leaderCommunicator

AUGUST 14, 2013

Still worse, by the CEO. According to Business Insider, last week AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong told Wall Street they’re cutting Patch – AOL’s local news network – websites from 900 to 600. Late yesterday, Armstrong sent AOL employees an apology and cited an apology to Abel. Want more on CEOs? A bad dream? And it’s all on tape.

Abell 163

Abell Morale Armstrong CEO 163

leaderCommunicator

AUGUST 20, 2013

Last week we covered the recent case of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong firing an employee (Patch creative director, Abel Lenz) publically while on a conference call of 1,000 employees. Now, as part of our CEO communication critique column - Hit or Miss’ive – we’ve assessed his apology email to employees and aren’t impressed.

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Abell Armstrong CEO Conference 133

leaderCommunicator

AUGUST 21, 2013

It took AOL CEO Tim Armstrong 4 days to apologize for the firing of an employee in front of 1,000 other employees. Here are my thoughts about what might have happened (expletives have been removed): Senior leader to Tim on Monday: “You need to apologize to Abel for what happened.”. One has to wonder what took so long. Tim: “For what?

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CEO Abell Armstrong Media 132

leaderCommunicator

JANUARY 21, 2014

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s firing of a Patch employee and subsequent apology. In August 2013, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced that AOL would be reducing the number of Patch websites. Armstrong ended up firing Patch’s Creative Director , Abel Lenz, in front of everyone. What happened instead was far from morale-boosting.

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Armstrong Abell Policies Morale 162

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

How do the best CEOs confront that challenge? For 10 years, I worked as a consultant to John Emery, CEO of Emery Worldwide, now part of UPS. Recently, I watched two CEOs handle similar situations. Then, abruptly, he fired someone standing in the room with him: creative director Abel Lenz. Out of here.”

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Abell Armstrong Uncertainty CEO 8