Fast Company is a pretty good magazine, and their online site is very functional and worthwhile. What I disagree with are some of the profiles they run. A great example came from Jennifer Reingold in the September issue. Jennifer profiles the rise and fall of David Pottruck the former CEO of Charles Schwab.

She takes us through David's ouster as the CEO and how he's come back from the experience. It's a good read, and framed with the stages of loss. There are five stages and each corresponds to something David did.

David Pottruck was fired from his position by the board of Charles Schwab for the low stock price according to the article. After he's fired the steps David takes are very good, but more importantly therapeutic as they help him with his loss.

The article was pretty gripping until you get to this part:

For most people who have been abruptly fired, the first reaction is terror that you will no longer be able to provide for your family. This was hardly the case for Pottruck, who accumulated vast wealth as part of the team that bought Schwab back from Bank of America in 1987, and who took home a $10 million-plus severance package, not including stock sales and option exercises.

At this point you lose me. I'm pretty sure any of us could deal with a job loss, no matter how embarrassing, if we had a 10 million dollar severance package. Seriously.

I understand Fast Company's target demographic is up there, but you can't expect people to relate to how David Pottruck dealt with a loss. Sure, there are some tidbits that people can relate to, as when David describes the blow to his ego:

"Absolutely, when you're in a room full of senior businesspeople," he says, "it is much more comfortable to know you have as many stripes on your sleeve as they do."

Still, the piece is riddled with observations like this:

On a trip to New York, Pottruck flew commercial for the first time since before September 11. As he walked through the metal detector, it went bonkers. Nail file? Scissors? Lighter? Check. He wasn't a terrorist -- just a clueless former CEO. Then there was the suddenly complex problem of getting to a meeting when there was no longer a trusty Town Car at his beck and call.

Yes, read it again. He didn't know how to react to the security lines at the airport. Ironically, this appeared in the section entitled Restitution.

I don't know the writer, I don't know how Fast Company sources their stories, but if anything sounded like a public relations push story this is it.

The story doesn't make me aspire to be David Pottruck, and it definitely doesn't offer real world advice to those other than someone who is rich on how to handle themselves after a loss.

Fast Company was going for a story of how to deal with loss, but what they ended up with was a puff piece for a CEO starting in a new venture.

Bookmark/Search this post with:
delicious | digg | reddit | furl | google | yahoo | technorati | icerocket