Poll: Rating Mike Z.’s Leadership Skills

Like the severance decision, the pay-cut proposal should have come from the leadership as it did at Western Digital and many others. It is evident from the month's events that the only thing Zero man and his cronies wanted is for their paychecks to keep coming; that too dug out of hapless employee severance and shareholder monies (which of course is history now).

These crooks talk about ethics but in reality they have always owed fiduciary duties only to themselves. From what I have heard, Zero even took the corporate jet for his son's basketball game the day before the bankruptcy filing!! ..In the face of this, the ethics certification he mandated the employees pales into insignificance!

Also, as I recall, at every town hall, they always affirmed the following statements
1 There is no plan to make any changes to salary structure at this time
2 There is no plan to change severance packages at this time.

See where we are now !!

I, a JCI3 would have been willing to take a pay cut if the leadership had even proposed it. I want to mention though that employees did toy with this idea on internal blogs but Z never cared enough to even read them.

To add insult to injury we are being spammed by his Zmails every week now, trying to explain the decision to stop severance etc and how he understands what our families are going through. Save it Mr. Z !!

Regarding pay cut, I am very surprised to see so many ex-employees or current employees object it.

AMD is one of the only 2 players in CPU market, it recently announced big pay cut from top management team way down to normal employees. Remember there are only 2 players in big CPU market. With such move, I believe AMD will come out of economic downturn very soon. Many local high tech companies also use pay cut, compensation cut to survive.

Why not Nortel do this earlier? Look at Telecom equipment market, please count how many competitors there are? Could any JCI/4/56 guy standing out now to justify whether your pay check matches with what you contributed? Zero Man actualy had chance to lead a dramatic change 3 to 4 years ago. But he has no clue what the real Nortel problem is, and how to use the momentum of new leadership to break outdated HR and reward structure, and failed to let innovation rule.

I hear about how people here can do a better job of running the company then the GE boys (probably true). Here is a suggestion: how about putting together an employee buyout of the business total or business unit and then turn the situation/business around?

i'd be up for that

May be we have lucky and Dogbert buys the company and do the same with Mike Z

http://www.dilbert.com/

At this point I consider the poll to be a non-sequitor. The man had 3 years to turn Nortel around, to play to the company's strengths and to come up with new business strategies. He instead squandered his opportunity with Lean Six Sigma garbage, a cabinet of GEnius yes-men, one sided Joint Ventures and "Alliances", incredibly inept market timing (e.g. trying to sell off MEN in late 2008 instead of 2006), poor hiring and promotion decisions (e.g. John Roese, the Carolina Strangler) and outsourcing complex engineering projects to so called "Centers of Excellence". Bottom line: the man was a TERRIBLE leader and an absolute disaster for Nortel.

I just want to say,Six Sigma means only 3-4 mistakes are allowed in 1 MILLION opportunities, how many mistakes did Mike Z make? Thousands of... If we don't own the factory, 6 sigma is nothing but really garbage.

Just ask our customers, how do they think the current product qaulity and COE technical capabilty, they will tell u , DISASTER

80% of the voters agree with you; TERRIBLE!!!!..-bb

It is really very sad to see so many posters on this board still trapped in the blame game on Mr. Zero Man. How many of you can look at a big picture what the root cause is?

Zero Man got 13m bonus etc, you complain he took away your 6 digits bonus, etc... Open your eyes please, check what Obama said today. It is shameful to see 20B bonus distributed in Wall Street in 2008 and the current system can do nothing about it. Can any of these Wall Street crooks be put in prison very soon? not possible at least for many years.

So many JCI4/5/6 guys stand up now disclosing other JCI4/5/6 guys' wrong doings which caused his own misfortune. Erh?

Compared with these really big crooks in Wall Street, Zero Man's 13m bonus is just a piece of cake. Not happy with Zero Man? How about replace him with Mr. A, Mr B or Mr C from corporate elite groups? Will they do a better job? You JCI4/5/6 guys drove a once great company into disaster, but you still don't have any clue how you lose. If you had seen these top management's nonsense strategies and slogans, what had you done? You said "yes, you are right, Boss!"? Now you guys pour all dirty watrer on Zero Man, what an ironic picture!

If I were CEO, I will take $0.01 salary first, then cut 50% to 60% of JCI4/5/6 yes men's salary and ask them to apply for the job again. If you don't like it, please go for your own best interest. I, CEO took $0.01 salary, what are you JCI4/5/6 guys going to do? Under my leadership, there is no way for Nortel go into BK.

I really doubt if these top 3 layers P/VP/Directors can run a corner store into profit.

Change the whole HR and reward system, increase the bonus ratio in total pay check, promote really energetic and young JCI2/3 guys, Nortel stock price will rock for sure. If I challenge Zero Man for this CEO position, do you (Nortel and ex-Nortel) guys vote for me?

JCI4s are demoted to do a senior designer job with no pay cut. same with JCI5 and 6 going down a few levels to join peers who make half the money.

no pay cuts. these people ought to be booted out and let some of the people thrive, some who have not seen a promotion in over 5 years.

In other real high-tech companies, if you change jobs to a lower pay grade, or are forced down (due to a number of issues) your pay gets cut to the classification of the job.

It's called "at risk" pay. Meaning, the higher you move up the chain, more is expected of you, you need to take more smart risk and you should be rewarded accordingly. You fail or get moved down, it's your loss. It's the motivation to keep your job and perform better. It rewards the guys who have ambition and talent, and punishes those hanger-on-ers to go elsewhere or improve.

er this is NT so the less you know and the less you do the higher you go. if you are found out then you are moved to a less-er job still knowing less and doing less. the only thing is salary which is in direct reverse proportion to how much you know and do.

no NT CEO has had the guts or brains to get this culture out of NT. prior to leaving 3 JCI6's were moved into our team reporting to a JCI6 and having JCI5 peers who also got moved in earlier, JCI4 and JCI3 peers. I know of others who had JCI5s moved into teams managed by a JCI4 with JCI3 peers.

Put the power in the hands of the masses, eh. The same masses that are still trapped in the blame game on Mr. Zero Man. How many of them can look at a big picture [and actually figure out] what the root cause is?

Change.... If I... challenge.. for position, do you vote for me?

If the masses threw all their undies in a big pile and then (color-)blindly, without bias, grabbed one to put back on "Change", as per the definition of these huddled masses, will have been accomplished.

Those who got a clean pair that fit will have gotten a break, while others will, uh, have contirbuted to the greater good of all.

" Its time for Change. Change is good."

At this point, the best thing we can do is flood every site with negative Mike Z reviews. That way when anyone does a Google search on this guy, it will be impossible for anyone to read anything positive. Thank goodness for the internet. We live in the age of where no one can hide anymore and the wisdom of crowds.

Ah, the good old days, when the Internet was only flooded with Global Warming Facts.

The consistantly negative news trumpeting Scorched Earth at the Hands of the Oil Cabal persuaded the masses to vote for Obama. Proving that Dissent and Critical thought is always a Good Thing.

And now I'm about 20 characters away from mentioning Hitler.

I would like to find out how much lump sum executives got when they left Nortel ?
Everything Mike Z. did to Nortel, if it were done opposite way then Nortel would be OK.

give him the line job at a MikeD's and he will screw that up too.

More on this delusional leader:

Point 1: During a conversation he said to me (I quote): “It takes some time to turn around an under-performing company” – and I was stunned. Having been a part of the tech industry during the past two decades I know for a fact that Nortel engineers are anything but under-performers. He did NOT like my follow-up comment: ‘Perhaps it’s not the horses but the jockeys riding them.”

Point 2: After I declined to participate in a social effort that included him but offered my services anyway he berated me in an email stating “I don’t see what you could add if your don’t believe in the initiative.” I recently informed him that I believed in the initiative but chose NOT to be associated with a pretentious leader. The WORST I have ever witnessed! There’s a movie in there someplace…--bb

A strong rumour going around theorizes that Z was actually planted to make sure the business failed. He was brought in during or after (don't know which) the accounting fiasco. The Board of ineptitude knew they were cooked pending the billions they had to pay out, the navel gazing they had commited for years over this instead of focusing on the business itself. They knew this guy could submarine things in a deceitful, manipulative way.
Sounds legit to me?
Again hard to argue.
He was brought in when things were in shambles.
He had nothing to lose but lots to gain, as in money.

I have to agree with the other folks. That would assume a level of competence that Mike does not have.

Nonsense. Don't dilute the spotlight on legitimate issues of incompetence with silly conspiracy theories. None of these incompetent ego-maniacs are doing this on purpose. I guarantee you that even now, these jokers think of themselves as hot-shot leaders and board members caught up in the baggage of their predecessors and the state of the economy.

Trust me, he isn’t that smart; he knew BoD had no choice especially after they paid his Moto ransom fee, after which he knew he could (and did) rape them! All that bullshit about say/do, ethics, and superficial lingo showed his true character – non-existent…--bb

Outrageous!

Though this is completely in line with what we all know about the truth of upper management. Telling outward facing lies such as "employees are our greatest asset" and then turning around and insulting them!

To add INJURY to insult, they consciously decided to remove all severance as a final "FU" to all loyal employees. And yet they still continue with their slave driving calls to "work hard and stay focused".

With the amount of disinformation, propaganda and deceit output by these thugs, they would have had a great future with the Bush administration! Too bad they are now gone... but don't worry, they'll find some place to weasel into!

Sounds like the Mike I "know."

I think the movie has already been written and it is called "The Devil Wears Prada."

Wrong flick; 'Barbarians at the Gate' -- bb

Or perhaps "Gone with the Wind", which is what these criminals will have done once they have completed their destruction of the company!

Wrong again: "Dumb and Dumber."

Rich and richer, sadly..--bb

I insist. Mike Z is the unknown twin of Jack McAllister of "Fun with Dick and Jane" mastered play by Allec Baldwin...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369441/

Mike Z is definitely clueless, but more I think about it I think Nortel's "true" problem is due to the stagnant layer of SVP and VPs. These guys have not changed much over past 5 to 6 years. Their behavior hasn't changed and thus nothing changes underneath. However these guys are masters at cooking the books and feeding whatever looks good to the top brass of the company.

For Nortel to be viable, they need to do some major house cleaning with the VPs.

As they say… corporation are similar to trees with bunch of monkeys sitting on them. For monkeys on the bottom when they look up they see bunch of A$$ H@les. And Monkeys on the top when they look down they see bunch of smiling faces :-) Just some humor for your folks…

Watching CNN-story on Blagojevich (another sorry ass Macedonian) and this is what a keen observer said: “Denial is a key component of coping with disaster.” Given Z’s actions, it makes perfect sense…--bb

Funny. And just like Blago, Mike Z is probably encouraging Hackney with words like "Don't despair, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Mandella had to face these challenges too."

Maybe Mike shouldn't have bragged about sleeping 4 hours a day and running marathons. Perhaps he should have focused on getting some more sleep instead.

I can't argue with any of the points made by the commenters here having seen it as a low level flunky.

Basic leadership problem is that Mike lost trust of pretty much everyone even folks who are true company men. Hackney was the first hit. Then it was the pushing of WiMax and Enterprise at the expense of everyone else. Then it was when he decided to chop everyone's bonus and raise which was understandable except for the 20-25% raise he gave himself and his executive flunkies.

Hard to follow someone who says "Follow me, but you go first."

The GE/Jack Welch swagger of many of his minions, which would have been fine if they did something to back that up, but they didn't.

ETA: Like all those cost reduction projects.
I remember working on a project that saved $150 bucks in a particular product (we may sell around 100 a year max), but cost $50K in manpower and process changes to implement because of all the engineering changes needed.

Six Sigma might have done something (I've worked in places that worked towards it), but he blew the basic premise which is that it is a BOTTOM UP system rather than TOP DOWN. The people working on the said process are the ones who initiate the changes, not the black belts especially black belts who don't know much about the system or the people (especially the internal hires.) But I think Six Sigma is so tainted now at Nortel that there is no point in even trying.

Also, Mike seemed to think that most employees were mere parts in the machine who added nothing and took everything as if we were merely GE factory workers. When he initiated outsourcing of engineering work, he fails to realize that it does take about 2 years of work to consider someone experienced and 5 years to be an expert. We didn't have that time to wait for them to get up to speed and training? Who wants to train their replacement?

The guys in Mexico aren't stupid, but they are inexperienced which is why it took them so long to do anything. A task that takes me a couple hours to complete turns into two weeks of work for someone in Mexico. Sad, but true. If we complained? Nortel directors and VPs didn't want to hear it because Mike didn't want to hear it. I know of several managers who suddenly were drop kicked because they pointed these facts out.

Three years ago, I hoped that Z would have cleaned the upper ranks out (started out well.) He didn't. Ended up keeping a lot of folks who should have gone away.

I have my doubts about Nortel's survival even with new leadership, but I'm pretty sure that we will not survive with Mike and his ex-GE minions at the helm.

Because mikes command of the english language is so lousy he thinks all cultures and ethnicities do everything the same, because he can't discern what sounds good (as in phonics) and what doesn't.
I think McDonalds do a better job at managing than these guys.
Even today rumour is there are all kinds of "useless, overpaid managers" walking the halls, on constant coffee breaks walking with an admin or fellow lackey member of the old boys club collecting his or her six figure salary and poking fun at Mike and what has happened to Nortel. Their typical day is full of philosophizing and BS. They never swept this trash out. At least today these clods carry no power and have no influence (except MAYBE determining who they will layoff so long as it isn't them). Thankfully the banks and the creditors set the table now.

To be fair, I suspect that is describes pretty much a lot of folks including me as despair has kicked in. I don't get as much email as I used to.

AKA Wireline and Supply Chain.

Leadership and performance are two completely independent things.

The guy certainly has all the qualities of great leader. Lets admit it a lot of people believed he could turn Nortel around. (myself included)

Too bad his definition of integrity is distorted.

The fact he looks like a leader doesnt make him one! We were all fooled, myself included...--bb

But he *looks* like a leader. Translated, a great candidate for Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

fe99 - I passionately disagree. I struggle to find ANY qualities of a great leader in Mike Z.

I think he says one thing and does another. He is not a say-do guy.

He is a poor judge of character and hires badly. I need no more evidence of that than his unreasonable loyalty to Hackney.

There is no depth in what he says. He's lost. And everyone on the quarterly results calls knows it.

He doesn't mix easily with people. I would hardly consider him approachable.

He's sneaky and underhanded. The actions he is taking against the current and former employee base is at least reprehensible, if not criminal.

Why did you think he could turn Nortel around? Because he said so? From the time he hired Hackney and Carey, I knew the guy was trouble. And when he added Roese to that list, the path Nortel is on became crystal clear.

Dead on with every one of your points; he is just not the person he PRETENDS to be; I know him and that is a FACT!!!!! As superficial as a Hollywood talent agent, except they know their talent, he doesn't...--bb

Ooops, sorry. I guess based on Mark's request I should have ended my previous comment after the first paragraph. My bad. Passion sometimes overflows these days when it comes to the people who have wrecked Nortel.

P Diddy, Jay Z, T-Pain, Mike Z......this guy has lost the plot

Always the contrarian, I firmly believe that most of you are missing the point. It takes a special kind of leadership to accomplish any/all of the following:

1. Pay investment bankers millions of dollars for a 10-1 reverse split.......and still be threatened with delisting less than two years later.

2. Completely miss the boat on several costly technology bets.

3. Critically mis-time the sale of assets.

4. Consistently maintain that "employees are our most valuable asset" and then consciously decide to deny them promised severance benefits.

5. Declaring bankruptcy with US $2.4B cash.

Now......be perfectly honest with yourselves: You just can't find this rare form of leadership just anywhere! If anything, I think that another bonus and raise is in order for having to make these "difficult but necessary" decisions.

Disingenuity is not leadership.

Agreed, things would have been better if we put a lame dog into power. At least dogs know loyalty.

Mike Z is very loyal to Joel Hackney. I believe the technical term is 'misplaced loyalty'.

So far 80 % says 'TERRIBLE" from a total sample of 563. That is way beyond 'the margin of error'; the people (assuming a lot of former/current employees) have spoken. BoD, are you listening?...—bb

If, for some reason, you don't believe this poll, check out other sources of employee discontent:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Nortel-Network...

Had an 18% "approval" rating last time I checked. That is generous!

<conspiracy hat on>

563. Or is it - 666?

...the 3rd letter of the alphabet... is "C".. theres two of them in the number 6.... "CC" ... 3x3 is 9... the letter "I" ... theres one five.. or rather ... "1 5" .... the15th letter is "O".... hm.. we had one nine so far.. "19" .. the letter "S"

CISCO.

Need more proof? How many triple sixes do you see above? "I see one 666". 1+6+6+6=19... 6+3 = 9... 3x5-6=9... 56/3 = 18.666... rounded up... yep... 19...


Oh and this is the 13th post..........you know... 3x6-5....

Can we have a poll on Hackers leadership and character?

how bout downing and hackney after that "business as usual" GIS i wanted to puke...how can these guys continue to ride employees to "roll up your sleeves" while driving us to the ground.

Personally, I think this is akin to abuse, and we should all do a day where we go on strike, prove to Mike , Hackney and the rest of them we are integral to the success of the company!

oops, kindly forgive my not reading inhibiting a flame out fest as I took the poll after posting <blush>

What leadership skills?

It would be like asking how good of an engineer was Bill Dunn, the accountant.

Mike was not a visionary lacking the evangelically charged charisma of Mr. Chambers. He was a black belt six sigma ninja axe-man.

Mike was not hired for his leadership skills. Ironically, in a leadership role that was very hard for Nortel to fill. Mike hired for his axe-cutting track record further to a plan Nortel already in place he later parroted. I say "axe cutting track record" like recruiting a bad salesman from a golden territory given the results. Albeit, in all fairness, within the confines of what he had to work with but a good sailor does not blame bad weather for tanking his boat.

Nortel also paid a steep premium ($37M first year) to compensate Mike for his defrauding and having to repay his past employer on several written occasions while agreeing not to recruit any of their people. This was from day one following their accounting malaise and could not come at a worse time for a company that was struggling to regain credibility.

He downplayed revisions that doubled, downplayed folding before folding, and even promoted than fired his green pal Hackney replacing a veteran, and to their employees outrage and horror.

Needles to say he did restoring credibility no favors and quite the contrary amid endless contradictions we can detail with many pages of diatribe.

When presenting their financial numbers, he reiterated transparency like it was a privilege than a right. The SEC finally, finally, monitored their long, long, long, extended repair of numbers before they folded.

He even flew to NY when Nortel product went down at a media company to hand-hold. It was not his job to technically intervene at this capacity trying to be everything to everyone. At least Owens traveled the globe to cut deals.

The green team missing in action during the telecom wars, were team tripping over their feet, replacing a departed and disgraced dream team who perhaps operated more dispassionately albeit both were directionless lacking a plan and qualitative leadership skills from the onset. From directionless dispassion to questionable energy and ability, contributed if not resulted in bankruptcy and delisting. Harshly, results remain the same, actions spoke louder than words.

How many people at the top really understand telecom with so many Chiefs and so few indians under them in what Mike termed "crazy levels".

Understandably, Mikey's leadership skills are as a green first time CEO are also reflected in his recent request for employees to try harder just before folding, like they were slacking or there was anything they could do to influence extrinsic forces.

He delegates to megalomaniac /Mr. Stern clone, Joel Hack who appears more confident yet his message is even more ambiguous and less understood like he has marbles in his mouth. Not even a good politician.

Even Mike's axe cutting skills were acquired from a BSc base and not an MBA, with a fraction of his predecessors academic credentials, and the lowest since Bill Dunn the accountant up on fraud charges.

On the other hand, Mike climbed the ranks in a foreign country with a special ability to learn and grow. He appears to be of stellar moral character and honesty if actions didn't speak louder than words, thanks to Nortel. He is a very lovable by anyone who meets him and I have not seen the less tolerant side of "red ears" like his pal Joel who was criminally charges for assaulting a young girl out of road rage.

It is for no lack of effort he can perhaps be blamed for than the evil empire that hired him to present ultimatum, after slandered Gary, with a reluctance to chase past officers. He chose to represent Nortel in this green CEO role and hence join their demise and disgrace.

I would love to know off the record and in confidence if Mike today feets it was all worth it.

that's Frank Dunn, the accountant that had a plan for himself to get the kind of remuneration that John Roth got back in the day..........

I see that my, Mike's and Joel's votes were counted!

This poll is bad for one reason, to vote on his leadership skills, one would assume that he has leadership skills.

Mike does have one skill. He is an absolute master of spin. Although it was so obvious that it didn't take long for him to lose all credibility very quickly. And when the Black Belts showed up in our department on their fact finding / opinion making missions, and told us that "training has already been proven to not make a difference" we knew we were in serious trouble under this "leadership".

So, I've been a lurker her for quite a while. I'm not currently associated with Nortel, although I have a lot of past involvement there.

'Everybody' seems to think that the current management and Board are disasters; I agree. But nobody seems to be doing anything about it, save complaining.

According to Google Finance, the market capitalization of NT is currently south of $50M. There are currently about 25K employees. By my calculations, if every employee ponied up about $2000, they could buy the company. (I know it's not quite that simple, but it's not totally impossible either.) Then they could fire the BoD, all of the despised senior management, and start all over again.

I realise that this might be like herding cats, but it might put a little more power into the hands of the people who care the most about NT. Just need someone to orchestrate it all.

Not as simple as that. Remember the liabilities (billions) in the balance sheet. That has to be taken into consideration.

Unfortunately, once Mike is gone from Nortel he willl end up being bailed out with a nice cush job from a GE crony on another board of directors when he truthfully belongs in jail for fraud.

Agreed. The treatment of the recently layoff employees by offering voluntary leaver packages with severance payment and in particular by delaying their severance payments perfectly knowing that creditor protection is only days/hours away IS NOTHING SHORT OF FRAUD.
And FRAUD is an ELEMENT OF CRIME at least where I live. I can only encourage the affected employees to talk to prosecution to present their case. As bb said (on a different subject) DO SOMETHING!
This can't stand. Stopping Z here willl serve 2 purposes a) get your payment and b) force the BOD to finally kick this then convicted peacockish bungler.
Enough is enough!

Why do we even bother with this poll ?. Everyone knows the result already.