It’s Not Just Mike Z.’s Fault

So let me get this straight. over 40 years in the US, over 25 years in claimed President and CEO positions (a lie since only top post he held was COO at Motorola), this guy speaks like he is an F-O-B just getting here to shore.

Here it is ... in Mike's own, rambling, disjointed and barely coherent words ... the three things that he would have done differently to avoid Chapter 11 / CCAA. The question was poised by an employee in the Treasury department during the Q&A session of the global GIS on January 14, 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRRRmKO26zU

good post...Clearly it shows he didn't have to clue as to even what to do in the first place much less what he would have done differently. Most good CEO's begin selling parts of a company to raise cash in a good economy because they know that parts won't draw as much cash in a bad economy. Anyone that couldn't see economic disaster coming in 2006 or 2007 didn't have a clue as to how debt/credit and the economy work. Instead of managing for 3-5 years out, he was managing for the next day at best and to the tip of his nose at worst.

He did everything ass-backwards when it comes to strategies for growing a company long-term.

Mike Zafirovski Resume

Keywords: incompetent, incapable, inept, ignorant, incoherent, liar, untrustworthy, GE, offshore, cost reduction, Lean Six Sigma, unable, cannot, did not, fail, dishonest, pirate, thief, Judas, traitor, $$$$, Hackney, assault, young woman, anger management, quit, loser, stubborn, arrogant, unqualified

Feel free to add to what I've missed.

rich :>, fake, copy cat, incompetent, indecisive, inarticulate, mumble, follower, sociopath, egotistical, unimaginative, average intelligence, indiscrete, double standard, old boy network, uninspiring, embarrassment, non-technical, uncompassionate, poor execution, bad copy of Jack Welch, no telecom experience, no strategy, no apology, no severance, misleading statements prior to Ch 11, bad timing …

one word failure sums it up.

Smirking, puzzled, double-talker, double-crosser....

I forgot smug and aloof.

Right. and what about delusional? egocentric? Napoleon complex?

Agreed the board didn't do much but at the end of the day it was Mike Z that was tasked with overhauling the company from the moment he was hired in November 2005. He did NOTHING from the time he came on to the time bankruptcy was declared. He blames the credit crisis but what about all of 2006 and 2007 and into the summer of 2008 ? The truth of the matter is his incompetence and lack of understanding did not allow him to make the changes necessary to rescue Nortel. He truly deserves the title of worst CEO of the decade. There were likely many other hires that the board could have made and Nortel would be alive and well. Instead they, specifically Pearce, spearheaded the hiring of Z to rescue Nortel. Given that nothing was done until by Z until it was too late, it makes you wonder if he just sat by as the company went down. There were no strategic changes or major acquisitions or asset sales until it was too late. There was literally no leadership from the CEO's office when it came to understand where Nortel was at in 2005 when he took over. He simply ran the company as is with no changes.

in mike's defense, he facilitated the sale of wireless and enterprise. glad to be parting ways with "colleagues" such as scalp peeler.

dumofski = macedonian for dumb

I think Mike Z tried and failed, because he is NOT ONLY STUPID BUT ALSO A LIAR. He flatly denied about Chap 11 and then it did happen. He mentioned that Nortel would come out of Ch 11 and truly it was never the plan. He is a LIAR, PERIOD. He is also incapable of big change, such as selling wireless and/or raising cash from stock, at least, or from Canadian GOVT. His only solution was to cut employees. He tried but he was dumber than a bag of hammer.

to sum it up since the others share a small percentage of the blame.

Roth started the right angle turn steering the Nortel car on two wheels. So pwerful was the screeching and squealing of tires that he got thrown out the window. Then Dunn took over but could not control it, so it went off the road almost hitting an 18 wheeler. Dunn got thrown out the window in the violent lurching, so Owens took over the wheel. But he thought the beaten up rusty little hatchback was an Abrams tank. He tried to take it through rough terrain but the poor car just could not keep up. Then Z took over but he fell asleep at the wheel so he hit a concrete wall head on of debt, old products and no profit. He got saved with the airbag so he left.

The BoD all the time was in the back seat munching on chips and drinking as much free coke as they could. The car is now in a chopshop junkyard retrieving spare parts.

The rest of the innocent passengers are in hospital fighting for their lives. Some may live but most are not expected to survive.

IF THIS HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE, ALL THE DRIVERS WOULD BE CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER. THE LAST DRIVER WOULD BE CHARGED WITH FIRST DEGREE AND PUT AWAY FOR LIFE WITH NO PAROLE. IN THE US, POSSIBLY THE ELECTRIC CHAIR.

In the middle ages in the UK peple were sometimes "hung by the neck until dead" for minor offences such as stealing a sheep. This doesn't happen any more. The pendulum has swung as far as it can the other way so that someone who wrecks a 100 year old corporation on which thousands of people depend for their livelihood, their pensions, their health, goes away scott free.

bang on. this guy would be sent to an inquisition, witch hunt or a painful interrogation period in the old days. if the Canadian parliament questioning made him sweat like a pig, he'd be taking a crapper.

the present age rewards CEOs for doing nothing. mostly american behavior. no longer is the emphasis on building companies to last, being a real leader for employees, trust, loyalty ... these mean nothing. now it is grab as much cash as you can then move on.

it is amazing to see japanese ceos shocked at the amount of pillage these top people in the US made during the bailout, mortgage crisis.

The demise of Nortel can be summed up in 3 words
Incompetency, Greed and Ego

To the Board of no Direction,
Hopefully you got what you were looking for to get rich. Please make sure take a number, you may have all the comforts of life here in earth but in hell the prices for the AC, it is going to be pretty high and is going to be pretty hot there for all of you, enjoy the stay!!!!

its too bad to know about that.. well i have nothing to say with Nortel it is just i like that i like the article..

I was always amazed at Nortel's board, at how it had let the company grow so haphazardly, how quiet and ineffective it was. And most of all, how it never cared about net profit. It chased share valuation in Roth's day... "revenue is king" was the cry then, not profit. And once the share market & boom crashed as Roth cashed his gift shares and ran away at high speed - all of which was an entirely predictable thing for any board - they didn't change tack, they just kept going at it. Until it was too late...
Even the most basic governance issues. Expand to a new market? No worries, don't leverage what we do everywhere else, he's a bucket of money, you start everything from scratch. As any fool knows, that bred thousands of unconnected IT and management systems and huge additional costs... they spent years figuring that out, and left it until too late to try doing anything about it. It's fine to run a multinational like a gaggle of totally individual companies when there's profit to support it. But there never was at Nortel. Having worked in other multinationals, I was always astounded how separate the Finance function and all it's tools were. Any other company, they were part of the team. Not in Nortel (most places), they were a separate universe. No wonder they got the accounting so messed up so often. Again, entirely predictable for all other boards.

Oh of course, I forgot to mention the biggy: the Nortel boards rubber stamping of so many pointless and expensive acquisitions. The majority of which were duds. I sitll laugh at Clarify... did anyone actually believe or understand what it had to do with Nortel's business, let alone it's valuation? Bought for a billion, flogged off in one of their many fire sales for a tenth of the price a year later. One of many. A series of very ineffective boards over time, never cared for profit, incapable of recognizing the BS in their own balance sheets.

look at the board: bunch of underachieving good ole canadian boys and gals there. they couldnt spell telecom, technology or GAAP earnings, between the lot of them.

Used to be roughly 50/50% US/Canadian. Very ineffective anyway.

ya same here, Clarify... when we had Bill Conner as president of the eBusiness unit. We killed a very good software company... no one in Nortel could even spell software sales at the time, what a mess. Amdocs picked it up for a song.

What is this? "Hardship Application Process"

Is it available to all employees? Or only executives, like bonuses and every other perk.

You know, many people, at least is the US, aren't far from the verge of taking to the streets. Have you seen some of the townhall coverage on healthcare and how upset, vocal and, in some cases, physical people are? If the economy gets much worse, people may well rob from Peter (or Mike or Joel or Richard) to pay their bills and put food on the table. They will deliver the justice that government and due process has not.

People have "had it" with exorbitant salaries and bonuses while seeing their own severances and livelihoods stolen out from under them - legally, thanks Judge Gross. Maybe the French have it right. Maybe street protests and demonstrations are what we need in the US, and possibly Canada, to make a stand for the working taxpayer?

I admire the French for taking action to hold Nortel accountable.

I thought much of the strike, protests and demonstrations showed imagination, a sense of humour in grim circumstances and determination. I’m glad they recieved some small justice.

However, threatening to blow up a building is terrorism, and terrorism is not an acceptable path to achieve your goal.

You may find out the informations on the ERNST & YOUNG REPORTS .
A process of "Application for Hardship Payments" set up by the Bankruptcy
Court in Ontario,Canada.
It is intended only for " former employee..." etc.. etc..
One must prove his NORTEL GLOBAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER.. ( like your
Employee Number )
I could hardly wait to get a hold of $750,000 CDN dollars payments...
That's ONLY IF, I AM QUALIFIED and BECOME A SUCCESSFUL APPLICANT!!!

You see my friends..... there is this English word.... "DENIED!!!" ha ha ha!
or ..."WISHFUL THINKING"

I am beginning to think now.. that I WAS BEING punished by GOD for working
30 years for this company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND IF EVER I GET THIS $$$,$$$... ALL THE PEOPLE BLOGGING ON THIS SITE WILL BE INVITED FOR A "FREE BEER" !!! (name the brand of your taste)
Canadian Beer, or American Beer or any name brand beer on the planet!'
And for the VENUE..... How about, let's say... NIAGRA FALLS!!! and if the
weather is great... we can all have a free ride on the 'MAID OF THE MIST' boat
tour ride that will take us near the FALLS! he he he he!

Dream On!!! Dudes!!! Take Care ya'll and MAY THE "FORCE" BE WITH YOU!

Obamas plan is steal money from the middle class and rich and give it to the poor.
Priority is on children and middle class over seniors.

Can anyone confirm if Mr. Bill Owens got his obscene severance package
of more than $2 million dollars? Maybe he got his money? Life is not fair!

I heard the admiral got a lifes supply of captain crunch and DVD's with the entire series of Mister Rogers Neighbourhood. I think the captain moonilghted as mister rogers.

You are an imbecile

Are we playing name calling.
You are a ***t.
You can figure that one out.

Herr Scalppeeler,

stillNT wasn't engaging in name calling.

Just stating a fact that is obvious to everyone on the blog, but you.

The 6 BoD's who resigned? Are they considered Nortel employees?
Are they eligible and can file for the Hardship Application Process worth a max of
$750,000 CDN dollars, too?

I have nothing left to say about nortel. But I like the look of the new blog.

As most expected:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-busine...


Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday he's not about to take any extraordinary measures to block the sale of Nortel assets to foreign buyers.

The deal includes a commitment to employ 800 Canadians from Nortel.

“This transaction will be examined under the Investment Canada Act,” Mr. Harper said.

“There is a process in place to ensure that the transactions are examined when they are of significant size, and to ensure that they are in Canada's national interest. That process will be respected.”

“But we will certainly not be bringing forward any kind of legislation to increase protectionism in terms of foreign investment in Canada,” Mr. Harper said.

“At a time when we are trying to open markets globally, we obviously don't intend to go down the path of advancing further protectionism through legislation.”

The Liberals and New Democrats have been asking the Harper government to scrap the deal, arguing it would put cutting-edge Canadian technology in foreign hands.

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has made a similar appeal. Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement was non-committal earlier about any action to block the sale to Ericsson.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM-T79.40-0.30-0.38%) , which has expressed an interest in acquiring some of Nortel's assets, including those to be sold to Ericsson, welcomed the prime minister's comments.

“Through his comments today, the prime minister has acted in a way that could facilitate an outcome that serves the interests of all parties and of Canada,” RIM said in statement.

From all the years I did work at Nortel, I was always asking myself that question: how can this company comes up with a profit with all this money thrown out the doors:

- Highly paid employees
- Tons of managers
- Bonuses, options etc thrown all over the place, gifts, overtime paid like crazy, free party's for all employees
- Super health care protection package
- Very low productivity in general

This company was never managed to make money and in fact they didn't for the last 10 years. To bad so sad : bankruptcy was just the obvious ending !

I find it interesting you blame employees for all the failures....you should go work for Hackney

- Going for movies on company time
- Sitting and chatting away at the coffee shop
- Arbitarily working from home playing hookie
- Taking twice the time to finish work i.e. sandbagging
- Non technical management who only creat slide packages

one career for nortel employees: microsoft powerpoint, excel and word training

I wish I worked during the glory days of "bonuses, options etc thrown all over the place, gifts, overtime paid like crazy, free party's for all employees" instead of having to pay $6.50 for a hamburger + pop + chips for a company BBQ. Seriously take the millions in bonuses and subtract $5000, and make 1500-2500 people happy for once.

but also, I don't think the things you mentioned are that bad. A good employee should get bonuses and raises. And there should be parties for employees. But bad employees shouldn't get bonuses and raises. rewarding people for intelligence and innovation is what makes the top companies top companies. the remove of incentives is what spawns low productivity. On top of that the major issue is the culture where everyone is constantly scared of their jobs. Managers don't want employees working on innovative ideas that are outside the scope of their day jobs which means employees are not working on things they find personally interesting. Everyone is so scared since they might be the next the axe falls on. it is a death spiral. why do you think google is successful because they don't pay well, have less managers, don't give out bonuses , have basic health care ? nope, the reason they do well is simply 20% rule. 20% of their week they actually can work on their own projects. That is what separates a good company from bad in this current 2000 + era.

yes too many ineffective managers..they need to be more sales driven

The beast is still kicking, but might as well get the post mortems going...

What do BoD's really do anyway...aside from being flown around the globe to sip JD's while sucking on a Cuban.!!? Does anyone really think a BoD appointment is more than recognition for prior 'services' rendered!

The current BoD, along with previous, definately did not perform to the roll they are theoretically paid for.

And again, I underline my opinion that the real devil in the demise of Nortel was John Roth... The right hand turn man who took the company into a right hand death spiral, leaving it financially weakened and unable to survive the series of mini crisis faced over the last decade.

Yes, blame Z for failing at the turn around he was hired for; blame the current and past BoD's; blame Dunn for scandals past; blame Chandran for bailing when he was needed most; but don't forget to blame Roth for creating the slide into oblivion...

All these guys have 'telecom experience.' Each can attest that they have used either a wire-based or wireless-based telephones once or more in their lives.

Therefore, they are all qualified.

If Mike succeeded then he would take all the praise so given he has failed he can take all the blame.

As far as the BOD is concerned, every time I looked at them I would wonder how few of them had telecoms experience and how they all looked so old, tired and yesterday....i mean they ll look like they need pacemakers to stay alive.

i also love how the execs trump up their credibility by mentioning all the places they worked at ... do you think they will mention Nortel in that list next time their ugly faces are put up on another web site?

If Mike succeeded then he would take all the praise so given he has failed he can take all the blame.
===
so very true.

The seven deadly sins that killed Nortel.
Let's make it eight to round out to an even number.

John Roth
Frank Dunn and his accouting fiasco.
Failure to fire/layoff tens of thousands that were kept around far too long, and still are in some cases, who just pulled in big salaries but did nothing.
The Board of Directors. Specifically John Manley.
Mike and Senior Execs.
The federal gov't.
The provincial gov't.
Municipal gov't.

Scalp:

Agree with you. However you should also add Clarance Chandran to the list. More like John Roth/Clarance Chandran and their mindless acquisitions.

BTW...r u based in Ottawa?

Nortel laid-off more people at a faster rate than any other company in history and it's still going on, so I don't agree with that point. I agree with most of your other points, although, I doubt John Manley was on the BoD long enough to do any damage. He should never have accepted the invitation because he knew nothing about the business and his only value was his political connections, which he wasn't able to cash-in on when it counted. For that stupidity, he deserves blame. Harry Pearce certainly deserves a good portion of the BoD blame. He should have been put out to pasture eons ago.

I meant to say that Nortel went on a huge hiring spree, hiring anybody and their grandmother. I believe they were up to 120k or so at one time?
If they had of been more active in cutting back jobs 10 to 15 years ago maybe things would have ended up different? But as noted that was just one sin.

120K employees? I'm not following. The municipal government? Hello?

Surely there is an algorithm to determine Z's "share of the blame" for Nortel's ultimate downfall -- I'm guessing 70-85%, at least. They could have restructured debt in BK had they wanted.

A good Master's thesis, to determine the impact of CEO based upon an algorithm, akin to the Z-Score (of no relationship to Zudas):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Score_Financial_...

The board had NO BALLS! They would not make any forward looking ( maybe radical ) decisions... when the two Cisco Gary's went to the board and proposed the sale of a devision or two and then take the proceeds to buy Juniper, we would have been in much better shape... No balls, no game.

Riedel came from Juniper as "strategy officer". One would have thought he'd have enough expertise to see through a merger of Nortel and Juniper.

Who was paid $30 million to come on board as CEO?

Who was in charge of the company for the past 3 years?

Who was responsible for a viable business plan?

Who should have had a strategic vision to take the company to?

Who focused the company on the wrong track of priorities?

Who continued to invest millions in the wrong products killed shortly after?

Who kept saying the company was doing well when it was not?

Who brought in and kept incompetent management?

Who threw in the towel instead of seeing this through?

There is one and only one answer. We all know what that is.

Yes ! Mr. Zeroman...

How I wished that these questions should be asked in a Public Inquiry!
Will there be one? and who will initiate it?

only country who should care is Canada - chances of that happening are as good as not having a winter.

this is true! It IS NOT his fault!!!! and don't you forget it!
He never lied about stock earnings and caused the turmoil 10yrs ago!
Also, he did not cause the economy to go to crap..he has only tried to help!

Mike, your cmorenortel handle is clever.

it's his wife or kid. Mike does not have the guts to get on this board.

has he left for the US (ooops Mexico) yet.

That's what I think. Sounds like they are written by a relative, and/or perhaps someone fairly young.

Where is he going? To Los Cabos to throw some of his 10 mil around town?

Pleas explain what he did right. Our pruducts are so far behind because of the lack of investment. I work in CVAS the only market we are #1 in, but was treated as legacy. No major improvements to the platform since sn06. Please explain..

Nortel is #1 in IVR as well. It has been #1 in messaging but I am not sure if that is still the case. CVAS is #1 because it had an early start. The product is way too complex though, I am not sure if the architecture is sound enough to survive some major rework.
In my opinion, Nortel R&D has been stagnating. In the last 10 years, there have been two innovative products release:
1) MCS
2) ICP

MCS is a great product but the Nortel politics never let it get off the ground. Really a shame because we had such a lead on our competitors. That product was developed many years ago and its still ahead of many competitive products in the market place.
ICP is a great product but the timing was bad. Came out right before the bankruptcy announcement. Not sure if it will ever get a fair chance unfortunately given the timing and the confusion on ACE.

Also, do you think Z skating out will cause your BU to attract less money in the way of bids than if he were still at the helm of this sinking ship?

Hey ex_roadtrash, you're spot on. CVAS has ben treated as the leper all these years while Mike wasted cash on Wimax and other flops, yet this product line has steadily brought in cash from the large DMS footprint and the new opportunities that footprint opened to get succession products into customer sites.

ex_roadtrash,

Just curious, since CVAS in #1 in its market, do the people in your BU from the director on down feel less threatened by layoffs UNTIL a buyer for the BU is announced or is the layoff threat just as strong for you as for those working in other BUs?

I would rate ALU a big chance in going for CVAS

No, we are all vunerable, but we just do not expect massive layoffs. We are pretty lean now. Also we are #1 market share because ALU did not delevope a Class 5 softswitch. They where smart and went for the FIOS. Also because we did not invest in the CS2K, our Teir #1 customer are not exactly happy with us. If a large vendor came along with a true Class 5 Softswitch, we would not be #1 for long. We are hoping a Vendor lead by Telecom folks will see the value, continue delevopling the move to Blade Servers with the VSE s/w.
There a 4k Class 5 DMS in NA alone, and probably as many 5E. Somebody has to be able to make some $ replacing all of that.

GO AWAY.

You are wasting your time, and ours with your clueless remarks. You sound like a 2 year old. "and don't you forget it!" , ha, ha, how old are you??

crawl back under

Wow, thanks for the reply. How about answering any of the other replies to your posts? The ones where I and others asked you to back up any, any at all, of your claims that Mike Z has no responsibility in what happened, and he is a good and decent man, and he worked harder than anyone else in the whole company, etc, etc. etc.
Or, just answer ex_roadtrash's question that was just sent. Everyone is curious about the claims you have made, and why, other than it's just your opinion, based on feelings and zero facts.

no but he did say that buying Nortel shares at $19 were a good "buying opportunity"


this man still does not realize the implications of his ignorance.

or Hackney taking Enterprise to a new level over a veteran. Good point Doc =)

It's much more than Mike Z and the board. The trouble started during John Roth's time. Nortel spent a lot of money acquiring companies that it couldn't integrate with much success. Nortel never cared to make profit or balance it books even during boom time. It didn't care financing vendors even if they didn't have good credit rating ... or any credit rating at all! Nortel also hired a lot of people that didn't have the qualifications that were once needed to join BNR. Anyone who took a six month course in programming would be hired! A lot of folks also got promoted to Director and above positions that shouldn't actually heave been in the company in the first place! This resulted in slow and poor decision making. When it came time for layoffs, folks that were really good and passionate about their work were let go 'cos they always challenged the mediocre decisions. Folks that were good in networking (and not work) were the ones that made good career progress at Nortel. In general, contribution wasn't really rewarded as it should have been and the bad performance (e.g. failing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects) wasn't really taken seriously. There are folks who have failed one project after other, sucked resources from other successful projects hereby crippling them in the process, and causing multi-billion dollar loss to the company (not to mention opportunity loss)! Such folks still continue to be there - Why? There are folks who create JV based on false premise and when the JV is nixed they get promoted - Why? How can one think that the blame only goes to one person alone? Mike Z sucked, but if he's the only one to blame then we'll giving too much credit to him!

* Nortel also hired a lot of people that didn't have the qualifications that were once needed to join BNR.

* Folks that were good in networking (and not work) were the ones that made good career progress at Nortel.

* When it came time for layoffs, folks that were really good and passionate about their work were let go 'cos they always challenged the mediocre decisions.

Every single point here is spot on.

there were so many incompetent and inept fools at nortel.

People like Ashoka Valia cost the company hundreds of millions in India and are still around making bad indecision after indecision. Many others just like him.

So sad

It's over.

Close this blog down.

MC

Mark, lets not all be "Good Canadian Boy Scouts" and spread the blame around just to make people feel nice. Mike was hired as a turnaround CEO and paid highly. He screwed up big time, and he was in charge. The Board can be faulted for hiring him in the first place, but the failures of strategy and execution are in the CEO domain ie Mike Z. The board's other big failures were hiring Dunn, letting Dunn play with the numbers, and firing the Gary's.

MikeZ did precisely what the board hired him to do.

They believed that Nortel's only problem was perception around the accounting nonsense and all Nortel needed was a 'steady-hand' and a credible CEO. Which is exactly what the got with MikeZ. His appointment was initially well received.

They vetoed any change to Nortel's strategy. They believed that Nortel needed to remain a 'tier 1' provider by continuing to do everything telecom increasingly poorly. This precluded Nortel focusing on anything and actually having any chance of being successful.

A patient (Nortel) walks into an oncologist (the Garys) who says 'look, you feel ok now but this is serious, you need chemo etc'. The patient's guardian (BoD) says 'nay I'll get a second opinion'. So they go to a naturopath (MikeZ) who says 'all anyone every needs is some herbs'. Guardian says 'that sounds much better' and the end is inevitable.

One can blame the naturopath I suppose but personally I'd blame the guardian. The naturopath did precisely what he claimed he would do and what he was asked to do.

"naturopath did precisely what he claimed he would do and what he was asked to do"
------------------------------
re

If that's so, what was behind all of his claims to be able turn things around? That phrase does not at all exemplify someone who is going to just right a capsized ship and proceed to calm waters captaining a boat as a figure-head for the board. Turnaround signifies taking action. When you "turnaround" you are changing direction, not just keeping the status quo. BTW as stated- he said he would be able to turn things around, and failed miserably so he did not do precisely what he claimed he would do.

Quibbling perhaps but 'turnaround' is a consequence not an action. A doctor's actions are 'do a bunch of medical stuff' resulting in (hopefully) the consequence that the patient gets better.

The MikeZ there was an absurd disconnect. His actions (L6S, outsourcing,...) could not possibly have had the desired and claimed consequence ('turnaround').

While MikeZ seems incapable of seeing this, the board should have.

Agreed. Dumb and Dumber.

So, under your scenario, Mike is either stupid or unethical. If he agrees with the board that it is execution, he is stupid. If he disagrees but stays on regardless, he is unethical because he is not discharging his responsibility as CEO. Neither characterization is flattering but my point was that he was stupid.

I think he is mostly out of touch with reality.

I see the GE way as a cult and MikeZ is a true believer. It gives the 'one true way' of managing. I believe he believes he did the right thing.

One could certainly characterize this as 'stupid'. At very least the desire to join a cult and be given 'the' Truth is an 'interesting' psychological condition.

Mike was hired as a turnaround CEO and paid highly. He screwed up big time, and he was in charge

but the failures of strategy and execution are in the CEO domain ie Mike
===============
Exactly.

Yeah...

Turnaround and bend over....

I totally agree that Dunn was the biggest killer of this company. We were on the rise then, things were settling down from the Internet bubble bust... I will never forget being at the Sales Conference in Dallas, when Dunn to the stage to a roar of cheers - he was a hero, he claimed profits not in the millions but the 100s of millions.... and we all know where it went from there... The Gary's had it right, but the board had NO BALLS!