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Tension Setters 101   Advice for Cramer: Tamer? A Bit. Bla...
Aug 23 2007 7:30PM EDT

Tension-Setter 2 -- Motorola + Zander

While the Ford example shows what a tension-setter is, Maija Palmer and Paul Taylorins FT piece on Motorola shows what tension-setter does.

Under other conditions, Palmer and Taylorin would have probably issued a very straight-forward report onthe freshly released rankings of global hand-set sales, likely noting that Samsung was close to passing Motorola as the number-two player. Yawn.

Instead, their story was framed by Roger Crockett's BW hotfoot of wobbly Motorola chief Edward Zander back on July 19. Zander's story serves as a perfect example of a very specific tension-setter sub-species -- the struggling CEO deathwatch notification.

Before that story, Crockett himself had to limit his speculation to the mere grumblings of the sell-siders.

The July 19 story is worth a look on its own, given that it seemed prompted by a leak about a meeting between two Motorola board members and former MCI CEO Michael Capellas. While leaks of such meetings often come from headhunters trying to escalate the courtship, Jack assumes this one came from the two anonymous board members.

Why? Consider this sentence:

"According to two sources with knowledge of the board's actions, Zander and two directors met with Capellas to discuss options for joining the company."

Hmmm. Either Crockett was trying to send a clear signal just how good his sources were, or he was trying to throw us all off the trail. Either way, the two directors end up looking like the whisperers, something they may or may not care about.

Why would they leak a meeting that would normally be highly secretive, particularly since Capellas joined First Data instead?

Who knows? But Jack speculates that it is ensure that subsequent news coverage -- like today's FT piece -- further saps Zander's ability to get things done. That, in turn, weakens his ability to stave off the unhappy directors, whose fellow directors apparently didn't share the opinion that a change needed to be made.

They soon may have no choice, as the bad headlines will continue to be highly personalized to Zander.

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