MATT LEVINE: The story of a really messed-up acquisition and a fired CEO's devious plan
'They talked amicably for a few minutes about the chairman’s recent foot surgery, then Keegan told Jacobson the board had given up on him'
These are not the bullet points that you want to see in your annual performance review. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Jacobson was aware, too, that the rest of Xerox’s board was dissatisfied with him. In a call that spring, the board had discussed his shortcomings. Robert Keegan, a former CEO of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. who was soon to succeed Burns as chair, wrote some of them down in spidery, all-caps bullet points: - “questionable priority setting”; - “little strategic thinking”; - “overconfident”; - “poor listening skills”; and - “whiner!” Be more constructive with your feedback, please! But by this point, Xerox Corp.’s board of directors wasn’t really looking to give Jacobson pointers on how to improve his performance. (“The Board exhausted every ounce of patience and coaching to make our current CEO a success,” one director wrote to another.) They were looking to fire him. By midsummer, the board had concluded that Jacobson was incapable of leading Xerox. While he continued ...
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