Driving Fear INTO the Workplace, the Hurd Way

At Tellabs the highly respected founder CEO Mr. Mike Birck made a commitment to 'Driving Fear Out of the Workplace." Employees felt comfortable in speaking franklyto Mr. Birck . Being an engineer at heart, he strove to find and fix management problems.

Mr. Hurd of HP is clearly made of a different cloth, the same cloth that dressed other "chainsaws" like Al Dunlop and Jack Welch. Why would any talented person want to work for these sleazeballs?

Despite H.P.’s Efforts, Mark Hurd Spectacle Goes On - NYTimes.com: "The accusations linking Mr. Hurd to improper spending resonate because he had built up a culture of severe financial accountability at H.P. A former H.P. executive said that Mr. Hurd’s meetings were known internally as “rectal exams” because of the fierce questioning.

“If you put up a slide with lower financial forecasts, he would spot it right away,” the executive said, requesting anonymity because he still deals with H.P. “Then, he would demand that you fix the situation.”

Stories abound of Mr. Hurd’s slicing into marketing costs and making employees fight for every dollar in the budget (although Mr. Hurd often found marketing money to sponsor tennis events, uniting his love of the sport with H.P.)."