A revealing yarn is told by Peter Gillibrand, GEC's PR man during the reign of GEC's long-serving and much feared boss, Lord Arnold Weinstock.
It was often said, though never validated, that Gillibrand had been in the press room of a company which Weinstock took over.
With his views on the irrelevance of PR, Weinstock is said to have immediately sacked all the company's press officers. Gillibrand, who was on holiday at the time, returned to find himself the one remaining PR in the company and, by then, Weinstock had decided he needed a PR.
Anyway, Gillibrand's tale relates to the take over of English Electric in 1967. EE had a computer business, and Weinstock was already known to have an antipathy to the computer business.
After a previous takeover of AEI, Weinstock had tried to sell AEI's computer business to Elliott Automation, but had been stopped when one of his executives told Weinstock he was crazy to consider the sale.
So after the EE takeover, the one question that was going to be on the lips of the press was what Weinstock intended to do with EE's computer business.
Weinstock told Gillibrand he wasn't going to attend the press conference announcing the EE takeover, and that Gillibrand would have to answer all the questions. It was a pretty appalling prospect for him..
Then, at the last moment, Weinstock turned up at the press conference.
Asked the inevitable question about what he was going to do about EE's computer business, Weinstock made a single, final statement and would say no more. He said:
"I'm going to do what's necessary."
Interesting. On the one hand is the man with views of the softer side of business often so outdated as to be almost Neanderthal. The man who took the legal minimum redundancy payment (devised specifically for companies that were bankrupt NOT cash-rich) and handed it out to the many unfortunates he sacked. On the other the generator of a massive (£10bn) cash mountain, which Lord Simpson pissed away in a few short years. Weinstock was right about PR though.
Philip, as one who was on the receiving end of a couple of Arnie's writs, I have to admit I may be biased in saying he held back the natural evolution of the UK electronics industry. There's a good aspect to being engaged with PR - it makes you aware of what people are saying about you. For instance Andy Grove sat in the PR section of Intel when CEO. And what's the commonest criticism of CEOs? - Their isolation.
Agreed - as long as there are 10 engineers designing product and 1 PR dude talking about it (rather than the other way round), it's all good.
Philip, Here here