HP names veteran Andy Isherwood as new UK boss - as we predicted HP has named Andy Isherwood as the new boss of its UK and Ireland division - just as El Chan had hotly tipped. On Monday, we revealed that the appointment process was a two-horse race, pitting Isherwood against Martin Hess. Red of hair and face, Isherwood is a HP veteran of 25 years. He joined the firm on a graduate trainee …
So you don't believe that people should be given career progression within their organisation?
I can understand that people working their way up can become ingrained in the company culture (be it good or bad), but merely bringing an outsider in does not fix a company. An outsider will get a very generous pay package and a golden handshake, this sort of thing is less likely when someone from the inside is given the role.
Career progression has nothing to do with this - and in fact could be argued in some situations (i.e. public sector) is responsible for encouraging complacency (& resentment as well) among employees.
The most important thing is to get the right person in the right position - years of service may or may not influence their ability to do the job, but i'd argue in todays highly diverse marketplace, a range of experience in a number of organisations (& their respective cultures) - in addition to proven success - is a highly desirable attribute.
Nothing wrong with career progression, however in a tech company change is constant and the ability to see the forest for the trees is only helped by broad experience which requires moving around a bit in the industry.
Anyone who spends 25 years in a single big corporate rarely has the personal drive to be an individual and mix things up and is happy being a number in the corporate machine.
In HP's case this is especially true. Their veterans have been around too long and are stuck in the heydays and their enthusiasm to cling to the past will not transform a company that is struggling to work out what it should be doing. I've yet to meet a long time HP management type that has any value to add.
Where are these new people with fresh thinking coming from exactly?
Nick Wilson, who's being replaced as UK boss, came from IBM. He didn't come up through HP. He was shite. As in, really, really awful. If he toured the UK offices and threw sweets at people one more time half the staff would have walked out.
He was incredibly patronising, and apparently convinced that seeing excel graphs of sales performance in sectors in which you don't work would somehow improve your ability to do a technical job for HP. Deluded.
Agree to a point, but it depends on the recruiting process.
I would have imagined that all candidates (whether internal or external) working at this senior level would have had to present their own long terms strategies and "visions of the future" of how to turn things around in their own respective divisions so I hardly think they would have just gone solely on the strength of previous works and CV.
Still this is HP we are talking about.
More than that though - I'm now wondering if I can get a gig with my client in the South Pacific. I do so love Tonga and French Polynesia in November.
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