Tough Choices: A Memoir

18 Jan 2007 09:00

Carly Fiorina is best known for her tenure as Hewlett-Packard's CEO, a post from which she was ousted in 2005. This book, which is a better read than you might expect, covers the HP ground and the path that led there.

Carly Fiorina, the much-maligned former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, says that her decision to write a book was, in part, originally inspired by the realisation that 'Most people don't understand how business operates'. This understanding came to her during her first day on the witness stand in the suit that Walter Hewlett brought against his father's company to stop the Compaq acqusition, a deal Fiorina championed while at HP's helm. That merger, she writes 'has been called one of the most successful ever'. It has, of course, been called a lot of other, less flattering things, too, which she does not mention with such eagerness.

Two years out, the deal was still being condemned; more recently, the company has been doing better and critics seem to be rethinking a bit. Fiorina ends the book on the verge of 2006, proud that the combined company was delivering on the plan she'd formulated, despite her ousting in February 2005.

The book isn't, however, just about Fiorina's time at HP. Aside from a brief overview of her childhood, it really begins with her painful decision to drop out of law school at 22 rather than keep doing something she hated just to please her parents. Knowing nothing about business and needing to make a living, she found a job as a receptionist at a commercial property brokerage firm. Gradually, she was asked to take on more responsibility and eventually was offered the chance to train as a broker. That in turn gave her the confidence to do an MBA; the dean of her business school took an interest in her and asked her to work on a project with him. And so on, with one success leading to another as Fiorina worked her way up through AT&T, where she started in sales, to Lucent, and eventually to HP — all recounted in some detail.

You may finish the book still thinking the merger was a bad idea; but you'll understand Fiorina's thinking a lot better.

Fiorina never whines; but she does make clear the sexism she encountered along her way. Some was simple office politics, but she also tells stories that highlight the 'boys' club' nature of the business culture that surrounded her. Early in her career, for example, she was expected to join male managers in hosting customers at a strip club. Also early on, she found herself dealing with a higher-level manager who compromised her reputation rather than admit she'd declined his advances. On her first trip to Korea to visit Lucky Goldstar (now LG), people stared at her and pointed: they'd never done business with a woman before. Her gender also brought notoriety, as when she appeared on Fortune's list of 'Most Powerful Women in Business' — a list she objects to for philosophical reasons.

Overall, Tough Choices: A Memoir is a better read than you might expect.

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