“It’s interesting that otherwise competent businessmen, capable of budgeting a complex operation, can't figure out that the cost of maintaining two women is twice the cost of one plus certain fringes. An early symptom of the mistress is a sudden surge of creativity in an executive's expense account. I once had a personnel vice-president who had taken up with one of our executive secretaries. If it had been outside the company I wouldn’t have minded unless it interfered with his work. But a personnel man with his arm around an employee is like a treasurer with his hand in the till.”—Robert Townsend, Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation From Stifling People and Strangling Profits (1970)
A while back, I was lamenting to someone experienced in outplacement about how certain corporate executives paint overly rosy scenarios about their financially strapped firms that they peddle not only to outsiders but even to their employees. “These guys are in the moment, so they can convince even themselves about what they’re saying,” he explained.
That’s the best explanation I know for Robert Townsend’s continually relevant, pungent assessment of executives’ turbo-charged testosterone levels. Townsend was talking specifically about corporate mistresses—the type of situation masterfully satirized in Billy Wilder’s 1960 Oscar-winning film The Apartment.
But, as I read the part in the above quote about a “sudden surge of creativity in an executive’s expense account,” its obvious application to the sexual harassment claim that brought down Hewlett-Packard’s Mark Hurd was all too apropos. Against all odds, Hurd (in the image accompanying this post) had to believe that his (mis)behavior would either never be noticed or simply excused. He was “in the moment.”
Sexual harassment, of course, was not a recognized realm of corporate law during Townsend’s days as CEO of Avis five decades ago. Nor were reality shows and soft-core straight-to-video/DVD flicks—the two movie genres in which Hurd’s accuser, Jodie Fisher, specialized before she crossed paths with the H-P head honcho—a recognized part of the entertainment landscape of his time.
But Townsend pinpointed a certain fatal instinct common to leaders of men, a tendency to self-destruct in ways one would not normally expect. Even if we take at face value the insistence by Hurd and contracto-consultan-whatever Fisher that nothing physical happened between them, then Hurd didn’t get much for those lavish dinners he inaccurately expensed.
(I suppose there is one sense in which Hurd’s conduct constituted a departure from the usual alpha-male behavior in these situations. Over the years, a number of female colleagues have pointed to executives from other companies they’ve known over the years. These men not only don’t want anything to do with women over 30, but even with those older than 25. Hurd is unique in that he seems to have been attracted to a woman who, at 50 years old, was close to his age.)
Oh, by the way: Did you notice that H-P’s board of directors dispatched Hurd with a $28-million severance package? Paying someone for their sins—not to mention embarrassing the company and sending its stock value plunging overnight—was not something Townsend anticipated. However, in this case, he was prescient about the role of board of directors: “Directors and the like spend very little time studying and worrying about your company. Result: they know far less than you give them credit for.”
A while back, I was lamenting to someone experienced in outplacement about how certain corporate executives paint overly rosy scenarios about their financially strapped firms that they peddle not only to outsiders but even to their employees. “These guys are in the moment, so they can convince even themselves about what they’re saying,” he explained.
That’s the best explanation I know for Robert Townsend’s continually relevant, pungent assessment of executives’ turbo-charged testosterone levels. Townsend was talking specifically about corporate mistresses—the type of situation masterfully satirized in Billy Wilder’s 1960 Oscar-winning film The Apartment.
But, as I read the part in the above quote about a “sudden surge of creativity in an executive’s expense account,” its obvious application to the sexual harassment claim that brought down Hewlett-Packard’s Mark Hurd was all too apropos. Against all odds, Hurd (in the image accompanying this post) had to believe that his (mis)behavior would either never be noticed or simply excused. He was “in the moment.”
Sexual harassment, of course, was not a recognized realm of corporate law during Townsend’s days as CEO of Avis five decades ago. Nor were reality shows and soft-core straight-to-video/DVD flicks—the two movie genres in which Hurd’s accuser, Jodie Fisher, specialized before she crossed paths with the H-P head honcho—a recognized part of the entertainment landscape of his time.
But Townsend pinpointed a certain fatal instinct common to leaders of men, a tendency to self-destruct in ways one would not normally expect. Even if we take at face value the insistence by Hurd and contracto-consultan-whatever Fisher that nothing physical happened between them, then Hurd didn’t get much for those lavish dinners he inaccurately expensed.
(I suppose there is one sense in which Hurd’s conduct constituted a departure from the usual alpha-male behavior in these situations. Over the years, a number of female colleagues have pointed to executives from other companies they’ve known over the years. These men not only don’t want anything to do with women over 30, but even with those older than 25. Hurd is unique in that he seems to have been attracted to a woman who, at 50 years old, was close to his age.)
Oh, by the way: Did you notice that H-P’s board of directors dispatched Hurd with a $28-million severance package? Paying someone for their sins—not to mention embarrassing the company and sending its stock value plunging overnight—was not something Townsend anticipated. However, in this case, he was prescient about the role of board of directors: “Directors and the like spend very little time studying and worrying about your company. Result: they know far less than you give them credit for.”
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