoft, after dumping Zune, dumping its tablet, dumping Windows CE and other mobile products, is still the same company Mr. Ballmer took control over a decade ago.  Microsoft is  PC company, nothing more, as demand for PCs shifts to mobile.  Years late to market, he has bet the company on Windows 8 – as well as the future of Dell, HP, Nokia and others.  An insane bet for any CEO – and one that would have been avoided entirely had the Microsoft Board replaced Mr. Ballmer years ago with a CEO that understands the fast pace of technology shifts and would have kept Microsoft current with market trends. 

Although he's #19 on Forbes list of billionaires, Mr. Ballmer should not be allowed to take such incredible risks with investor money and employee jobs.  Best he be retired to enjoy his fortune rather than deprive investors and employees of building theirs.

There were a lot of notable CEO changes already in 2012.  Research in Motion, Best Buy and American Airlines are just three examples.  But the 5 CEOs in this column are well on the way to leading their companies into the kind of problems those 3 have already discovered.  Hopefully the Boards will start to pay closer attention, and take action before things worsen.

 

Why He’s not CEO/Person of the Year – Immelt of GE

by | Dec 15, 2010 | Current Affairs, In the Swamp, Leadership, Openness, Television, Web/Tech


Summary:

  • Business leaders are honored for creating profitable growth
  • Those who create the greatest growth disrupt the status quo and change the way things are done – such as Zuckerberg and Jobs
  • Too many CEOs act as caretakers, overlooking growth
  • Caretakers watch value decline
  • Under Welch, GE dramatically grew and he was Time’s Person of the Year
  • Under Immelt, GE has contracted
  • Too many CEOs are like Immelt.  They need to either change, or be replaced

It’s that time of year when magazines like to honor folks for major accomplishments.  This year, Time’s Person of the Year is Mark Zuckerberg, honored for leading Facebook and its dramatic change in social behavior amongst so many people. Marketwatch.com selected Steve Jobs as its CEO of the Decade – an honor several journals gave him last year!

There is of course a bias in these selections.  Most journals highly favor CEOs that drive up their stock price!  For example, Ed Zander was CEO of the year in 2004 for his “turnaround” at Motorola – and within 2 years he was fired and Motorola was facing possible bankruptcy. Obviously his “quick fix” (getting the RAZR out the door with a big marketing push) didn’t pan out so well over time.  We’ll have to see if Alan Mulallly deserves to be CEO of the Year at Marketwatch, since it appears his selection has more to do with not letting Ford go bankrupt – like competitors GM and Chrysler – and thus reaping the benefits of customers who wanted to buy domestic but feared any other selection.  Whether Ford’s “turnaround” will be a winner, or another Zander/Motorola, we’ll know better in a couple of years.

One fellow who isn’t on anybody’s list is Jeff Immelt at General Electric.  His predecessor was.  Given that

  1. GE is the oldest company on the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average)
  2. GE is one of the most widely held of all corporations
  3. GE is one of the largest American corporations in revenues and employees
  4. GE is in a plethora of businesses, globally
  5. Mr. Immelt is paid several million dollars per year to lead GE

It is worthwhile to think about why he’s not on this list – whether he should be – and if not, whether he should keep his job!

Since Immelt took the helm at GE, the value has actually declined.  He’s not likely to win any awards given that sort of performance.  Amidst the financial crisis, he had to make a very sweet deal with Berkshire Hathaway to invest cash (via preferred shares) in order to keep GE out of bankruptcy court – a deal that has enriched Mr. Buffett’s company at the expense of GE.  GE has exited several businesses, such as its current effort to unload NBC via a deal with Comcast, but it has not created (or bought) a single exciting, noteworthy growth business! GE has become a smaller, lower growth company that narrowly diverted bankruptcy.  That isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for honors!

Yes, GE has developed a nice positive cash flow, which will allow it to repurchase the preferred shares from Berkshire (Marketwatch “GE to Buy Back Buffett’s Preferreds Next Year.”) But what is Mr. Immelt doing to create future shareholder value?  His plan to make a few acquisitions, pay some higher dividends (suspended when the company faltered) and repurchase equity offers shareholders very little as a way to generate high rates of return!  Why would anyone want to own GE?  Nobody expects the company to be a growth leader in 2012, or 2015.  With its current businesses, and strategy, there is no reason to expect GE to produce double digit earnings growth – or double its equity within any reasonable investing horizon.

There’s more to being a CEO than being a “caretaker.”  Mr. Immelt’s predecessor, Jack Welch, created enormous value for shareholders.  Mr. Welch was willing to disurpt the GE status quo.  In fact, he intentionally worked at it!  He made sure business leaders were constantly challenged to find new markets, create new products, expand into new businesses, leverage new  technologies and generate growth!  Mr. Welch was willing to take GE into growth markets, give leaders permission to create new Success Formulas, and invest in whatever it took to profitably grow revenues.  During the Welch era, competitors quaked at the thought of GE entering their markets because things were always shaken up – and GE changed the game in order to create higher rates of return.  During the Welch era investors received amongst the highest rate of return on any common stock!  GE value multiplied many-fold, making pensioners (invested in the stock) and employees quite wealthy – even as employment expanded dramatically.  That’s why Mr. Welch was Time’s Person of the Year in 2000 — and for many the CEO of the previous decade.

Mr. Immelt, on the other hand, has done nothing to benefit any of his constituencies.  Like far too many CEOs, he took a much less aggressive stance toward growth.  He has been unwilling to challenge and disrupt existing leaders, or promote aggressive market disruptions through the GE business units.  He has not invested in White Space projects that could continue the massive expansion started during the Welch era.  To the contrary, he has moved much more slowly, and focused more on selling businesses than growing them.  He has resorted to trying to protect GE – rather than keep it moving forward.  As a result, the company has retrenched and actually become less interesting, less valuable and less clearly able to produce returns or create new jobs!

Mr. Immelt certainly has his apologists, and seems to securely have the support of his Board of Directors.  But we should question this.  It actually has an impact on the American economy (and that of several other countries) when the CEO of a company as large as GE loses the ability to create growth.  The malaise of the American economy can be directly tied to CEOs who are operating just like Mr. Immelt: doing almost nothing to create new markets, new sources of revenue, new jobs.  Many business journalists like to say the government doesn’t create revenue, or jobs.  So who will create them when corporate leaders are as feckless as Mr. Immelt? Especially when they control such vast resources!

Congratulations to Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Jobs (and Mr. Hastings of Netflix who was named Fortune magazine’s CEO of the Year.)  They have created substantial new revenues, profits, cash flow and return for investors.  Their company’s employees, suppliers, customers and investors have all benefitted from their leadership.  By disrupting the way their company’s operated they pushed into new markets, and demonstrated how in any economy it is possible to create success.  Caretakers they are not, so like Mr. Welch each deserves its recent accolades.

And for all those CEOs out there who are behaving as caretakers – for all who are resting on past company laurels – for all who have watched their company value decline – for those who think it’s OK to not grow – for those who blame the economy, or government, or competitors, or customers or their industry for their inability to grow —- well, you either need to learn from these recently honored CEOs and dramatically change direction, or you should be fired.

by | May 3, 2009 | Current Affairs, In the Swamp, Leadership, Web/Tech

Warren Buffet held the annual meeting for Berkshire Hathaway this weekend, and upwards of 40,000 people came to hear his opinions.  For hours he waxed eloquently, offering opinions on a wide range of topics sure to cover websites, blogs and tweets for a few days.  But I was interested in the comment "Buffett, Munger praise Google's 'moat" according to Marketwatch.com's headline.  It's pure 1980s industrial thinking, and why you have to be careful about forecasting and investing following Mr. Buffett.

The concept is that a business can be like an old castle, with a moat around it protecting it from competitors.  The company can prosper because no competitor can jump the moat, and thus the profits of the business are protected.  And today, Buffett and his partner think Google has such a moat.  Now, remember, Buffett bought only 100 shares in Microsoft and long eschewed other high tech companies like Apple, Oracle, SAP and Cisco systems.  His favorite phrase was to say he didn't understand these businesses.  Now, suddenly, the elder Buffett is becoming tech-savvy, he'd have us think, and he loves Google.  Or perhaps he's late to the game, and trying to apply outdated concepts.

I too like Google.  But not for the reasons Buffett does.  There is no doubt Google is far in front in the search business, and coupling that with ad placement gives them a huge market share today producing double digit revenue and profit growth.  Big growth and profits is a good thing.  But moats have a way of being jumped, or drained, or filled incredibly rapidly these days.  And as good as Google is, what makes Google a good company is how it does not rest on its business success.  The company keeps branching into other businesses which have the ability to extend company growth even if search runs into some unforeseen problem.

"Moats" are the industrial classicists way of thinking about strategy.  Moats were powerful tools a few hundred years ago, but competitors changed tactics and moats lost their value.  Even America's moats – the Pacific and Atlantic oceans - have been breeched by attackers from Japan and the middle east.  And the same is true for business moats.  They were an industrialists tool, based on big investments and high share, but they no longer have the ability to defend a business's profits.  Just look at the Buffalo newspaper Buffett owns.  "Newspapers face 'unending losses,' Buffett says" as he now admits newspapers (including his) are not going to make profits any more.  Their "local market moat" was made obsolete by internet news competitors and ad sites like Craig's list and Vehix.com. 

And now even Berkshire Hathaway is facing a growth stall.  Nobody would dare predict bad things for the "oracle of Omaha."  But reality is that Berkshire stock is at the same value it was 6 years ago as "Berkshire quarterly operating profit falls."  Even the amazing financial machinations and sophisticated tools (like derivatives and credit default swaps) almost nobody understands and Berkshire has been famous for have been unable to overcome losses in the 60+ operating units. And even some of these financial tools are losing money – something Buffett historically avoided completely.  But he's learning that competitors are making even these products less profitable. 

Times have changed.  It's no longer the era for the industrialist, and the financial whiz that can extend an industrialists profits.  We live in a fast-paced world where adjusting to market shifts is at the core of maintaining ongoing profits.  Google's willingness to Disrupt and use White Space to expand makes it a company worth watching.  But stay away from those "moat' protected businesses.  Not even one of the world's richest men can make money in that game any longer.