CEOs become an obsession — again

TheDeal executive editor Yvette Kantrow writes Friday about how the business media seem to be falling all over themselves in the latest coverage of CEO changes.

Kantrow wrote, “What do CEOs do? Does anyone in the media have a clue? True, all reporters and editors seem to possess a vague idea that CEOs ‘run companies,’ which seems to involve hiring and firing, making speeches, launching memos, and, of course, playing golf. But do any of the legions of scribes who write about CEOs really know what these titans of industry do each day inside their cushy offices? Do they shuffle papers on their giant desks? Bark orders at cowering subordinates? Rub hands together and plot world domination?

“We ask because CEOs are an obsession right now, thanks to the well-cushioned falls sustained by Stan O’Neal and Chuck Prince. The press is filled with all sorts of advice for their successors at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc., respectively, as well as diagnoses of what went wrong during their recent reigns. One theory: These guys were just not very smart. ‘Prince, a lawyer by trade … was in over his head, just hopelessly inept when it came down to understanding what an investment bank does, or at least what it should do,’ declared Jim Cramer in New York magazine. He is not much easier on O’Neal: ‘This man was Wall Street’s Wicked Witch, a much-feared, totally unrespected hatchet man who appeared to be beloved by the troops but in reality didn’t have a friend in the joint.’ And another thing — he played too much golf.

“So what’s the antidote? The New York Times, for one, thinks it’s ‘C.E.O. Version 3.0.’ Done with empire builders — Sandy Weill, Jack Welch — and fix-it men — Prince, Dick Parsons — it’s time for ‘the team builder,’ the paper proclaims. What exactly is that? The Times lets University of Southern California management professor Warren Bennis try to explain: ‘It’s someone who can assemble a team that functions as smoothly as a jazz sextet.'”

Read more here.