Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonliner
He has name recognition but apparently no skills that matter in the real world other than self promotion.
|
He was hired because of a particular skillset that the Gap decided was what they needed to turn themselves around (the kind of CEO they are now looking for is exactly the kind they dumped for Paul Pressler). He is credited for successfully doing what they asked of him and what he was hyped as being good at.
It isn't particularly fair to now bash him for not being good at what he never said he was good at and they didn't want when they hired him.
To draw from my recent experience. A project just wasn't getting results. The bossguy decided that what was needed was a new strong project manager. They went out and got themselves a great project manager. Things improved a bit but in the end still didn't get the desired results. So the bossman decided what they'd really needed all along was a better UE designer.
So now we make fun of the project manager for being a crappy UE designer (well, not really, but that would be the equivelant).
We may not like what Pressler did to Disneyland, but he was doing exactly what his bosses wanted of him as evidence by the fact that his successors all seem to be similar (and even Ouimet mostly continued along the same track but he was much better at selling it and cared a bit more about the small stuff) as well as the management in WDW.
I don't want to particularly defend him. It isn't like I'm saying he is a genius or anything. But he is good at certain things and when that is in line with what his bosses want he is successful. It isn't particularly his fault that the Gap board was wrong about what it needed.