(MoneyWatch)
Today, with all the wreckage of the leadership train in the tech world, you have to wonder if everyone is affected.
CEOs, founders and boards across the country are crashing and burning.
HP has been a mess since former director Tom Perkins called it "the worst board in business history" to fire Mark Hurd over a sex scandal.
HP then hired Leo apothekert, and most of the board members did not even interview him.
Li Aike almost destroyed the company before being fired 11 months later.
Now at the helm of Meg Whitman, The Legend Continues.
RIM, the BlackBerry maker, finally dispatched
Ceo Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie packed their bags after driving the company out of the highest cliff they could find, more or less handing over the smartphone market to Apple and Samsung, and even
Do you know that all eight of RIM's external directors are bean counters? No kidding.
Popular live news: Tony Award deadly crane collapse trophy hunting documentary Women's World Cup, now, Yahoo's 5-
With CEO Scott Thompson's resume scandal, a year-long soap opera about board dysfunction and executive incompetence has taken another turn.
He came out in less than four months.
If Yahoo's board can get rid of Yang Zhiyuan so quickly.
That's right. I forgot.
Dan Leeb of the Third Point Capital took a long time to find out that Thompson was not what he looked like, and let Yahoo expel him and the board of directors, Apple's board, in the most amazing coup after John Sculley.
While Best Buy, Sony, First Solar, Olympus and Nokia may not be the worst of all companies, in all sorts of scandals and record-breaking losses, they still managed to send out more CEOs and directors than their fair share to exit.
How to kill BlackBerry, the world's largest technology company: how RIM destroyed a great brand in the event of a continuous decline in career, market share and shareholder value, you will think that there will be one or two leadership classes on a million or so boards around the world.
Sure enough.
So put down your rubber stamp and listen for a minute.
This is important.
Here's how to avoid having to live with your own personal Yahoo or HP --like disaster.
The whole time was tough.
Most of us wear a few hats these days trying to keep all kinds of balls in the air.
On the other hand, you only have one job to do, which is to hire a decent CEO.
Yes, I know that you have to attend all the board and committee meetings and act as if you were looking at them.
It doesn't matter if you do your first job well.
Believe me at this point.
So, unlike other directors at HP and Yahoo, all you really have to do is do a reasonable professional search, interview candidates, and properly review them, that way you know they 've actually got the degree they're talking about and are not criminals or Pixar animated characters.
Then take your millions.
Dollar baby's hand a little until he figure out where the meeting room and projector are and you can go home almost free of charge.
There is only one thing you need to pay attention.
If this guy messed up a major strategic deal-
Just like Yang Zhiyuan's failure in Microsoft or Li Aike's personal computer department. -
Don't wait for him to come again.
Just give him the boots and try to do better next time.
Yes, I know it's not as easy as it sounds, but I have confidence in you.
You can do that.
Just focus and do it according to the book.
Yes, I also realize that there are no teeth in the whole corporate governance.
If you are forced to retreat from a board, there are many other cards you can sign up.
This may be true, but it's still true.
If you do the right thing, you get a lot of karma points.
And you will sleep better at night.
Because none of us are getting younger, these are actually good incentives if you ask me.
So do the right thing.
Let's take pride in being a shareholder of your company.
If not, then we have to dump Dan Loeb on you.
The picture is from Daniel R, a user at Flickr.