Sigh. This is a difficult situation. I don't think anyone has suggested that
firing Gayle or Philippe should happen. However, I have concerns about keeping
Gayle in the Chief Talent and Culture Officer position. I directed that concern
to her and I want to hear what she thinks. There may be good reasons to keep
her in that position, on the other hand it might be better if she had some time
to learn in a WMF position for which she's a better fit at the moment. At a top
5 website I think the performance expectations for C-level positions are high
with good reason. I have significant concerns when someone with many years of
leadership development experience makes the kind of mistakes that she appears
to have made, especially when that person is the C-level officer that is
supposed to be the subject matter expert in that area for all of WMF and that
person is heavily involved in selecting the next ED. My experiences with Gayle
prior to this one were positive and I've heard good things about her from
others, but this situation should be examined with great care.
I currently hope that Gayle stays with WMF, but perhaps in a different position
for awhile with the option of returning to the C-level some distance in the
future. I want to hear what Gayle thinks. My views at this point are based on
the incomplete information that's publicly available, and there are important
unanswered questions in this situation. I hope we learn more from Gayle.
I know that the easy thing to do is to drop this issue and move on to the next
problem, but I agree with Thomasz that easy thing to do isn't necessarily the
best thing to do. Sometimes the best things and the right things involve asking
hard questions and having difficult conversations.
I think it's probably tough on a lot of us to
read and participate in this discussion. On-wiki discussions about whether
people should be de-adminned or blocked
are often public, and while I think it's appropriate that we have this
difficult conversation in public since the actions that started this
situation were public, this is an awfully difficult situation and I'm sorry
that we're all in it. We need to deal with it as best we can. I wish it was
easy.
Pine
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