s famously truculent CEO Carol Bartz receives a lot of ribbing about her company's . But tell that to her face and she'll advise you to "" So what's it like working under someone like that?
, who was hired and fired by Bartz in a span of 18 months, tells the Harvard Business Review her story. It's not entirely what you might expect.
The two worked together when Bartz was CEO of Autodesk and Merchant ran internal operations at Autodesk's Americas unit. "Even then, she had a reputation for being an ass-kicking executive who could handle any situation," notes Merchant.
"The morning typically started with a 7:00 am call from Carol that almost always began with, 'WTF is wrong with XXX'?!" she said.
You'd think a column about getting sacked by Carol Bartz would be bitter and self-serving, but Merchant's actually quite grateful for her short time with Bartz.
She describes being swept off her feet in their initial hiring meeting:
Convincing me took only this: "You'll be among my top leadership team, fix anything that can and will go wrong, and you can drive every new strategy to drive our market growth." It only took me an hour to decide. I was 29 years old and being asked to run a major division. A little bit of drool must have showed. A job perfectly matched to my skills. Custom created for me. By the CEO. A seriously ass-kicking CEO. Everything was perfect. The sunshine was brighter as
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