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Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard
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by George Anders
Sales Rank: 732009
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$0.01
At Amazon
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Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Portfolio Trade January 27, 2004
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591840325
ISBN-13: 978-1591840329
Product Dimensions:
8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
In late 2001, Hewlett-Packard shareholders were divided over a proposed buyout of computer manufacturer Compaq. Carly Fiorina, who'd been appointed HP's CEO two years earlier, had convinced most of the directors that the merger was necessary in order for the firm to remain competitive. But Walter Hewlett, son of one of the company's founders, came to believe the move was against everything the "HP Way" stood for. He drummed up support and turned the vote over the merger into a test of Fiorina's leadership. Anders, a Fast Company editor, uses this battle as the centerpiece of his account, but the book's subtitle is largely a misnomer. Although Anders recounts Fiorina's transformation from a talented executive at Lucent Technologies into one of America's most powerful female CEOs, she's only a small part of the story-and, in the long run, perhaps not the most interesting. The efforts of the second generation of Hewletts and Packards to cope with the pressure to remain loyal to the company's original vision and the multibillion-dollar legacy left by their fathers present much more compelling material. Chapters on HP's history, intended to provide a backdrop to Fiorina's fight to establish herself, overwhelm her story and reduce it to part of a recurring cycle of boardroom turbulence. Anders provides workmanlike reportage on the events, but falls short of linking it to a big picture worth caring about and never rises to offer a standout story.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Review
"A riveting look at the rise and near-fall of a great American company." -- Wall Street Journal
"Anders provides a behind-the-scenes account of the battle for HP, putting the reader inside the minds of several key players." -- BusinessWeek
"Wonderful reporting . . . The book is better than ‘perfect enough’; readers will find it gripping and illuminating." -- The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Customer Reviews & Comments
This review is from: Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett Packard (Hardcover)
The most interesting aspect of George Anders' "Perfect Enough" is the book's very existence: it is tangible evidence of the power of the HP PR machine under Carly Fiorina, and the transformation of HP from heads-down engineering excellence to a Carly-centric media machine. In other words, this is the book that HP and the HP board want the public to read, facing the release of a competing and more critical book ("Backfire" by Peter Burrows). In "Perfect Enough", Fiorina is positioned favorably - a lone crusader in a sexist culture of engineers who have lost the "shining soul" that made the company and its founders legend. She is depicted as the grim and embattled hero, fighting and winning the good fight against impossible obstacles both internal and external. It would be wrong to accuse Fiorina of wrecking the celebrated "HP Way", already in steep decline long before her tenure. But to portray her as the staunch defender of a cause she seems not to understand, and trivializes through slogans and catch-phases, is a far more serious offense which Anders chooses to overlook. Much has been made of the unfettered access the author was granted to Carly and the board, resulting in a detailed account of the HP recollection of events behind closed doors. But unless you are really interested in the menus of the lunches served to the board in critical meetings, I'd recommend Burrows' book for an "unsanctioned", but far more balanced, portrait of the events leading to HP's acquisition of Compaq.
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Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard
Available from Amazon
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