Editorial: Yahoo! Reprehensible Ya-hooligans

Maybe important

The sacking of Carol Bartz, the CEO of Yahoo! yesterday most definitely had great effect, the markets were hoopla as the almost 3 year tenure of the lady came to an abrupt end.

Now, Yahoo! had to do what they had to do having seen that she had failed to appreciably turn around the fortunes of the company but it would be remiss of observers to think that the CEO runs a company like a fiefdom without the team that constitutes the board and management of that organisation.

Appalling action

However, none of that bothers me as much as the manner of sacking of this lady; she was apparently sacked over the phone. The excuse being proffered was that she was on the other side of the country and the most immediate contact that could be made to deliver this “world-ending” news was to deliver it over the phone.

I am not persuaded in the slightest of this view, for all the cut-throat competition and the cut-and-thrust of corporate politics it would be rather unfortunate if the basic tenets of good manners, courtesy, decorum, gentlemanliness and I dare say chivalry were lost for the expediency of pleasing the market.

At worst, the immediate and prompt summoning of Carol Bartz to an emergency board meeting to deliver the news to her in person is the least that should have been expected of those who by circumstance might have been highly fed, lowly taught and quite lacking in breeding.

Apes on boards

This masterstroke of palace coups ranks high in the annals of ignominy and will not have Yahoo! shooting up the charts of the next best company to work for; the callousness of sacking a colleague of such importance by such clinically repugnant tactics does make the men involved appear to fit better in an ape colony than in the company of polite society.

I will expect any Yahoo! employee with the slightest dignity and honour to be considering the precariousness of their positions if this could happen to their CEO.

One can only wish that this type of reprehensible behaviour does not become the staple of boardroom putsches where cads on executive boards begin to give much credence to the one funny play on Yahoo! – Ya-hooligans, this sort just make your skin crawl.