31 Telltale Signs You Are A Horrible Boss

These are the 31 sure signs that you're a horrible boss.  However, you likely have a good excuse for all of them.

Read the full post on Forbes

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Ten Ways To Ensure You're Driving Your Bus Instead of Just Being a Passenger

Are you a hammer or a nail?

There are really two people in the world – as Simon and Garfunkel observed years ago – those who are a hammer and those who are a nail.

Which one would you rather be?

Some complain they have bad luck. Some make their luck.

Read the full post on Forbes

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Ten Ways to Turnaround a Dysfunctional Team

Ten sure-fire ways to turnaround a dysfunctional team you've just taken over

Read the full post on Forbes

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A First Look at Larry Page's Google

By Eric Jackson
RealMoney Contributor
4/4/2011 1:00 PM EDT
Click here for more stories by Eric Jackson

Today is Larry Page's first day at Google (GOOG - commentary - Trade Now) as CEO, post Eric Schmidt's "adult supervision."

In my opinion, Larry has always wanted this job. He never wanted to cede control when they hired Schmidt, but he felt forced into it by his venture-capitalist investors. After all, back in 2001, when Schmidt was hired, 28-year-olds (which Page was back then) just didn't tell Kleiner Perkins to buzz off and that they were going to keep manning the ship. It took Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to break that mold.

The question you are bound to hear repeated today and for the next few months is whether Larry Page is the next Steve Jobs (of Apple(AAPL - commentary - Trade Now)) or Jerry Yang (of Yahoo! (YHOO - commentary - Trade Now)).

My guess is that Page will have a rough go as CEO. He is probably underestimating the human, emotional and leadership aspects of being a CEO. And let's face it, he hasn't had many role models who are great bosses. Larry has had Eric Schmidt -- who of course was always highly deferential toward Page and Sergey Brin - plus his doctoral advisor at Stanford and his parents. That's rather limited.

Page has never had the amazing experience of having a real jerk as a boss. The kind of guy who drives you absolutely nuts, who you bitch about at the water cooler with colleagues, and about whom you mutter to your spouse or girlfriend at night: "If I ever get to be CEO of this company, I'm going to do the exact opposite of that guy." Conversely, he's never had a boss who's challenged him, brought out the best in him and held him accountable when he was slacking off.

And don't tell me, "Oh, Google is a different kind of company. It's like a college campus. The management team even sits around on beanbags in an open-air room in the middle of the campus at the same time every week where people can drop by on their scooter and ask questions of the top leaders." I used to drink wine until 2 a.m. at college and debate Kierkegaard and Nietzsche too. There were some brilliant peers who intellectually duked it out with me. But do you know what all of them taught me about being a leader of people? Absolutely zilch.

...

[*** This post is an excerpt of the full article, available by clicking here to go to RealMoney.com. Note: subscription required. ***]

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ZDNet: Will Yahoo's board also get a makeover?

From today's ZDNet:

Will Yahoo's board also get a makeover?

By Stefanie Olsen, and Dawn Kawamoto,
CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News:
June 22, 2007, 4:00 AM PT

After months of criticism, Terry Semel is gone from the corner office at Yahoo, and Jerry Yang is finally back to running the company he co-founded.

But in the aftermath of the executive shakeup at the Internet's No. 2 search site, a big question remains: will the board of directors that recently gave Semel a $71 million yearly compensation package answer for its mistakes as well?

It could happen, despite the outcome of last week's annual Yahoo shareholders' meeting: as unhappy as investors may have been with Semel's compensation, which the Associated Press said was the largest deal received by a chief executive among the 386 publicly traded companies it tracks, the board survived the meeting last week intact.

Many believe the meeting ultimately led to Semel stepping down. Still, the lowest voting percentage any of the 10 board members received was 66 percent, according to Yahoo. The company did not say who got the low vote or break out percentages for each board member.
Also, Semel will still be the nonexecutive chairman of the company.

But that meeting could be just the first act in a long-running boardroom drama at Yahoo. A number of influential organizations, such as the advisers at Institutional Shareholders Services, think a shakeup isn't such a bad idea. ISS has taken Yahoo's board of directors to task for the last two years for Semel's compensation package, asking that it be tied more to the company's performance. But the board argued that the package (Semel has reportedly earned $450 million in six years at Yahoo) was justified in order to retain his talent.

"They just furnished a massive compensation package to Terry and then turned around and terminated his tenure. It begs the question about whether there's some intelligent design behind the program," said Patrick McGurn, executive vice president at ISS.

"Problems on the compensation front can be a window into the boardroom," McGurn added. "A second part of the process could be in looking at succession among the directors."

So how exactly would that happen, and when? Like other public companies, Yahoo is mindful of ISS' recommendations. ISS clients such as pension funds, mutual funds and other institutional investors will often vote their shares in lockstep with recommendations received from ISS. As a result, what the advisers say can greatly sway shareholder votes, especially for companies with a large base of institutional investors rather than mom-and-pop investors.

ISS advised its clients to vote against the re-election of Yahoo's compensation committee: Ron Burkle, managing partner of private investment firm the Yucaipa Companies and friend of former president Bill Clinton; Arthur Kern, co-founder of radio group American Media; and Roy Bostock, former chairman of ad agency BCom3 Group. Burkle and Bostock joined the Yahoo board after Semel in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Kern has been with Yahoo's board since the company was founded in 1995.

Yahoo shareholder Eric Jackson, president of the consultancy Jackson Leadership Systems, believes 7 out of the 10 directors should go, and he wrote as much in a proposal earlier this year. The three members Jackson's group wanted to see remain were Yang, Skyrider CEO Ed Kozel and Vyomesh Joshi, an executive vice president in imaging and printing for Hewlett-Packard.

Calls to Yahoo board members were not returned, but Helena Maus, Yahoo's senior director of corporate communications, sent a statement. The "Yahoo (board) is wholly committed to increasing shareholder value and will be working closely with Jerry Yang and (new president) Sue Decker to help accelerate execution and further strengthen Yahoo's leadership in order to capitalize on the enormous growth opportunities ahead."

But given the negative sentiment on display at the shareholders meeting, the board could remake itself before next year's annual shareholder meeting. One or more of the members could decide to step down, or Yang could nominate new members before 2008.

Majority rulesYahoo's directors are subject to re-election each year, and under changes to the company's bylaws the board enacted in January, the stage is set to allow shareholders to vote a director out of office, even if no opposition candidates are running for that seat.

Under the "majority vote" system, which a number of corporations are increasingly embracing, Yahoo directors are required to draft a resignation letter and have it waiting in the wings. If directors have more "against" and "withhold" votes than "for" votes, they are required to tender their resignation to the board, following the annual meeting.

Although the board's nominating and governance committee, comprised of independent directors, can make a recommendation to reinstate the ousted director, the board would be required to make its final decision public.

"The majority vote is one way companies can show they are listening to shareholders," said Jerry Mucha, proxy manager with proxy solicitation firm Morrow & Co. in Connecticut. "If you have a lot of withholds, or did not act on a shareholder vote that passed, this is one way to show you are listening to shareholders."

Mucha, as well as other proxy solicitors, note that a 33 percent withhold or against vote may be
considered high if shareholders are weighing their decision solely on the financial performance of the company. But if a company has a large percentage of institutional investors who rely on recommendations from proxy advisory firms, then a figure of a 30 percent withhold vote is not uncommon.

Board members who aren't facing any withhold vote recommendations by a proxy advisory firm are typically re-elected with a 90 percent approval margin, said Mucha. Jackson, however, believes the figure is around 98 percent.

Changes to the board can come via a director's resignation and a replacement nominated by the board of directors, or the board can change its bylaws to expand its size. Shareholders can also wage a proxy fight and nominate their own slate of opposition candidates for election at the next shareholders meeting.

Jackson said he had wanted to run for the board earlier this year but wasn't a registered stockholder at the time he filed papers. Whether it's him or not, Jackson wants some fresh perspective.

"The whole board has been guilty of being a little bit complacent," he said. "The board could benefit from some more youth and varied perspective and people who will ask tough questions of Jerry and (new Yahoo President Sue Decker)."

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Manager Shortage Spurs Small Firms To Grow Their Own

The article below is an excellent example from yesterday's Wall Street Journal on how the current and pending demographic shift is forcing middle-sized firms to take dramatic steps to deepen their management ranks for succession purposes. This is the niche advisory/consulting business Jackson Leadership has been in for 18 years. If you would like to discuss what is needed to set up your own executive development program at your firm, let's chat.

By ERIN WHITEFebruary 5, 2007; Page B1

MARSHALL, Minn. -- Kristy Griffin was a manager in a Kansas frozen-pizza factory when her bosses decided she was destined for greatness.

In 2002, executives at Schwan Food Co., maker of Mrs. Smith's pies and Red Baron frozen pizzas, invited Ms. Griffin to join an intensive development program for "high-potential" managers. Since then, she's earned her M.B.A., moved her family twice, helped engineer an acquisition, and taken posts in marketing and research, in which she'd had no prior experience.

Schwan is one of many U.S. companies paying more attention to grooming their next generation of leaders. Selected employees typically enter multi-year programs involving management classes, coaching sessions and so-called stretch assignments that throw them into big, unfamiliar challenges.

Such programs are old hat at corporate giants such as General Electric Co., PepsiCo Inc., and Bank of America Corp. Now, smaller companies, like closely held Schwan, with annual sales of about $3.5 billion, are also adopting or expanding such programs in the face of a shortage of seasoned managers.

Management consultants cite several reasons. The tight labor market puts a premium on retaining top talent and raises the cost of outside hires. And leaner corporate structures make it harder for managers to naturally hone their skills through incremental steps up the ladder; companies must instead formally teach them. Demographics play a role, too: The looming retirement of baby boomers is forcing companies to think about replacements.

"There's a huge shortage of leaders," says Ravin Jesuthasan, a managing principal at Towers Perrin, the consulting firm. For smaller companies in a fierce competitive landscape, "growth rates and expectations for growth have ratcheted up, requiring you to be much more diligent and proactive and structured in how you manage the flow of talent." Mr. Jesuthasan says that he has seen smaller companies in the energy, software, pharmaceutical and consumer-products industries begin or expand programs to identify and develop strong managers.

Schwan's program is the brainchild of M. Lenny Pippin, who in 1999 became the first outsider hired as CEO. Founded as an ice-cream delivery business in 1952 by Marvin Schwan, the company sells frozen foods to grocers and retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp.; to schools, hospitals and restaurants; and by delivery truck to homes. The retail business is the fastest-growing, though the home-delivery unit is larger. The company says that many customers trust the driver-salesmen so well they leave their doors unlocked.

Before Mr. Pippin arrived in 1999, the company had been run by Marvin Schwan's brother Alfred, who took over after Marvin died in 1993. Mr. Pippin, a food-industry veteran who started his career at Kraft Foods Inc., had previously been a senior executive at several family-owned businesses. At Schwan, he found employees were hard-working and loyal, but accustomed to following orders rather than innovating on their own.

Mr. Pippin set out to sharpen the management skills of Schwan employees. He also sought outside talent, though that would be a challenge. Marshall, three hours west of Minneapolis in rural Minnesota, wasn't a recruiting magnet. When Mr. Pippin first visited, he stepped off the company jet and wondered, "What on earth have I done?"

His solution was what he calls the Senior Executive Development Program. Launched in 2002, it now has about 35 participants, including Ms. Griffin. This year, Schwan plans to create a similar program for lower-level managers that would add roughly 50 others.

Participants in the senior program are thrown into new jobs, take business classes, and are given mentors and coaches for support. They're also assigned to team projects with other program members. Participants must be willing to change jobs and relocate whenever the company asks.

Mr. Pippin says the program has created a more worldly and self-confident work force. It also has developed a roster of potential future leaders -- unlike when Schwan reached outside to hire him, Mr. Pippin says. "I can go to the board, and I can talk to them about succession and the future leadership of this company for many years to come," he says. "Eight years ago, we didn't have that."

There have been bumps. Some people have dropped out or declined invitations because they didn't want to have to move. Mr. Pippin says the company initially didn't give participants enough support. A sales vice president shifted to run European operations struggled, and Schwan lost market share. When Mr. Pippin tried to move the executive into another job, he quit. "We can't put them out there without a safety net," Mr. Pippin realized. He assigned participants more mentors and coaches. He also scheduled more frequent evaluations to catch problems sooner.

Now, top executives give participants frequent feedback. For instance, two participants assigned to help launch a joint venture in Mexico met recently with chief operating officer John Beadle. Mr. Beadle, who previously ran Schwan's global retail business, asked whether the Mexican warehouse was large enough. Brian Rademacher, who has worked for Schwan for 16 years in the U.S., said the warehouse "should cover us beyond our needs" and could be expanded. Mr. Beadle also suggested smaller package sizes, because freezers in Mexican homes tend to be smaller.

The program has helped attract outsiders. Raquel Lacey Nelson spurned other offers to join Schwan after completing her M.B.A. in 2003. Even without a guarantee she would join the program, she was enticed by the prospect of rotating through different jobs. She joined the development program in December. The same week, she left a human-resources post in Marshall to manage Schwan's account with Target in Minneapolis.

When Ms. Griffin was selected for the program in 2002, she had spent 10 years climbing through operations jobs at Schwan's frozen-pizza factory in Salina, Kan., where she grew up and lived with her husband and two children. In 2003, she moved her family to Minneapolis for a job in marketing, in which she'd had no prior experience, and started studying for her M.B.A.

It was a whirlwind. At first she didn't understand the alien marketing culture, which she found more hierarchical and formal. Approving a new package design required four meetings. "I couldn't understand why," says Ms. Griffin, who is now 37 years old.

Next, she shifted to the home-delivery unit, where she was asked to improve retention of customers and salespeople. She again had to navigate a new culture, dominated by veterans skeptical of a newcomer. To gain trust and learn the business, she accompanied drivers on routes, visited their depots and attended their training sessions.

In April 2006, she moved to another unfamiliar role, as senior vice president overseeing research and development, food safety and quality, and new-product strategy. She tried to apply lessons from what worked in the home-delivery unit. Instead of imposing her own strategy, she met with managers and staffers one-on-one and in small groups. "I did not want to give everybody the impression that there's a new leader in town who's going to change everything," she says.

In addition to her regular jobs, she has also served on a special project team with about six other program members. Mr. Pippin asked the team to devise a strategy for Schwan to enter the fancy-appetizer business. The team recommended that Schwan buy a business rather create its own. In early 2006, Schwan bought Florida-based Holiday Foods, which makes the Greek spinach pie spanakopita and bacon-wrapped scallops, among other items.

Program members still serve as directors of the Holiday unit. Ms. Griffin chairs the group, giving her a look at running an entire business. "That has been the real-life model of running your own company," she says.

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What Leadership Means and What Makes a Good Leader? Podcast from the CIPD in the UK

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has been a leading light on HR issues in the UK for a number of years. In this podcast, they tackle the difficult questions of "what leadership means" and "how you find the leaders you need?"

In it, they interview Jackson Leadership Special Consultant and Dartmouth Tuck School Professor Sydney Finkelstein.

To listen to the podcast, go here.

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Stressed out? Drop that BlackBerry and go home

From last Saturday's Globe & Mail:


Overworked executives looking for relief must carve out personal time, WALLACE IMMEN writes

WALLACE IMMEN

One thing Trish Wheaton has been unable to escape is that every step up the career ladder has eroded the amount of time she has left for the rest of her life.

"By the time you are president, you have to recognize that the job is a 24/7 commitment," says Ms. Wheaton, who has been president of Toronto-based marketing company Wunderman Canada since 1998.

But she says she didn't want that to happen at the expense of her husband and son. So to take control of her personal life, she literally schedules time in her agenda each day to go home "and reconnect with my family and decompress." But carving out time for a personal life is becoming more difficult for managers and executives, who are increasingly being controlled by their jobs, according to a new study.

In fact, the prestige and material advantages of higher job status are being outweighed by the personal costs of moving up the corporate ladder, concludes University of Toronto sociology professor Scott Schieman. He's co-author, along with Yuko Whitestone of the University of Maryland and Karen van Gundy of the University of New Hampshire, of the study The Nature of Work and the Stress of Higher Status, published in the current Journal of Health and Social Behaviour.

The study asked 1,000 employees at different levels of responsibility in Toronto businesses to rate their ability to escape the pressures of work in their personal lives. This "work-to-home conflict" was lowest for both men and women in unskilled occupations and was, on average, 25-per-cent higher among managers and executives.

And the conflict grows with the level of responsibility. In the survey, 44 per cent of executives said they routinely think about work-related problems while they are at home and 25 per cent said work regularly interferes with their family life.

The numbers are almost as high at lower management levels, with 42 per cent of mid-level executives and 41 per cent of administrative professionals saying they routinely think about things going on at work while at home. That compares with 18 per cent of sales people surveyed and 11 per cent of non-skilled workers.

That represents a shift from previous generations, Prof. Schieman says. "It was long assumed that people in lower occupational levels tend to have it worse in terms of mental and physical health and job satisfaction because they have less control and authority in their work," he says.
Studies done before 2000 generally reported executives had the highest levels of control over their personal lives, because they had power and prestige and could compartmentalize their work and have time for themselves after leaving the office, he explains.

But technology has ended all that. "The demands for many higher-status workers are now becoming never-ending. And that's in large part because of things that might be seen as helping people become more productive and efficient, like e-mail, cellphones and BlackBerrys," Prof. Schieman says.

"The career message is the nature of the workplace is changing. The things we typically consider favourable work qualities, like a lot of authority and variety in their work and a lot of involvement, come at a price."

But that doesn't mean you have to abandon dreams of reaching the corner office to have a life -- as long as you develop strategies to keep the price to a minimum, says Eric Jackson, president and chief executive officer of Toronto-based executive coaching company Jackson Leadership Systems Inc.

"The most important step for executives is to acknowledge that this is a serious issue. A lot of managers don't recognize work-life imbalance and the stress that comes with it until they are told by their spouse that it is creating a problem in the relationship" or by their doctor that their stress is hurting their health, Dr. Jackson says.

Once they acknowledge the need to make a change, Dr. Jackson advises overworked executives to set up a plan to create more balance between work and home.

To start, he recommends executives figure out what tasks they can delegate to others.
"A lot of times people get promoted into executive positions because they are simply very efficient at getting work done. But as they rise in responsibility, they need to realize they may be taking on too much."

It's also important to carve out time for physical activity. Being sedentary can result in weight gain and rising blood pressure, but also reduce energy levels, drag down moods and, over time, you are less able to focus your thinking.

Equally important is to make a commitment to setting up non-work time at home, Dr. Jackson says.

He recommends committing to be home for dinner with the family, and setting limits on work and personal time. He suggests an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. rule.

"Ask everyone in the team not to send messages or expect replies outside of those hours."
These are just the kinds of strategies Ms. Wheaton has adopted. She avoids answering phone messages or looking at e-mails during meal times, and tries to clear office problems from her mind as she spends time with family and friends.

Crises can still erupt and if a call from the corporate brass comes in, she says "I still have to answer it."

But at least she can lead from home. As president, it's her decision alone whether she stays in the office or goes home, Ms. Wheaton says.

"So there is still an advantage to being at the top."

Strategies for the stressed

Define the problem. Write down the issues that cause you stress. Taking steps to reduce these issues will help you relax in your off time.

Set a goal. Too often, executives fall into a career path without understanding why they chose it. Ask yourself, "What do I want to accomplish for the duration of my career?" and set goals to achieve it.

Stay healthy. Exercise, sleep and a healthy diet should be priorities. You can't keep running without taking time to recharge the batteries.

Make time for your family It's not a sign of weakness if you don't pull an 80-hour week in the office.

Don't bottle it up. Talk to your spouse and discuss with a trusted friend or executive coach your workload. It can help you frame strategies to reduce the burden.

Look ahead. Don't waste time dwelling on past miscues. Once you set goals, move forward on
them.

Work with your weaknesses. By recognizing your weaknesses, you can work to improve your skills or delegate tasks to people who are strong where you are weak.

Be thankful for what you have. When you get stressed out, stop and ask yourself, "What am I thankful for? That will put things in perspective."

SOURCE: ERIC JACKSON, CEO,
JACKSON LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS

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Terry Semel: Cause of Yahoo's Success or Along for the Ride?

It's an age-old question in the study of leadership: Do leaders really matter? In America (at least, outside of business academia), uttering these words is almost sacreligious. We crave heroes and scapegoats. Leaders help make sense of the world around us. Yet, there are some -- they call themselves "organizational ecologists" and, I have to say, they weren't too popular with the MBAs in B-School) who say: no leader in today's large corporations make that much difference. Take anyone else of a minimum ability level and they would do just as good a job. The die is already cast for them, given the company's size, resources, capabilities, and market position. I can hear all the management consultants and recruiters out there shuddering at this notion. And I also believe it's ridiculous. More than belief, there's empirical evidence that the right leaders do matter and can confer significant financial and morale-improving benefits to their companies. By the same token, the wrong leaders can be a drag.

Yet, the ecologists raise an interesting question: If you put leader A in the CEO's chair at time 1, and if you put leader B in that same chair at time 1, what would be the difference in company strategy and performance at time 2? The question is really unanswerable -- yet, it makes for great conversation.

Which brings us to Terry Semel at Yahoo! There's a bit of a pile-on going on now in the wake of GoogTube. Google = fast-moving/innovative/smart; Yahoo! = slow-moving/pedestrian/dumb. Google pounces on an incredible strategic opportunity in buying YouTube. Yahoo can't get a deal done with Facebook and lets it drag on for months. The truth is rarely black and white; there's always more context than what gets printed. Yet, Terry Semel hasn't really helped himself with the Street or in the Valley. After Barron's touted them as ready to break-out of a holding pattern, they've proceeded to whiff on earnings, delay a major ad product, not do a deal with Facebook, MySpace, AOL, or YouTube, and forced their employees to take unpaid sick/vacation time this Christmas.

Who is Terry Semel?

Terry, 66 years old, was born in Brooklyn, NY. He joined Yahoo over 5 years ago, after 24 years as a studio hot-shot heading up Warner Brothers. His hiring was met with surprise and skepticism. Of course, when you hire an outsider, you want something different. The board wanted an anti-Koogle (as in Tim Koogle, Semel's predecessor -- a more Techie Valley guy who had overseen Yahoo's enormous bubble growth -- remember Broadcast.com and GeoCities -- and its post-bubble deflation). And the board got Hollywood: Semel keeps his main residence in LA, got lost the first time driving around the Valley, brought in Lloyd Braun from ABC, and sits on the boards of Revlon and Polo Ralph Lauren. In the early days of Semel's tenure, YHOO's stock dropped. The critics pounced and Semel's hiring was questioned. Then, the stock went up. The critics cheered and said Semel was quite adept in his adopted industry. Now, the critics are out again, as YHOO has remained depressed and they haven't pulled the trigger on some deals. Unfair? Sure. Intelligence does not directly correlate with stock price. But the bottom-line is that there are some things Terry can do differently which would greatly help the overall success of Yahoo.

So, has Terry Semel caused the turnaround of Yahoo in the last 5 years? Or would it have happened anyway, if you'd put any other competent insider (say Jeff Mallett) or outsider in the position? What is he responsible for versus what would any CEO have overseen given the company's resources/positioning/market dynamics which occurred over the last 5 years?

We'll never know what Jeff or anyone else would have done. But here are some practical suggestions on what Terry Semel should change Monday morning:

1. Sell your house in Bel Air and move full-time to Atherton or some otherwise acceptable zip code near Yahoo HQ. I know you have a family and friends in LA, but it sends the wrong message.
2. Mingle with the "rank-and-file". You don't have to play hacky-sack in parking lot, but a little "management by walking around" and lunching in the cafeteria would be welcomed.
3. Tone down the Tom Cruise appearances at the Yahoo campus. Yahoo shouldn't be about the bling, but be about the "!" -- what made Yahoo unique in the first place. Now, to be fair, there are a lot of celeb drop-ins/drive-bys at the Googleplex. But, the point is (and it goes for Google or any other company) that this is not the red carpet. It's a business and it's about destroying the competiton.
4. Suck up the sick days. It sends the wrong message to the team. I've never seen a company force use of vacation/sick days and see it work for them in the long-run.
5. Expand the brand. Semel's not getting any credit these days for 2 phenomenal deals Yahoo made: Flickr and Del.icio.us. Keep it going. Is Facebook going to revolutionize the world or Yahoo? No. Will it be better than Yahoo 360? Yes. Should you be quick to move on others in the future. Unquestionably.
6. State the vision and why Yahoo is unique. Is Yahoo the next multi-channel web platform? Sure looks like it. Why don't you sell it now to Wall Street and others before the Skype guys launch the Venice Project.
7. Keep the "talent firewall" in place. GigaOM discussed Yahoo's attempts to keep its top talent ensconced at Yahoo. As mentioned earlier, the best way to do this is not by re-pricing options or giving more, but getting talent jazzed to stay (see here how to do so).
8. Keep up the individual goals for the Yahoos. In a 2002 CNET article, David Mandelbrot, a Yahoo VP, said: "To have accountability, you have to have individual goals.... We didn't have that before." Keep it up.

Now might be the perfect time to buy YHOO, when expectations are exceedingly low. Can Terry turn it around? Yes, with a few successes, these current nay-sayers will disappear. However, without following some of these 8 suggestions above, Yahoo will continue to hamstring itself.

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CEOs Feeling the Heat

Louis Lavelle of BusinessWeek has covered the fact that 3 CEOs were deposed of in a single day yesterday. The original article is here. Syd Finkelstein is quoted heavily in the article.

Here's the entire text:

It was a brutal day for CEOs. On Oct. 11 three chief executives at public companies lost their jobs: George Samenuk of McAfee (MFE), Shelby Bonnie of CNET (CNET), and Jay Sidhu of Sovereign Bancorp (SOV).

Sidhu resigned after months of battling with large investors who said he hadn't done enough to lift Sovereign's stock price. Samenuk and Bonnie stepped down amid allegations of options backdating at their companies, making them instant poster boys for a scandal that has engulfed more than 100 public companies.

More than anything, however, the trio of downfalls underscore the end of the bulletproof CEO. These days, the once-fearless breed is fast becoming more like an endangered species.

INCREASED PRESSURE. Corporate governance experts generally applaud the increased accountability of executives, particularly where scandals have erupted. But some wonder whether the trend may end up going too far, pushing top execs to take on outsize risks or move with reckless speed. "The entire clock is accelerated," says Sydney Finkelstein, professor of strategy and leadership at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "You end up feeling like you've got to act faster than you might otherwise."

The numbers are staggering. According to Liberum Research, at least 21 CEOs were fired outright in the first three quarters of 2006--one every 13 days on average--nearly double the 12 chief executives who walked the plank during the same period in 2005. Of the 21, at least six represent fallout from the backdating scandal. In addition to McAfee and CNET, the affected companies are Comverse Technology (CMVT), Vitesse Semiconductor (VTSS), and Monster.com (MNST).

The pressure on top execs has become so widespread that no company can escape scrutiny. Among the CEOs under the microscope these days are many at top-tier companies, including Robert Nardelli at Home Depot (HD), Kevin Rollins at Dell (DELL), and Richard Parsons at Time Warner (TWX) (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/6/06 "CEOs in the Hot Seat"). There's even speculation that Steve Jobs, celebrated for his success in restoring the luster to Apple Computer (AAPL), could become a victim of that company's stock option investigation (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/5/06, "Apple Comes Clean on Options")

POWERFUL BOARDS. Experts on governance and leadership say the reason so many corporate chieftains are meeting with ignominious ends is the changing nature of the board of directors. Boards are newly empowered to be more active in all manner of corporate affairs, at the same time that they're being held to a higher standard of accountability by shareholders than ever before. Since the Enron collapse in 2001, the governance revolution that swept through corporate boardrooms has resulted in boards willing to stand up to management, and reforms such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that create incentives for directors to do so. The result: a lot of itchy trigger fingers.

The Chicago-based placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports that the revolving door of the CEO suite is resulting in shorter tenures. In all, 28% of the CEOs who were shown the door so far this year were on the job fewer than three years, and 13% were in the top position for less than a year.

"Boards are much less tolerant than they were, more independent of management, and more likely to act in event of a problem," says Charles M. Elson, a corporate governance expert at the University of Delaware. Evidence of the newfound independence is everywhere, he says, including recent executive departures at Boeing (BA), RadioShack (RSH), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). "I think the board has changed fundamentally. It's much more of a monitoring institution than it was."

TOO MUCH TURNOVER? Advocates for better corporate governance generally support the willingness of boards to depose CEOs. But a short tenure, or the ever-present threat of one, creates problems, too. With just a year or two to show results, some CEOs may take big strategic gambles, or push the legal envelope to make their numbers. Others will simply push their people harder and harder. "When the pressure is ratcheted up that way, it cascades down to the next level," says Dartmouth's Finkelstein. "You get this cascading effect of pressure."

Rapid turnover in the c-suite may also affect executive pay. With the clock ticking from Day One, executives who can deliver the goods immediately will fetch an even higher premium than they do right now, while demand for those known for building long-term shareholder value may diminish.

Finkelstein believes the trend toward shorter tenures is not a short-term statistical fluctuation, but a real trend that may get worse. As boards decide to pull the plug on their CEOs over the backdating scandal, more boards will be under pressure to do the same. Says Finkelstein, "The backdating situation is a classic example of zero tolerance. Once this starts, the pressure is going to be ratcheted up even higher on other boards. Nobody wants to be the outlier when it comes to these kinds of things.

"Though CEO turnover for the first nine months of this year is up sharply from the same period last year, the numbers have ticked down in the past two quarters. After 750 personnel changes in the first quarter, there were 711 in the second, and 627 in the third. But that downward trend is unlikely to last, since planned transitions such as retirements, which make up the bulk of all CEO changes, are generally timed to the end of the fiscal year, most of which end in December. April may be the cruelest month, but for CEOs January is no walk in the park either.

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