This is a grand example of how a great company can stumble even when they have an ethical leader. It can happen in a blink if you don’t have the right people watching your reputation. In this case the company entrusted that role to the lawyers. 

It’s a common error.  While the lawyers fill a vital role, it has nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with the law, what you can and cannot get away with, not doing the right thing.  This piece appeared in September 2006 and while HP is doing well they are still suffering from this foolish episode.  Some of the players are still facing charges.

The lawyers that triggered this mess are long gone but the management foolishly turned over the responsibility for their reputation –a big thing at HP– to their replacements, more lawyers.                                                                                                         

Bulldog Reporter

Fixing Hewlett Packard

By: W.T. "Bill" McKibben

“This is just a horrible thing that has happened and we have to fix it.” Those are the words of Mark Hurd, CEO of tech giant Hewlett Packard. When the story broke on HP’s ham-handed response to boardroom leaks, it wasn’t hard to understand how the wheels came off. The hunt for the source was overseen by since sacked, Kevin Hunsaker, HP’s Director of Ethics. Hunsaker is a lawyer; worse, he reported to the company’s General Counsel.

Understand, lawyers are important and despite all the jokes, most of them like most of us are honorable folk. The discipline, however, is based on law, not ethics. Lawyers are trained to delineate the letter of the law. A necessary and worthy service to our society.

Ethics, however, is not about the letter of the law. It’s about doing the right thing. It isn’t about can we get away with it, it’s about acting in an honorable fashion. The Merriam-Webster definition that captures the heart of its meaning is, “A consciousness of moral importance.”  Legal training does not develop thinking along that vein.

This all began last year with reports in the press about discord among members of the HP Board. It came as HP’s former Board Chair and CEO Carleton (Carly) Fiorina was being ushered out the door following what some saw as an unwise merger with Compaq. These leaks led new Board Chair, Patricia Dunn and others to launch a hunt for the source.

No one will likely ever know what really happened. We know that the hunt spiraled out of control resulting in Ms. Dunn along with several members of the board and HP employees being ousted. Ironically Ms. Dunn has a BA from the UC Berkeley “J” school. Makes you wonder what she was thinking when she turned a pack of private eyes loose on the HP Board, employees and ultimately a number journalists. In her defense there is no proof that Ms. Dunn OK’ed -or even knew about- the smarmy tactics that were used to track down the leak.

It’s far from over, with the authorities in California looking into criminal charges. Those legal details are not our concern. And they wouldn’t have been anyone’s concern had ethics, rather than the letter of the law, guided their thinking. No one is quite sure why CEO Hurd was not aware of the means employed by those involved in the hunt. But if he wants to fix it, there is a simple answer. He needs a Director of Ethics empowered to act as the company conscience. A DOE reports only to the CEO and has a contract that makes them fearless with a golden parachute that allows them to stand for the right no matter what.

The sad thing is that this whole mess is about petty bickering on the HP Board that would be embarrassing if it happened in a neighborhood pub. In a $90 billion company it is pathetic.