Need any more convincing on the importance of employee relations
vis-a-vis the C-level? Failing to make herself available to the
rank-and-file apparently contributed to last week's ouster of Carly
Fiorina as CEO of technology king Hewlett-Packard. According
to the Washington Post (Feb. 10), Fiorina spent too much
time 30,000 feet above the trees, (and she may have left her head
in the clouds when it came to effective employee relations):
"The top officials were known for walking around the design
and shop floors regularly and chatting up even the lowest-level
employees at random. Fiorina, in contrast, Hewlett-Packard
employees said, was often visible only on a TV broadcast of company
meetings. She flew around the world on a corporate jet and insisted
on directly approving initiatives large and small -- even to the
point, critics said, of micromanaging many initiatives."