Having worked for DO, he was worthless.
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I worked with RM David Roth in Atlanta. Someone told me he has the job only because a couple of HO people have protected him. I believe it. Who protects him and why.
Steve was the person who talked Maureen into staying after she resigned even though she was the lowest in forced rankings of ops people and he was reluctant to move on poor performers and once they screwed up a store, he would simply move them to another store. Don was street smart and knew how to run stores but was trapped in the 70-80's mentality and couldn't accept change. Bob S. on the other hand is a survivalist and will coddle to anyone in senior leadership and have no problems playing Donald Trump with firing people.
"appointment of friends to important positions, regardless of ability". This sums it up, DG has repeatedly replace solid, performing Follett employees with those from kmart, sears and office max. The family took action on ML, however DG is the one who made each of these decisions. The family needs to look at the real numbers and understand that there is zero improvement.
The common thread in losing two classy and competent leaders like Steve and Don is the low life POS that replaced them. We lost leadership and ethics in those moves. So sad.
True Steve was forced to retire. Don on the other hand was done in by Bob Scholl. For many years there had been issues between the two. As I have heard the story, when both Don, Howard and Bob were equals, Don when asked by upper management to critique Bob's performance. This is back in the days of the 360 degree reviews. Don exposed a number of points though accurate, about Bob's handling of certain situations. Obviously with the 360 review, it was obvious to Bob who made those comments. With the change in upper management, Bob as he had done through out his entire time at FHEG put himself in the position to back stab Don. True, anyone who knew that at times Don could be very inflexible but he could run stores. Of interest, was that Mike in Marketing attacked Don for what he called "interference" with Marketing's financial assumptions, proposals and presentation. With this issue in hand, it was easy for Bob to go to Mary Lee and force the issue. The truth? From the first day he was hired, I was there, Bob had always positioned himself so as to achieve the maximum exposure. Brown nosing, ass kissing etc. Everyone knew he was waiting to take Steve's spot. Poor Bob, all those Joseph A. Banks suits, all that image gone to waste. What's really sad its that he doesn't have the masculine equipment to leave!
Huge Penn State-like scandal,
Steve was forced to retire 3 years early to accommodate Don's wish to hire Clay.