What would Bill and Dave Do?
HP has a culture problem.
Put aside for a moment the (probably illegal) methods used to obtain the personal phone records of the HP board members.
Yes, HP’s private detectives were using social engineering and pretexting, but honestly, does it surprise you to hear that a senior executive got carried away trying to identify their secret “enemies”? Didn’t think so.
The surprising part is that this wasn’t an Oracle (sending private investigators out dumpster diving for evidence) or an Apple (filing lawsuits and requesting subpoenas to learn the names of leakers), or some other Valley company built around tightly controlling founders.
The surprising part is that this was at HP, the company formerly known as “Hewlett-Packard”, where by tradition Bill Hewlett left his change on his desk, demonstrating his trust in his co-workers. This is like expecting Gerald Ford and getting Richard Nixon.
HP has been getting its act back together for the past year. Less talking, more doing. This affair won’t have any short term effect on the operation of the company. But it how it is resolved (or not) will have a long lasting effect on the internal values of the organization and the external perception of the company by partners, customers, and competitors.
If Patty Dunn worked for Mark Hurd, I think he would be nearly obligated to fire her at this point, or at least move her to the “penalty box” of sidelined executives. However, board directors aren’t exactly employees, and she’s the chair. It’s difficult to fire your boss.
But…would you want to do business with (or work for) a company whose management thinks it’s OK to conduct illegal searches because it thinks you did something it doesn’t like?
What would Bill and Dave do? (After they stop spinning in their graves.)
Yes, I know it’s a vastly different company now. That’s a good thing. This is still wrong.
More at Newsweek, MSNBC, Smoking Gun, TechDirt, Fred’s House, Infectious Greed, Intuitive Life
Tags: hp, hpq, hwp, business, siliconvalley, culture, corporate, governance, management, ethics, privacy
