Metty and Motorola: Headed to Court
As someone who has gotten to know Theresa Metty over the past year, I can honestly say that she is one of the few visionary executives in the procurement and supply chain world from a technology and process perspective. She gets the intersection of both, which is not something I see in the leadership ranks in most organizations (let alone in procurement). But one thing Metty did not get, or so she claims in a lawsuit, is the code to crack the old boys network at Motorola. According to Crains Chicago, "Metty is seeking $11.3 million in lost pay and bonuses and an additional $18.6 million from stock options" because of gender discrimination at Motorola.
Yesterday, she won a big argument in her favor when a federal judge decided to let her case proceed to court. According to the article and the ruling, the judge "determined that a shift in Ms. Metty's performance evaluation might be seen as a reflection of defendant’s explicit desire to be rid of her rather than providing proof of plaintiff’s occupational failings." On a personal level, I sincerely wish Theresa the best in reaching resolution on this. She is a talented executive who has a great reputation in the Spend Management world.
- Jason Busch
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I have no doubt that gender discrimination exists in corporate America. I worked for a "100 best places for women to work for firm" and can vouch that it's the best if you want a staff job but if you want a line job and a family...you can forget about it. The lip service is an absolute joke.
To me, this story is about Zander wanting to take a sluggish, depressed, bottleneck-laden organization and turn it around. I would argue Zander has successfully done that. And for what it is worth, he felt that he needed to change up the management team to do that. Was it gender discrimination? It might be. But unfortunately, Metty worked under the old guard. And that old guard did not lead Motorola to where it is today.
I have made the personal decision that the only corporate culture that I could control was "my own". What I give up in restricted stock or bonuses, I make up for in peace of mind. My clients are local, there is no glass ceiling and I eat lunch with my kids. I hope Theresa finds a professional and personal peace out of this, no matter the outcome.
Quite often, transformational CPOs build a mythology around themselves that outpace their results.
Additionally, there's 2 things that get CPOs sacked: key part shortages that affect product sales and the failure to develop strong peer executive relationships.
Combine these 3 things and a top management shakeout and it's easy to see why this might have happened.
Also in play is that sometimes women executives will act aggressive (not necessarily a bad thing), but men also tend to perceive this negatively as bitchiness vs. just being confident/bold/aggressive.
Whether the relationship development aspect was gender biased is unclear - at least to those on the outside who have no information on what happened.
However, filing a lawsuit may in fact due more harm than good for women executives in supply management if C-level exec's learn of this and think it might happen to them.
Theresa could have easily been a CPO at another major firm and earning her way to large performance-based improvements (although maybe not to the tune of $30M) rather than suing her way to money. I'm an old deadhead and do think that "the women are smarter", but perhaps here methinks the woman doth protest too much.
But what do I know. All I own is fool's gold, and $30M will certainly buy a nice stable of vintage Harleys.