Fred Hassan On Toxicity & Other Managerial Hints
15 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // June 8th, 2010 // 7:56 am
What makes Fred run? How did the former Schering-Plough ceo find success? Manage people? Overcome a stutter? In this interview, which you can watch by clicking here and registering, Hassan discusses the top line, passive resistance, managing bigness and overcoming toxicity in the system. In the end, Fred believes he’s “a good person to work for. If you go back, there were a lot who followed me from Pharmacia to Schering-Plough…But I can be very, very tough.”
Truth
This PR is a complete joke! Overcoming toxicity? When did Fred ever overcome any toxicity? Seems to me that the organizations he ran were laced with it. In fact, I think he created it!
Good person to work for? Maybe if you’re one of his adoring minions, but not if you’re a solid, hard-working, honest individual. If so, then it’s “off with your head” becuase you threaten his kingdom. Just ask the thousands that are on the street because of his actions.
Former SP
Greed!
Condor
Ed — my links were eaten by your spam filter.
Just see this. This is all available for free on the web, already — don’t give up your personal details.
Namaste
Condor
I wrote a much longer piece, but Ed’s filter won’t swallow YouTube links — so do go see it, with commentary — on mine.
Namaste
Ed Silverman
Hi Condor,
Sorry for the inconvenience with the filter. Perhaps it’s acting tempermental this morning. But thanks for the added insights. Always interesting.
Regards
ed
Condor
No worries, Ed — and I do not mean to ding you for posting this “Hassan-o-mercial“. . . .
I just want to be sure that everyone knows — for those who want to swallow his tripe — it is available for free, non-registration, on the web in a bunch of places.
Me? I’ve had my fill of tripe.
Namaste — great work, Ed!
John
Condor, are you an ex-Schering guy?
I’ve never worked for Hassan, but was amused at his comment about the number of people who followed him from Pharmacia to Schering. Given that their old jobs were eliminated when Hassan engineered the sale of Pharmacia to Pfizer, they didn’t exactly have the option of staying put, did they?
Condor
Hey John –
Nah — I am not ex-Schering, or ex-Pharmacia or ex-AHP — all “Fred’s Ex-es,” as it were — but I do know many who are.
[I have negotiated against him in the past, though.] The scariest thing about him is that he actually believes his own peculiar brand of nonsense.
Namaste
John
Fred got “CEO of the Year” from Business Week or some similar rag when Pharmacia’s revenues took off in the first 2 years he was CEO there. I thought this was pretty naive given that the incremental revenues mostly came from products that had been in development for a decade under Hassan’s predecessors, and which happened to reach the market shortly after Hassan took over.
I really can’t say if he’s a good CEO or a bad one, its just my impression that he has been given credit for things that were not entirely his doing.
Condor
Or — more precisely, John — he’s (allegedly) TAKEN credit for things others did, and (allegedly) shifted the blame, for things he did. Disgusting.
Consider here that Hassan (along with Carrie S. Cox) launched — for Pharmacia — the drug that (NOT-allegeldy) resulted in the largest criminal fine in US history, for off-label promotion, and drug study delays and non-disclosures. Consider also that Pfizer was the one Fred stuck with the tab for that, by selling Pharmacia to Pfizer a few years after launch. The drug? Bextra® (Valdecoxib) — along with Celebrex®.
Cox (his “follower,” from Pharmacia) and Hassan then (allegedly) ran a markedly-similar scheme — at Schering-Plough — on Vytorin®. That ultimately (allegedly) turned out to be the death-blow, to old Schering-Plough.
Pattern-conduct, that.
Namaste
John
Condor, I appreciate the dig and your sense of humor. Your point is well-taken.
Former Pharmacia
In my opinion, Hassan is a menace to society. It seems to me that the only people who “followed” him from Pharmacia to SP were the ones that were willing to do his dirty work again and again and again for another hefty windfall. I think he’s a sham, like a snake-oil salesman form the old west.
Condor
Look, Reality and Truth 2 –
I think the guy is dishonest and incompetent.
The color of his skin, or the fact that he is Pakistani by birth, have nothing to do with it.
He is no war criminal, just an unethical capitalist — so yours both feel a little racist, in tone, to me.
Why go there? It simply gives him an unearned defense — that this is all about white people being upset about his success (such as it is) in life.
I — for one — would never want to trade places with Freddie. Let’s leave the racial and ethnic stuff at the door, okay?
Namaste, just the same.
[End, sermon.]
mark diamond
I was w SP for 22 years and when Hassan came in the totally demoralized the sales forces by cutting incentives to nothingness. He had all employees brow beaten till they cried uncle. He tried to convince all that they were lucky to have a job. He lined the pockets of the upper inner circle while thousands lost money and then almost all lost their jobs. The guy is incompetent as was his cronie bunch. Then they all took what they could out of SP, lied about data that caused a collapse of the stock and the ultimate demise of a 100 year old prior successful company. He walked w 150 mill while the employees were let go to flounder in a now impossible job market. Thanks Fred and Carrie. You will get yours. Karma has arrived.
Pharma Phil
The plain and simple truth is he was and still is a snake oil salesman. He’s been that way since his Lederle/ American Home products days. The bad news is, everyone knew it then.