A CEO and reader of mine (not at HP, but who it was isn’t important cause her point is what matters here) wrote me this morning and said I was over the top to call Patricia Dunn a “cancer” on HP. She said that was a particularly hurtful comment given that Patricia has had cancer in the past. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’ve decided that my reader is right. That was a hurtful comment. I didn’t know at the time that Patricia was a cancer survivor, but I should have stayed within the lines of good taste and I did not.
It’s not that I feel any differently about Patricia and the board’s actions over the past two weeks, though. Even after reading articles, like this one, in Fortune, which bend over backward to explain her actions. I’m very much in support of Russell Shaw at ZDNet, who asks why she’s still on the board.
But, I did play an awful card there, and for that I’m sorry.
Oh, and I heard Patricia on CNBC this morning (the business news media is still eating this story up, just like Christopher Coulter predicted it would) and she still isn’t understanding that the ends don’t justify the means.
In my being overly hurtful and personal with my words I demonstrated I didn’t understand that either.
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