Circuit City’s decision to get rid of some 3,400 workers because they were getting paid “well above the market-based salary range for their role,” according to the company, seemed to me to be a curious way to handle your workforce. Why would a company struggling to compete with strong competitors like Best Buy think that canning the highest-paid (and therefore, probably its best) workers is a winning workforce strategy.

It’s not, of course, and now the other shoe has dropped: Three older Circuit City workers who lost their jobs as a result of this “wage management initiative” (the company-speak for firing people) have sued the company, claiming that the electronics retailer violated California’s age discrimination laws when it laid them off.

California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act is tougher than laws in most states, and a 2002 amendment says that using salary as the basis to terminate workers may constitute age discrimination if older workers, as a group, find that they are negatively affected.

The three workers suing Circuit City are all age 57 or older. Their attorney, Gloria Allred, told the Los Angeles Times that the Circuit City action had an “adverse impact on older employees.” She is seeking class-action status for the case, although it is unclear how many of the more than 600 Circuit City employees fired in California are 40 or older. “Terminated employees in other states may or may not have any rights depending on their state laws,” Allred told the Times, “but California is on the cutting edge of laws that protect employees’ right from age discrimination.”

This is not only a bad decision (as I wrote in my latest Last Word column), but it is also incredibly stupid and shortsighted. I’ve created a new honor, the Stupidus Maximus Award, to recognize the “most ignorant, shortsighted and dumb workforce management practice of the year.” If you have a good nominee, send them along to me at jhollon@workforce.com. Circuit City is clearly a front-runner for 2007 “honors.”

There are a lot of issues behind the sale this week of the Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and a number of other newspapers and TV stations, to Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell, but the No. 1 issue in my book comes down to a culture clash.

Tribune’s acquisition of Times Mirror back in 2000 put it in a position where its longtime flagship property (the Chicago Tribune) was no longer Tribune’s top dog. The newly acquired Los Angeles Times was now Tribune’s largest (and best) newspaper, and its single largest source of revenue.

Problem was, Tribune Co. management never really gave the Times its due. Not only did it resist graciously acknowledging the Times’ achievements (13 Pulitzers in five years), but it also prodded and poked editors and managers in Los Angeles to manage their newspaper more like the Chicago Tribune. This didn’t sit well with the Times folks. Like Judea under the Romans, Los Angeles became the most troublesome and difficult province to govern in the Tribune empire. Eventually, something had to give—like a sale.

And at its core, this was a culture clash. The styles of two companies, Times Mirror and Tribune, never matched. The Los Angeles Times was never appreciated by Tribune management, and the newspaper staff took every opportunity to point this fact out. On the other side, Tribune never fully embraced Times Mirror as a respected and full member of the Tribune family.

Merging cultures is never easy, especially when the acquiring company isn’t as big or famous as the company being acquired. It’s rare when corporate ego doesn’t get in the way. And it’s rarer still when the acquiring company can subjugate itself to the greater good of the new company. Norwest did this in 1998 when it acquired Wells Fargo
and Co., a much more well-known bank. Norwest not only took on the name of the newly acquired company, but it moved its longtime corporate headquarters from Minneapolis to San Francisco. In addition, it put together a team to analyze the cultures of the two companies and to advise management how to avoid missteps. The new company won a 2005 Workforce Management Optimas Award (in the General Excellence category) for its efforts.

Tribune management was never able to check its ego or refashion the company in a way that made the Times and other new Tribune properties feel that they were part of a new and greater enterprise. It’s a lesson that others seeking mergers would do well to learn, but sadly most will fail to heed.

JetBlue is finally growing up. CEO David Neeleman and his team have lived a charmed existence during their eight years in business, and the press has been generally positive and supportive, including this 2005 Q&A in Workforce Management.

That’s all well and good, but nothing lasts forever. Good press can come and go, and Neeleman is finding that it’s tough to turn things back to the good when the media gets fixated on the bad. He recently groused to Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, about the bad publicity JetBlue had gotten in the wake of the “Valentine’s Day debacle” when thousands of passengers were stranded for hours in planes on runways, or in airports, when a winter storm crippled JetBlue operations.

“I’m frustrated that JetBlue got all the [negative] publicity when all the other airlines got no [negative] publicity,” Neeleman told the newspaper. He went on to say that the airline would be better prepared in the future and that it would be “tough for one storm” to knock JetBlue out again.

It’s amusing when an executive like Neeleman, who has been the beneficiary of glowing and laudatory press coverage for most of his company’s brief existence, finally discovers that press coverage can cut both ways. Media tend to move in a pack, and the herd loved the concept of JetBlue with low prices, all-leather seats and in-flight satellite television at every seat. But, the press herd also saw the Valentine’s Day debacle for what it was: a massive structural failure in an airline that didn’t have enough experience or infrastructure to deal with the weather problems.

If other airlines didn’t get as roundly criticized for their storm-related difficulties, well, they also didn’t have such a great run of positive press. JetBlue was due to come back to earth at some point, at least in the media, and the Valentine’s Day debacle was a wake-up call to the press that although JetBlue was wonderful in many ways, it wasn’t immune from the realities of the U.S. airline industry.

Neeleman has done all the right things in the wake of the JetBlue weather fiasco—the aggressive public campaign to make sure the airline is better prepared for next time with more contingency plans is a good start—but he also needs to remember one thing: a business executive can’t fall in love with his press clippings. The best business leaders roll with the punches, stay humble and focused, and don’t get overly fixated on what the media is saying. They are gracious when the press is good and philosophical and good-natured when it is bad. If they are lucky, the good will more than outweigh the bad. Whatever negative has been written about JetBlue, it is far outweighed by the good. Dave Neeleman needs to remember that and pray that it will always be so.

I’m back, for a bit, after spending the better part of a week on the road. The highlight of last week was Workforce Management’s inaugural Talent Management Conference and 17th annual Optimas Awards in New York at the Millennium Broadway Hotel. The speaker lineup was impressive, including:

• Dennis Donovan, former executive vice president of human resources at Home Depot.
• Dave Ulrich, author, University of Michigan business professor and partner/co-founder of the RBL Group.
• Beverly Kaye, author and founder/CEO of Career Systems International.
• Ken Carrig, chief administrative officer of Sysco Corp.

Although all the speakers were top-notch, Dave Ulrich was the one who was really worth the price of admission. Not only did he provide the broader, strategic underpinnings to talent management, but he did it in an engaging and entertaining manner that was both highly informative and completely enjoyable.

I also announced that Dave Ulrich will be writing a series of articles for Workforce Management that should be as insightful and engaging as the white paper he did for us last year with co-author David Creelman. Look for more details in the weeks to come.