Carol Bartz, the former CEO of Yahoo Inc. was recently fired by telephone.  The company’s poor etiquette cost them dearly when Bartz retaliated through email and interview.  First, she sent a message to the 1,400 staff members explaining what had happened.  Then,  she later interviewed with Fortune magazine calling board members “doofuses” and criticizing the chairman for not having the “balls” to tell her himself.
The whole debacle is being called a case of “how not to fire an executive”.  The Globe and Mail recently published an article quoting employment lawyer David Whitten on the matter.  Whitten explains that “the main objective for both management and the board should be damage control when you are going to change the captain of the ship. And that is done by a concerted message that both parties agree with and a messaging strategy that both parties stick with.”  Having burned that bridge, Yahoo may be in some trouble – with their board of directors under the microscope, it’s not likely that this is the last we have heard from Carol Bartz.
The article by Rita Trichur in the Globe and Mail can be found *here*.