HP BOSS MEG ‘PLAYED COUNTRY MUSIC DURING BOARD MEETINGS’
HP DIRECTORS had to listen to country music during board meetings to help them become better leaders, according to extraordinary allegations buried within court documents, writes Peter Campbell.
The computer-maker’s boss Meg Whitman ( pictured), played the company’s executive committee songs before holding open discussions about how to ‘apply the meaning… to their own management methods’.
Mike Lynch, who briefly sat on the executive board, recalls the details in a lawsuit where he claims damages over fraud allegations that he says are groundless.
Court documents state that Whitman ‘repeatedly adopted the management approach of . . . playing country music to the meeting, instructing the senior executives attending to take the meaning of the country music songs and apply them to their own management methods’.
Lynch said: ‘I don’t even like country music.’ Kenny Rogers was a favourite of Whitman, he added.
The country legend’s most famous song – The Gambler – includes the lyrics: ‘Know when to walk away, and know when to run.’
Lynch left HP within six months of Autonomy being acquired.
Whitman is a known fan of the genre, once saying she never travels without a country music playlist on her mobile phone. She previously said that she uses it to ‘tune out the noise and help me concentrate while travelling’ – and has previously admitted to playing it while in her office during the working day.
On LinkedIn she names George Strait, Brooks & Dunn and Shania Twain as favourite artists. Whitman’s other hobbies include horse-riding.
Other behaviour included Whitman reading extracts from staff emails praising herself. ‘We were always thinking they came from someone in the PR department,’ Lynch added.
Before joining HP, Whitman ran for governor of California for the Republican Party, hoping to take over from Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Lynch said he assumed everyone in the room was a Republican during meetings, and that she ‘didn’t realise we don’t really have them over here in the UK’.