One of the most critical benchmarks of a recently recruited executive’s track record is how well he or she fits into the new organization’s culture. Although newly hired executives may have achieved stellar accomplishments with previous employers, and worked at the “right” companies, their leadership styles, interpersonal skills, and decision-making processes may not mesh well at all with the way their new employers do business.
This is often a fatal mismatch.
Such was most likely the case with Julie Roehm, the former senior vice president of marketing communications for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., who was abruptly fired in December after an 11-month tenure amid allegations of personal and professional misconduct.
A much-acclaimed executive who had established a track record for cutting-edge commercials when recruited away last January from automaker DaimlerChrysler, Roehm had been expected to spearhead a similar resurgence for stodgy Wal-Mart by adding glitz to an advertising strategy that focused primarily on price-cutting smiley faces and downscale merchandise. However, her unconventional management style, combined with her risqué advertising methods, ultimately matched neither Wal-Mart’s folksy organizational culture nor family and bargain-oriented core customer base.
In hiring Roehm and adopting such a marketing strategy, Wal-Mart was intentionally stretching the limits of “cultural fit” in an effort to shake up both its culture and image. But subsequent allegations that Roehm accepted gifts from clients and engaged in a relationship with a colleague violated company prohibitions, and hastened Wal-Mart’s “organ rejection” of her.
Whatever the true story behind such accusations, executive recruiters generally agree that she and Wal-Mart ...