What Would John Chambers Have Done?

By Mark Evans | Published: November 17, 2008

If Nortel’s board had selected a different person to succeed Bill Owens as CEO in 2005, do you think things would be much different?

What if Nortel had somehow been able to convince John Chambers that after a long and successful run as Cisco’s CEO, Nortel represented the ultimate challenge in his professional career – and that if he did well, there would be glory, generous compensation and the enduring gratitude of investors.

What would Chambers have done differently?

My sense is he would have moved more aggressively, ruthlessly and decisively to get Nortel back on the right strategic direction. Much like ex-Cisco executives Gary Daichendt and Gary Kunis wanted to give Nortel an extensive makeover right away, Chambers probably would have embraced the same tactic.

And he would have been able to convince the Nortel board to go along with his plan.

Second, Chambers would probably have made some major strategic acquisitions to jump-start Nortel’s new direction. We’re talking $500-million to multi-billion dollar deals that would have been executed much better than Nortel’s $9-billion purchase of Bay Networks. In comparison, Nortel has made four acquisitions and spent less than $150-million since Zafirovski joined Nortel.

Chambers would have also hired a different kind of management team with solid telecom and enterprise experience. A guy like Mike Volpi might have been hired to lead the enterprise business, and then be groomed as Chambers’ successor.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20 but that’s why it’s so much fun to look back at what if.

So, what do you think Chambers would have done differently?

Technorati Tags: mike zafirovski, Nortel, john chambers

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An even better question to ask AAN readers would be what if Mike Zafirovski had been chosen as CEO of Cisco to replace John Chambers? Where would Motorola be if he had been been given the tip of the hat as their next CEO?
The Left Behind

This is a good question, mainly because the current situation at NT is not a result of the current economic crisis but rather as a result of both wrong decisions and lack of strategic actions.

IF when MIke Z joined in Oct 2005 had listened to the internal plan to divest the carrier business (the european vendors were looking to get into the US) and use those funds to acquire 3COM, Avaya and SIemens enterprise it would have been a different story. Mike Z was briefed several times by the executive team and companies like Bear Stearns, etc on the risk that the carrier (CDMA) business had in the future and the need to change direction towards as an alternative to Cisco. But Mike was never known for strategic decisions, he was known to reduce cost, so he failed to see the long term trend.

So he hired a failed ex McKinsey guy as CSO who stopped everything and crafted a plan which had no reality in execution. 9 months into the role and MZ had no solid strategy, the cost cutting initiatives began to dismantle the innovation engine and no new products were created.

MZ was briefed many times on the risk on depending on one technology (CDMA) and two customers (Sprint and Verizon) to bring cash to NT as CDMA was the only product line that was profitable, all the others were losing money; so any minor slowdown in CDMA could cause NT's death. Instead of looking for alternatives to mitigate that risk he decided to continue the cost cutting initiatives in the other groups without realizing that the cost issue in the other divisions were a result of not enough volume.

He failed to realize that “bulk-up” and consolidation was needed in the Enterprise side and that NT could have lead that consolidation to increase volume, reduce cost as a % of revenue and have a much bigger wallet for R&D for innovation.

Additionally, he failed in creating a strong management team. He pissed the remaining NT management team but treating them as useless and bringing people that had no clue on telecom business. They never understood the concept of “installed base” and that the cycles are different than the consumer sector (mobile devices, washing machines, etc). That new management team engaged in lots (and lots) of politics and power struggles that lead to the lack of bold decisions to move the company forward. The ones leaving now were the most vocal around the company future and they paid for saying the right things while the “yeah man” ones are still there.

The third element is that which were Mike's real intention coming into NT… those were not to do the right things for the investors but rather personal ego… he wanted his picture to appear in major publications as the man that saved Nortel, so any breakup, spinnoff, merger would have risked his ultimate ambition as change of control would have risked his role. Including selling it to private equity 2 years ago. Private Equity was one of the best alternatives to make all the transformation behind the scene without the SEC and investors constant watch, obtain cash to acquire Avaya, 3COm, etc… but that would have posed the risk for Mike to be replaced by the PE management vs. the current NT's BoD which was friendly as he made sure he put his friends in those seats.

So, yes in retrospective Chambers would have done things differently, but also anyone else hired in that role. The combination of “hard-headed”, ego, bad character judgment, lack of strategic vision and fear to make bold market decisions have prepared NT to be in serious bad shape to storm the global economic crisis.

Now it is too late to make those needed changes. The only positive path moving forward is to sell the remains to the bigger players in the market but lets be clear , there was a different path available 3 years ago and it was not taken, there are things that can't be undone.

More anguish will come to The Left Behind, the ones not chosen to get a package.
UnderDog

Chambers was in the right place at the right time and took advantage of it. He is far more influential today than 15 years ago. The question should be where would nortel be today if he was the Nortel CEO starting 15 years ago?
Fins

Chambers would have never taken the job since he looks at history's cause and effect. He for one remembers when Don Roth said that “Enterise is a zero sum game for Nortel”. Back in 1999. Being CEO is like being a major league baseball coach. You get too much credit when you are winning and too much blame when you are losing. Gary D didn't only have the plan, he had the execution.
Big Cajun Man

I agree Chambers would not have taken this job, he is waiting to pick up the parts of Notrel that he wants at the Bankruptcy sale. The two Gary's may well have succeeded, however, the board and the press made sure that would never happen as well. What might have been? Don't care, what will be is more important, and Nortel is headed into dark waters.
HopeNTsurvive

Mr Chambers still has the chance to be heroic. Buy the whole Nortel
Casey

Left behind…great post, absolutely right on!
protosphere

Perhaps John Chambers would have done less or none of the things Nortel did, and more of the things Cisco did.

The stark contrast in the evolution of these 2 companies over the last few years may reveal the real differences here.

John like Gary is moral /ethical, appears like the pinnacle of awareness and with his high powered energy evangelicalizing vision that actually transpires, than nervously mumbling hype that never does amid endless contradiction.

John Chambers joined the company in 1995 with an MBA as the second in command when Cisco had $70 million in annual sales and a market cap of $600 million. He establishing leadership in key technology sectors aggressively pursuing market opportunities.

During his first 4 years, the company revenues increased over 10 fold from $1.2B to $14B, today it boasts more than 66,000 employees and annual revenue of around $40B as one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Cisco has acquired over 130 companies successfully, unlike its competitor Nortel who wasted $20B in acquisitions during the bubble.

Cisco grows assets and revenues over the last few years while the opposite holds true for Nortel

Nortel has had several CEOs since the bubble,one climbing the ranks from accounting, struggling with declining sales from its peak of $30B / 90K employees to 1/3rd of that today in linear decline to $10B/30K. Turn around in 2004 was false and misleading triggering lucrative bonuses for a company losing money. Bonuses they fought to keep at a kangaroo AGM as they also diluted around 100M shares a year into this bloated value they claimed was “to keep good people” I find an oxymoron.

Accounting irregularities resulted in fraud charges with past management.

They also marginalized themselves refinanced billions in higher interest printing Nortel paper to primarily pay creditors. who increased cash collateral after ultimatum that followed with even more mega revisions they downplayed to double from 1 to 1.5B /they had under $2B cash in Q206 .

Nortel's last only 2 major 2 acquisitions since the bubble burst were Tasman Networks they paid around $100M at over 10X premium and PEC which is worth less than half the $448M they paid ($200M last quoted by analysts a few years ago).

Nortel's last large order was with BSNL that lost several million as the company has trouble making sales with many aspirations either failing or being abandoned. The company struggles catalyze as of late after already losing money for a decade.

After several bouts of ongoing layoffs, layoffs continue to this day, as do asset sales to the point they must try and sell key assets to afford even more layoffs! To make matters worse, and these assets are not being sold so far and their cash burn accelerates with their almost all earnings area (aging CDMA) commenced dramatic decline, Needless to say there is increased talk of insolvency.

Cisco trades for over $16 with around 100B market cap and 12.54X P/E.
Nortel has no P/E or it would be double digit negative, trades for around a nickle extreme 10X presplit and a market cap of around 278M

A far cry from when they were competitors only a few years ago.

Ethical Gary Daichendt who worked with Cisco was slandered for abruptly departing Nortel he had to personally come public and was surprised no one at Nortel didn't, to dismiss the rumor a few years ago. Again taking the high road not crticizing Nortel but the journlist was not too shy to state Gary was not optimistic.

After a high profile educated board member became CEO to stable the ship amid endless delays for financial revisions, Nortel paid a premium to hired a green CEO with an axe cutting track record, who defrauded a contract with his past employer who passed him while joining a company struggling to regain credibility. He then revised numbers worse every time counted, by the week. They creatively generated the cash to live another day a few years ago as indicated above but were they on the right footing?

More recently Nortel launched its green campaign specifically targeting Cisco, as Cisco took the high road to the claims which were false and misleading for the same value of work being done. Nortel highlighted global energy usage for all industrial usage in the billions than just telecom and promoted reimbursement of 1st year energy saving if they would buy their product. This campaign manager, she was successful here.

Nortel CEO also surrounding himself with inexperienced telecom people, called for $20 stock buying opportunity Aug 07. to average down in the 7's, and trades in 50 cent range today, also called for 3 to 5 year turn around 3 years ago and changed single digit growth for 2008 to decline, where I question his vision or forecasting skill.

If some one were to ask me what would moral and ethical high energy Chambers have done differently, I would be inclined to say… everything =)
Executive

We brought in the “Garys” and a few months later they departed… Gary Kunis CTO and Gary Daichendt COO. The changes were so drastic the board and bloated management would not have anything to do with it. Maybe they actually had a real plan to become lean and mean and 2005 was the time to do it. The question is what would Nortel be today if the Garys could have implemented there changes….? The abrupt departure was an obvious sign that the handle on the toilet was already flushed and they saw the drain was near and drastic changes would be needed to stay a float, not Six Sig Layers of Management, oops I mean seven. The only problem is that there is so much s**t in middle and upper management at Nortel it will take a long time to fit it all down the drain because they all seem to have rubber dinghies. Even if you make it down the drain the septic system is all backed up from pensions and golden parachutes etc…

One of my colleges sent me this the other day. The discussion was about what Cisco will do in this economy and he has agreed to allow me to post his response.

“Cisco having large layoffs isn't true. Sure, there may be a few, but in key areas, or just in an attempt to get rid of dead weight. True the economy is worsening, BUT, we are talking about a company with a HUGE 'war chest'. What does that mean? It's an industry term defining your cash and assets that, used wisely, will allow you to crush your competitors! Intel rode their war chest to fame (only regulation stood in their way from becoming a monopoly, they lost some anti-competitive law suits). Cisco has made more than $8 Billion in profit every year! That builds an impressive war chest. Cisco can and will weather this economic down turn, and in the process, emerge even stronger. That 'war chest' will be used to R&D when others (like Nortel) can't. That 'war chest' will be used to acquire buildings and land, when other's can't (Nortel). That 'war chest' will be used to acquire intellectual property when others can't (Nortel). So on so so forth. Cisco won't mind burning cash for a long while when they know their products will run 21st century networks, while your weak competitors crumble. The upside for Cisco, is they know their stock will go down (no problem), later there is going to be HUGE upside on Cisco (post 2009 and maybe longer). “
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

The difference is John Chambers is an actual visionary and reformer instead of someone who just talks the talk.

MZ brought in an executive team completely unsuited for the job. Besides bringing in “Yes Men”, self-proclaimed “spiritual-leaders” (you'd think he was leading a medieval nation) he removed others that didn't fit into his lean sucks sigma mold.

One example is Steve Slattery, long time loyal NT employee and former VP of Enterprise, removed by MZ to make way for the Carolina Strangler. Slattery now works for Cisco as a VP. This is what incompetent leadership does, it drives away the people you need. The only one to benefit from this situation was probably Slattery himself, who now works for a company that walks the walk instead of just spouting meaningless words.

WWJCD? Just look at WWMZD and compute the opposite.
less

I don't think Chambers would've trained and exported environmentally responsible black belts to India and China.
Realist

You forget the CEO doesn't have the same authority as the BoD. Just adding Chambers without a BoD change probably wouldn't have produced anything differently than the actions you may have seen from the Gary's – who ultimately left after only 3-mos. Do you think they left because the BoD went along with everything they suggested?
broadbandbill

Mark,

Very interesting question; imo, the difference between Cisco and its competitors (NT included) really comes down to leadership and its respective core competencies.

Chambers was and always will be a bag-carrying salesman, that is where his heart is. Chambers came to Cisco form Wang as a VP/Global Sales. Wang had failed to compete effectively and this experience left an ever-lasting impression on Chambers, he was determined not to repeat it. He saw, first hand, what complacencies, lack of leadership and self- entitlements did (or more precisely, didn’t).

In other words, Chambers is an ‘outbound guy’ (customer-facing) while Z, Russo and the rest are all ‘in-bounders’ (ops, processes, supply chain issues, etc.). They think of themselves as ‘customer-facing’ execs but such is not the case. Chambers knows what any sales guy thinks and feels, the others don’t. This is analogous of relationships between battle-tested commanders and solders vs. politicians and soldiers; the latter has never worked. So Chambers gets moving on building a solid sales organization, hanging around with them, even created an “Executive Committee” out of the top sales guys in each channel. (Note: I hired 4 of his best, so I know first hand.). Does Nortel have such a group? Not managers but battle-tested soldiers. Don't think so.

The next thing he did is a through evaluation of his talent and found a few good ones: Volpi, Listwin, others. He did NOT bring his social club from Wang. Turns out, Chambers is a pretty good ‘talent agent’ and allowed his Young Turks to run with it (and run with it they did). Again, imho, Hackney could NOT make it pass the parking lot at Cisco.

The other big difference was the BoD, Cisco’s was dominated by Don Valentine, himself a sales/marketing type and a very demanding leader who didn’t settle for excuses (bad economy, capital markets, blah, blah, blah). Where is NT’s, Siemens, Lucent’s/Alcatel’s Don Valentine?

And the last key difference is strategy. Chambers is NOT a strategic thinker (never saw a sales type that was) but he has hired a few good ones and knows to stay away from meddling (see excerpt below; BW, 11/13/08):

“Chambers tells the story of how Jordanian King Abdullah II promised him Cisco would make money in his country after convincing Chambers that the company should work with the government to create the Jordan Education Initiative in 2003. “I said, 'With all respect, Your Majesty, I'll never make money in Jordan and I probably never will in the Middle East, either,' ” Chambers says. Mountford was convinced otherwise. He believed that a growing coterie of progressive governments recognized the need to invest heavily in technology and other capital improvements.” — He allowed his subordinates to run with it and did NOT interfere. These emerging markets are now carrying Cisco and will for a long, long time.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08…

Even cheap Chinese boxes can’t compete with a great vision, strategy and execution. Where is Nortel’s emerging markets strategy? It takes more than putting up a ‘center of excellence’, a flyby or useless sessions with ‘The McKinseys’ of the world to get in; it takes vision, know-how and a determination to “see things as they should be and not just the way they are”. Vision! Chambers has it, NT needs to acquire it.

bb
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

Amen to that.

And Hackney would not make it pass the parking lot at Cisco because he'd be busy grabbing someone by the neck.
http://www.allaboutnortel.com Mark Evans

bb,

Thanks for the insight and comment. And thanks to everyone else who has made a comment on this post – some really good discussion taking place.

Mark
less

“Mike Z is an American and therefore doesn't understand (the) culture.”
ntbob

In the trenchs where the sale happens you can see the darkness. 21st century trained sales people from NT? I don't think so! Step up the ladder just one step, strong sales leadership, you know account planning, account penetration stategy, logical territory assignments? NO!! Step up the ladder some more steps, has anyone seen any sales managers in front of accounts with their sales people leading and showing the way? Does Nortel fire people for not meeting the quota? There sales people know the products very well. Do they have Fortune 500 sales experience, very few do. Motorola and Nortel are similar “engineer a product and they will come.”

Compare the Cisco Sales person. Highly trained in sales, territory and account management. Get fired when quotas are not met! Sales managers are very much involved in getting the sale. Accountability?!! All the way up the ladder!
Observer

Even cheap Chinese boxes can’t compete with a great vision, strategy and execution.

Lets see what happens now that credit, earnings and employment has peaked. It will be another race to the bottom in prices in telecom equipment. Anyone notice Cisco cut their earnings estimate by almost 20% ? A lot of vision will turn out to be delusionary once the west and the rest of the world get back to doing business not based on debt and credit but cash.
Observer

Shedlock sums things up nicely in this post…things are going be ugly for another 7-10 years as the secular bear takes hold. In this type of economy, I believe we'll have to see prices fall on all kinds of things.

–

One must also factor into the earnings equation boomers facing retirement in the wake of falling home prices and retirement accounts taking a cliff dive. Trillions in potential spending power has been wiped off the books.

Expect boomers to travel less than expected, buy fewer toys (boats, cars etc) than expected, gamble less than expected, and downsize much more than expected in every aspect. This in turn will reduce the earnings potential of non-financial corporations for decades to come. Thus expectations that a new rip roaring bull market will commence once the market bottoms is sadly misplaced.

In the meantime, remember that rising unemployment, rising credit card defaults, rising foreclosures, rising numbers of walk aways, and declining earnings of non-financials means we have not even bottomed yet.

This secular bear market will last a lot longer and be much deeper than anyone thinks. Sadly, very few are prepared for it.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Observer

So, what do you think Chambers would have done differently?

Not a whole lot…the mess that was left by Roth, Dunn and Owens and previous BoDs couldn't have been fixed by anyone. I've said it before and I'll say it again by 2006 it was already too late. Many of the problems of the macroeconomy were sewn long before this and now being reaped (so to speak) now.

Regarding Chambers or anyone else, don't mistake timing for success. Cisco caught the wave in the 90s but other than Juniper there really hasn't been much competition because every other company in the sector had to deal with years of legacy. Every company eventually loses their way…Cisco will be no different..eventually.
less

“Every company eventually loses their way…Cisco will be no different..eventually.”

Nortel is 100+ years old and therefore must've survived, what, 10-14 secular bear attacks. Whats so different, or rather “same” this time around that they will falter?

“Thus expectations that a new rip roaring bull market will commence once the market bottoms is sadly misplaced.”

Are we being a bittter, pessimistic hata rooting for the of demise mankind, or what?

So the bear is forever this time, sadly. As every civilisation has lost its way, so shall we. Then global warming will go down and the global village will emerge from the literal ashes of yore.
broadbandbill

Observer,

Your comments are correct but only in tactical terms, mine are strategic in nature. Cisco has more than just vision; they have a huge war-chest (read: mucho dineros) and execution on their side. — bb
broadbandbill

Thanks Mark,

Lots of great insights and comments by all, which shows how passionate we are about NT’s current and hopefully better future. Too bad NT’s management team is so damn dismissive…–bb
broadbandbill

Observer,

NT had the same opportunity to catch the same wave as CSCO, JNPR and others but chose to smoke its own bs. Also, turning around NT would have been the easiest thing to do if its management had the guts to divest itself of wireless biz and focus on Telecom and Enterprise only. To be successful in any dynamically-changing market one has to know when to ‘eat one’s young’. Answer: before it’s too late and they end up eating you!
.. bb
broadbandbill

ntbob,

You are correct and that is precisely my point below; Chambers himself was a quota guy, he knows that all battles are won in the trenches…–bb
less

Dude, in Germany, at the end of the pro football season, the lousiest two teams are sent to the minor, or 2nd, league, whilst the top two 2nd league teams are promoted into the 1st. The third-lousiest of both leagues then vie for the chance to stay/advance into the 1st league as well. (I believe Hamburger SV was the only club since the league's inception that never crapped out and had to go semi-amateur/pro for a while.) Whats so sad and unfair about that?

According to Jim, them inflatable balls will get too heavy due to the higher CO2 content inside, players will break their feet, legs and foreheads on them, fans will stay away, and the scoreboards will uniformly show 0-0 until the power company shuts off the juice over unpaid bills.

This is a good thing: Nobody should win, just as nobody should lose anymore. Ever. The Age of Aquarius hath truly arrived.

(But hmmmm… Genetically modified hamburgers are the unhealthy “food” of choice for fat Americans, so one does have to wonder how and why this particular club in the city of Hamburg never had a really “bad” season…)
The Saint

Nortel is 100+ years old and therefore must've survived, what, 10-14 secular bear attacks. Whats so different, or rather “same” this time around that they will falter?

Luck.
many

Chambers is a quintessential salesman. He would not have let so many initiatives and opportunities die on the vine.
notafan

thanks for your insightful comment bb. its great to see the perspectives of others and learn new stuff as well.
notafan

oh my bad dj. i meant to reply to the comment above yours. your comment isn't quite insightful as bb's but…. ah who am i kidding? you're rubbish
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

Right.

And I am the one “polluting” AAN. How ironic you should say that.
Clint

Who gives a F**k what Chambers “would have done”.
What a stupid ass headline.
I am sure that means alot to the employees left at Nortel.
yes4aapl

DJ
Don't worry
notafun is one of many dedicated pumpers
They will use diversion tactics to discourage critics of posting about Nortel
I missed BB when he stopped posting just because he reached 100 posts.
There was no logic in such decision.
About you DJ
I ignored many of your posts but some of them are very inspiring and good. That's why I say post as long as Mark accepts your posts. Thank you for your input here.
From my experience, I remember one guy who blamed others for “too many posts”
and he was the leader himself with 8000 posts.
The diversion tricks are just to discourage to post critical views about NT stock.
What can you say positive about the stock which once used to be $300 -400 bill market cap and now it is only $300 mill. 30 mill investors were fooled and lost their money on NT! Why governments will not check who benefited from NT frauds?

There is a reason for so low market cap. Stock market is always right!
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

Thank you for that, yes4aapl.

I agree the diversionary tactics are becoming increasingly common as we see NT plunge to new lows. It seems that as the pumper's predictions fall one by one they feel the need to come out in more force to produce more distortions to hide the facts.

See this in notafan's outrage at Mr. Evans posting mere links to news articles from reputable sources.

As for me I will admit that I was deceived by these pumpers. When I first started reading and posting at AAN I roundly criticized you, YES4AAPL as being a “doom and gloomer” because the NT cheerleading crew had drawn the wool over my eyes.

They say truth isn't easy to come by but once it hits you there is no going back.
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

You seem to be using expletives a lot as of late. Perhaps this is a reflection of the developmental state of your mind?
Clint

Why don't you jump out of that plane of yours without a chute pansy.
Nortel

You are right. They need something to talk about, thats it. AAN will die with Nortel.
NTer

Cisco has benefited from both good management and good luck. Their management of acquisitions, while not flawless, has been fairly good and their sales model has been very successful. They've been lucky in some of their failures; they were trying to be a major player in optical, failed miserably but that proved to be a blessing as they didn't scale up with factories and people that would have to be let go during the 2001 bubble burst. Gotta give them credit where it is due, a well run company but they've maxed out on easy growth. they'll have to really be clever form this point forward.

As for Nortel I obviously hope they (we) get the act together. There is still a lot of great technology, RD and some clever decisions being made, need a bit of runway to get it off the ground. Hope we can find some.
Another Nortel Watcher

(flush) … post circles around and around and then goes down the drain.
Another Nortel Watcher

bb – making those calls is difficult when you have leaders who don't know the business they're in. Kind of like driving at night with the lights off. Let me call it 'Pink Floyd Spaceship' management style.
Another Nortel Watcher

Bang on.
NewToNT

Something quite a few NT employees have been considering is 'What if' MZ leaves tomorrow. Is there sufficient potential in NT for someone with the right attitude/skills/nous to come in and resurrect NT? Or are we too far down the plughole to be saved?
notafan

you know what it means when yes4aapl finds your posts inspiring. too bad you took it as a complement
notafan

you relfect that on yourself better than anyone around here.

though clint expresses his point in a different manner, he sure does have a point, which is something you rarely do.

what would al gore have done differently as a us president? ok maybe some environment stuff. maybe there would be no war… so what? that doesn't get us anything.
The Left Behind

Good question. Too late now. The only one that can replace Z will be the CFO but with the mandate from the BoD to make the best negotiated deal for the shareholders' interest. (he has done it for the last 2 jobs)

There is no strong executive left that can replace Z tomorrow.
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

You again prove the meaning of irony when you criticize someone's intellect while at the same time mingling with and supporting the childish antics of Clint. How is random swearing now considered having “a point”?

I suppose “great” minds think alike.
http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

The Left Behind is right. MZ should leave but the problem is who will replace him? I am sure that the BoD is looking for a replacement but it's becoming clear that finding someone who is willing to lead this shipwreck is going to be hard. If MZ announces his resignation tomorrow, there will be great surprise.

At this point even new, great leadership will have an exceedingly tough time turning this all around.
exnt

amen desk jockey
notafan

talk about irony, how ironic. i don't think i was the first one to critcize someone's intellect. in fact i commented what i commented above out of irony. and its not hard to criticize when you keep missing “the point” are you 0 for how many now? you just keep swinging but missing.
Another Nortel Watcher

No, there is nobody left in Nortel – or on the board – who is capable of leading the company for any amount of time! Absolutely not! That point by itself highlights just one of MZ's several failings.

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