Carly Fiorina's HP: Flash, Style and Little
Execution
Substance or style? Flash or execution? Great content or slick delivery skills?
Which would you choose?
Well, if allowed to make the choice on behalf of my clients, I wouldn't make any
choice. I want my clients to have it all... substance and style.. flash and execution...
content and delivery. But few of us can actually have it all. Most mere
mortals need to make decisions about our top priorities, and what we focus on first.
The recently-ousted Carly Fiorina of HP is the latest example from Corporate America
of an executive who may have chosen poorly.
Ms. Fiorina took over at HP more than five years ago amidst fanfare and strong support
from the Board of Directors. She was exactly what the Board wanted – a strong
personality not afraid to be a public figure or think big. They wanted some star
power and attention for their seemingly staid technology company. She immediately
restructured the company, and revamped the entire marketing effort. She inserted
herself into early ad campaigns, got out on the lecture circuit, and copied the Apple
model of hiring celebrities for their marketing - Gwen Stefani, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck,
Sheryl Crow, Alicia Keys, and U2 all stumped for HP products.
In the short term, the strategy may have done some good. A quick look at HP's stock
price in the first 18 months of Ms. Fiorina's reign shows a 50+% increase. Not bad.
But was this the last remnants of a rising tech tide, or was HP actually producing
strong results? Eventually, a failed takeover of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2001,
the ill-fated purchase of Compaq in 2002 and an ongoing price war with Dell spelled
doom for HP and Ms. Fiorina. Again, a quick look at the stock price tells the score
- HP was trading north of $40 per share when she took over and was less than half
that upon her departure.
What was really going on here? Well, as with most examples from Corporate America,
plenty of things most likely. But from a communication standpoint, a few things are
clear to me. From the outset of her tenure, Ms. Fiorina seemed focus on making a
spectacle of herself. She was a regular on the lecture circuit, put herself front
and center in the new marketing campaign, and clearly was trying to create a bit
of a Jobsian cult of personality. I have even read that she had her own portrait
hung in the lobby of HP's corporate headquarters, right next to the portraits of
two guys named Hewlett and Packard.
What I draw from the story of HP and Ms. Fiorina is that a focus on flash and style
is fine, as long as you have the substance taken care of first. Substance without
style still can be effective. Style without substance is eventually exposed. Instead
of making the rounds on the lecture circuit, perhaps Ms. Fiorina should have focused
on the fact that HP was in a PC price war with Dell, a company that sells direct
to the end user, and has a lower cost structure. Perhaps this was the wrong company
to be in a price war with. Perhaps HP should have stuck to its knitting, so to speak,
and stayed with the things it already did well. Perhaps Ms. Fiorina should have saved
the jet-set trips to the global business conferences until after she delivered some
long-term results. Perhaps she was putting the speech before the result, the Wall
Street equivalent of putting the cart before the horse.
Do I sound frustrated? Well, good. I am. I used to be an HP shareholder. But I also
am a student of effective communication. And Ms. Fiorina has provided all of us with
a prime example of what you get with lots of flash, plenty of style and little execution.
 Beacon Issue -
March 2005
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