We hear a lot about the highs of chief executives, but not so much about the lows. In a real coup, Fortune snared a trio of former top dogs, David Neeleman of JetBlue, Ed Zander of Motorola and Jim Donald of Starbucks, and got them to talk about their lost jobs and dreams.
Telling their families of their lost jobs was one of the hardest parts. Donald talks about trying to let his mother down easy after he got fired, but she made it easier for him. Neeleman recalls having to tell his wife at the same time that her mother had just died.
Neeleman talks about the debilitating effects of the quick and high rise of oil prices. He also says that he didn't realize the importance of communicating with members of his company's board.
And then there was the matter of that February 2007 snow and ice storm. Neeleman said the company did the best it could in recovering from a public relations point of view. Then, in early May, he said, "a couple of board members came to my office and said, basically, 'We want you to step down as CEO and be the chairman and be responsible for strategy.' I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe it. Just the fact that I was flabbergasted - either I'm the biggest idiot on the planet or maybe the process could have been better. "
Zander doesn't engage in revisionism. He sees it that he had three great years and then hit a wall along with the cell phone division. He believes that he made the right decisions for the long term, even if others like super-investor Carl Icahn, disagreed.
For Donald, Starbucks was a place where he accomplished a lot. "We went from 4,000 stores to 16,000 stores, from 20 countries to 40 countries." But, he added, "Working for the Starbucks employees is a very humbling experience."
Of the three, Neeleman is the only with concrete plans. He's building a new airline in Brazil. So he's asked what's the biggest difference between building Azul and building JetBlue. His answer: "We're not going to be deicing airplanes. No ice."
--Noel Rubinton
Comments (3)
The lows of executives? Lost jobs and dreams? Telling families of their lost jobs being the hardest?
For your information, Zander made out with up to 30 million plus shares after leaving Motorola, that was on top of his 900k/year salary that he had. Other former CEOs such as Home Depot's Robert Nardelli made off with 210 million. Maybe you need to do some fact checking, but I am pretty sure that there are no dreams lost with that sum of money!!!
My advice to you, Noel Rubinton, is to write real articles and stop trying to build and sensationalize on something that isn't there. Horrible.
What kind of crap are you writing? Ed Zander should be indicted for raping a pillaging Motorola. It is now a shell of the company it was and it is entirely the result of Ed Zander inept leadership and that of the hundreds of inept executives at the once powerful Motorola. Perhaps someone should jump on the bandwagon and call it what it was and still is instead of giving Ed another stump to spew his ridiculous assertions that what he did was for the best long term. That is CRAP!
My hats off to Neeleman for at least acknowledging that "getting fired ain't much fun"
- maybe in the future he will be much less likely to simply slash and burn the staff now that he has had a taste of being fired (aka, downsized, RIF'd).
Sadly Zander continues to own those rose colored glasses which inhibit his ability to see his own failings as well as understand that he changed the lives of 10's of thousands of employees through downsizing, division sales (and his ridiculous purchases), and his lack of management skill. His skill at "supply chain management" clearly is not enough to run a company, perhaps he should have stayed in a departmental role - so for hiring him we must look to the board of directors...
As a former Motorola who lived through his tumultous years as well as good ones before him, it is shocking that anyone can be so arrogant to think that what they did was right for the long run when the company is now not even 1/2 of what it was when he started, and his "strategic spiraling whirlpool to the ocean bottom" continues because the damage was so great...
To other companies out there - perhaps the cadre of CEOs in office today, who honed their skills during the "ME" generation never got over "themselves" and in the future companies need to find people who are willing to really stake their financial future WITH the company - not, as Ed Zander did, regardless of the company.