November 1, 2007--The Sword That You Live & Die By

The headline for the lead story in the Business section of today’s New York Times—“Room at the Top?”—had me worried because just below it were pictures of nine African-American corporate presidents and CEOs. I knew this then was going to be a story about. E. Stanley O’Neal who had just been fired as the CEO of Merrill Lynch, and I was concerned that the article would be about how, one, there is no room at the top for minorities and, two, race played a role in his sacking.

I was all prepared to say that, yes, minorities are under-represented in corporate board rooms; but, no, O’Neal’s skin color had nothing to do with his fate—he was unceremoniously let go because under his leadership Merrill had lost $8.4 billion of its own money for its risky sub-prime mortgage practices and O’Neal, without board authorization, had been negotiating a merger with Wachovia Bank. (O’Neal, by the way, walked away with a cool $165 million parachute.)

But, happily, the Times piece did not play the race card. In fact, it quoted African-American executives who said that though there should be more black and Hispanic top-tier leaders, O’Neal and, to a lesser extent, Richard Parsons, Time-Warner’s CEO, if measured in bottom-line terms, were unsuccessful and deserved to be fired in O’Neal’s case and to be pushed out in Parson’s. (Article linked below.)

Alfred Edmond, editor in chief of Black Enterprise magazine was quoted as saying, “First we had to learn what it takes to get into that top spot, and now we’re learning what it’s like to live in it. Corporate performance will be the sword that you live and die by.”

Also in the headlines today are stories about the aftershocks resulting from Hillary Clinton’s performance in Tuesday’s debate. In specific content terms, most of the chatter is about her flip-flopping about whether or not to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, or as the Democrats prefer to call them—“undocumented workers.” As John Edwards pointed out, she changed her position on this politically incendiary subject within a span of just two minutes.

But what might be more at issue is Senator Clinton’s overall reaction to being “piled up on” (that’s her phrase) by her Democratic rivals. In fact, less than 24 hours after the debate her campaign was airing a TV ad that shows a montage of her opponents confronting her. The implication is clear—they are “going negative” by attacking her personally (as distinguished from challenging and criticizing her ideas, positions, and experience); and, related to what was not alleged about the O’Neal firing, the ad graphically shows all these men beating up on, piling on this (defenseless?) woman. Shades of the theme of Susan Faludi’s current book about post-9/11 America, The Betrayal of the Modern Man.

Without doubt figuring out how to run successfully for president as a woman or African-American is as tricky a political conundrum as one could devise; but running as a version of a victim is doomed to fail. No one, even someone like me who desperately wants Hillary or another Democrat to be elected next November, is happy contemplating having a “little lady” as Commander in Chief.