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A CEO who should be fired

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So the CEO of an important customer of ours (no, I won't tell you who it is) claims to be, um, "very technical" and therefore keeps his own Windows domain and refuses to be part of the corporate forest. Go ahead, take a moment to express your astonishment; it took me about a full minute to recover my composure, too! Well, their IT is re-engineering part of the network and now has to, yet once again, figure out how to incorporate the non-standard and unmanaged "personal network" of this particular maverick.

This is a load of nonsense, as I'm sure you'll agree. No matter how I spin it mentally, I simply can't envision even a single business justification for this CEO to exempt himself from policies that everyone else is required to follow. He apparently fails to realize that his choice sends a clear message saying, in effect, "The policies suck and I know it." His behavior probably demoralizes the entire IT staff and communicates to them that he doesn't trust them and that they have no value.

Also, and probably even more important, his stance arguably increases costs to the organization. Just consider the ongoing extra (costly) work required for building the additional design, testing, troubleshooting, and support necessary to accomodate his silly whims. No worthy CEO -- one concerned with shareholder value and organizational performance -- would willingly do this. I know one company whose products I now will never buy.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 10, 2006
    You have to be amazed at people like this - my question is - if he's insisting on not being a part of the corporate IT administered networks, why does he insist that corporate IT provide him with any service?

    Those machines that are off-domain should be considered his "personal" machines, and not company property.  As such, they should be quarantined off the network, and given the same access as a visiting contractor, or someone bringing in their personal laptop from home.

    As you say, any policy that the CEO refuses to follow is going to be ignored by other employees, too.  I can't tell you how many times I've ended a security argument by noting that, for instance, I don't run as administrator either.
  • Anonymous
    March 10, 2006
    This isn't the guy who writes the checks is it?
  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2006
    "Maverick?"  Are we talking about Mark Cuban?  I like Cuban, but he used to be in tech and this sounds like something he would do.
  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2006
    Thats one spoiled CEO.....
  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2006
    Alas, I can't reveal here who this particular CEO is...
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2006
    This is one great example that should be included in this book - Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters by Barbara Kellerman.

    I hate double-standard.
  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2006
    Sounds terrible. Was the domain called steveballmer.microsoft.com or just steveballmer.com? ;-)
  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2006
    CRAIG: ha ha. The answer is: neither :)