Brand Triage: "Tough Choices" Review

“To the victors, go the spoils”. Including the option to (re)write history. Walking away from her summary firing as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Hewlett-Packard with 21 million in cash and parlaying that experience into a book deal is clearly not a total loss. However, the fact is that her personal brand was devalued in the abrupt and public ouster. Carly Fiorina’s Tough Choices is her attempt to reassert her leadership legacy and revive her brand.

As the title states, Tough Choices is a memoir: Carly’s perception of her professional history from AT&T through HP. It has an agenda, illustrated by the Wall Street Journal quote selected for the inside front flap: “So, was Carly right after all?” My mistake was assuming that, despite the signposts, Carly would have a unique and valuable perspective on gender, politics and leadership in the C-suite. Instead, it reads like a 350-page pitch - a seemingly endless series of Challenge-Action-Results statements.

If you’re looking for insight into how to navigate a “man’s world” as a woman, Tough Choices isn’t the book. Aside from a scene in a strip club and an outrageous stint at a conference – situations that would probably not translate outside a sales culture – there is nothing to be learned from a gender politics standpoint. On this topic, I recommend instead Robin Wolaner’s Naked in the Boardroom (excerpts at 800-CEO-READ).

If it’s political insight you’re seeking, go to the master: Machiavelli’s The Prince – still relevant (albeit not literally) after 500 years. In an interesting coincidence, there was an article on power and politics citing Machiavelli’s principal subject, Cesare Borgia, in the Los Angeles Times when I began reading Tough Choices, and it served as my bookmark – and, perhaps, a point of reference.

The one – and pivotal – lesson learned from Tough Choices was how to deal with shifting alliances. Generally astute and decisive, Carly “blinked” on the verge of victory. Despite clear and present danger - a board betrayal - she failed to exercise her option to remove the board and effectively surrendered. The rest, of course, is history.

Carly simply never came to life in the pages of Tough Choices. For more compelling perspectives, see her “Brand: A Guiding Light in Tumultuous Times” speech for the Nikkei Global Management Forum or watch the five minute excerpt of her presentation at the Amazon.com offices on what fear and choice have to do with leadership (scroll down on the Tough Choices listing on the site).

Excerpt of review for Women In Technology International's (WITI) Savvy magazine. Cross posted on brandingpersonal.