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Fiorina's advice to us? Compete
Ex-H-P chief says run state like a business
Detroit Free Press
By Tom Walsh, Free Press Columnist, May 30, 2008
MACKINAC ISLAND -- I've had a soft spot for former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina -- now an economic adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign -- ever since she made CNN's blowhard anchor Lou Dobbs sputter, "Go to hell, Carly."
Her sin at the time in 2004: She told members of Congress, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation." Given Fiorina's penchant for blunt speaking about harsh realities, I looked forward to interviewing her at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference, where she was scheduled to be the dinner speaker Thursday night.
If you were the CEO of an enterprise called Michigan or Detroit, I asked her, what would you do? Where would you start?
"Every city, every state, has to compete to attract companies and attract jobs," she said, "and Michigan is at the very bottom of the pile" in terms of its perceived business climate.
"Automotive jobs are going to South Carolina," she added. "You've got to recognize the reality."
When it comes to job creation and attraction, a state or a city must act like a business, she said: "Who's the competition? How can we beat our competitors?" Are Michigan's business and political big shots thinking and acting that way? Or have they focused more on appeasing labor unions to avoid strikes, or trying not to anger the anti-tax zealots to make re-election easier?
For far too long, Michigan's so-called leaders have chosen the roads of least resistance and have not shown the political will to make difficult decisions. The result: Michigan has done a pitiful job of protecting existing jobs and attracting new ones for the past few decades.
"Detroit may have always been the capital of the automotive world," Fiorina told me, "but that means nothing about the future." There are no guarantees in today's global, technology-driven economy.
"You've got to work at it," she said.
And how do we do that? Fiorina pointed to the surge of economic growth in Ireland during the 1990s, fueled by low corporate tax rates and increased investment in higher education. Ireland's message to investors and business, she said, was "Come to us." "It works," she added.
Fiorina supports McCain, but she's no paint-by-numbers Republican right-wing ideologue.
She doesn't see labor unions as evil -- or right-to-work laws, which prohibit compulsory labor union membership or dues as a condition of employment, as an economic panacea. "It's great that the Big Three auto companies and the UAW got together to relieve the burden of health care costs with a very creative solution," she said, referring to the last year's auto labor contracts under which the union assumes control of retiree health benefits.
She and McCain say government has a role to play in supporting innovation in green technology, clean coal and nuclear power.
Mostly Fiorina believes in facing reality, no matter how daunting that may be. She had a reputation as a hard-charging, charismatic CEO who sometimes had trouble delegating. She was famously fired in early 2005 as H-P's chief executive after pushing through a merger with Compaq, a move she still stands by.
Leaders, Fiorina said, are going to take fire. Leaders say things that are true, even when people don't want to hear the truth.
When I told her I had admired her for speaking frankly about jobs in a global economy, even though she was vilified afterward, she shrugged and smiled. "I'm used to being right and used to being vilified for it," she said.