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Why Cisco CEO John Chambers has got to go!
Wed, 4/6/11 - 9:41am    View comments

Accountability starts at the top and in my personal opinion Cisco CEO John Chambers is soley responsible and should be held soley accountable for what ails Cisco, meaning, he's got to go! (as the below video interview confirms):

I mean, in the above video, a megalomaniac John Chambers (at least in my opinion), is preposterously proposing that all of Cisco's business and government customers model their own management structures after Chambers' convoluted management structure at Cisco.

Then audaciously and shamelessly this week, John Chambers' wrote a memo that blames Cisco employees for what ails Cisco (below, I've corrected a small portion of Chambers' memo in yellow to make it accurate in my opinion):

"As I've said, our (my) strategy is sound. It is aspects of our (my) operational execution that are not. We (I) have been slow to make decisions, we (I) have had surprises where we (I) should not, and we (I) have lost the accountability that has been a hallmark of our (my) ability to execute consistently for our (my) customers and our (my) shareholders. That is unacceptable. And it is exactly what we (I) will attack.

"That said, today we (I) face a simple truth: we (I) have disappointed our (my) investors and we (I) have confused our (my) employees. Bottom line, we (I) have lost some of the credibility that is foundational to Cisco's success - and we (I) must earn it back. Our (My) market is in transition, and our (my) company is in transition. And the time is right to define this transition for ourselves (myself) and our (my) industry. I understand this. It's time for focus."

In a stunning rebuttal of his memo above, Cisco CEO John Chambers was quoted in The Wall Street Journal:

One way he teaches his direct reports to delegate is to "spread them thin," he says. Eventually they "realize they can't keep their head above water and if they want to swim they have to give [some responsibilities] to their teams. Thirty [new businesses] is more than almost any senior executive thinks is manageable," Chambers adds. "The real point of going to 50 is to keep people open minded."

The CEO says he doesn't have a limit in mind for the number of new businesses that Cisco can pursue. "We honestly don't know if the right number is 20 or 30 or 40" new growth initiatives, Chambers says. But he adds, "It's no longer a question of will the structure work."

Again in my opinion, the head of Cisco CEO John Chambers has got to roll, and if Cisco's Board of Directors are not up to making that decision, look for Cisco's shareholders to make it for them.

What's your take?

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