Here's the news release Microsoft issued Thursday - Valentine's Day - with this headline: Fourteen leaders promoted as company matches leadership talent to expanding business priorities. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
The headline gets paid off in the first sentence of the first paragraph: Microsoft Corp. today announced a series of executive promotions - seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents - reflective of the company's commitment to build and maintain a strong and dynamic management team across its unique portfolio of businesses. Now how can you argue with that, right?
Well, because it's a reorg, that's why. But you'd never know it from this news release. Instead, you'd have to figure that out on your own - which admittedly seems pretty easy - or you could rely on The New York Times. The headline on their piece calls it an Executive Shuffle, but writer Saul Hansell doesn't take very long to get to the point. He uses the dreaded "r" word right in the first paragraph:
If there was apprehension at Yahoo already about the prospect of a takeover by Microsoft, the fear will no doubt increase as those in Sunnyvale study the details of Microsoft's reorganization announced Thursday.
This post isn't about Microsoft, per se. It's about traditional PR's ability to ignore the elephant in the room while thinking you're stupid enough to go along with that charade.
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