Tuesday Noon Grilling Then Tuesday Afternoon Explosion

“Balsillie and Lazaridis never called each other out in the Tuesday meetings as relations between their organizations deteriorated. “They were mindful of how they were being perceived” and kept any disputes behind closed doors, says Patrick Spence, who by now was one of three sales vice presidents and Balsillie’s most trusted lieutenant. But tensions between the two CEOs were evident to others. Balsillie encouraged his salespeople to press on quality issues and would chime in, “Did you get that, Mike?” to which his co-CEO would tersely reply, “I got it.” The Tuesday noon grillings rattled Lazaridis. He felt blindsided and thought the salespeople were grandstanding. He would stop meetings when they raised quality issues and ask for more information. “What is it? Can you send me details? I need to understand,” he’d say. Lazaridis would leave the meetings steaming, then walk into a meeting with his direct reports and Morrison at 1:00 p.m. where he would let loose and demand answers. By early 2010, Lazaridis’s chiefs were telling their assistants to clear their Tuesday afternoon schedules in anticipation of long, difficult meetings with their boss. “I got the worst of it,” says Yach, an assessment shared by others. “After hearing about an issue for the first time at the Tuesday noon meeting, I’d immediately e-mail folks to get me background and updates in time for the one o’clock meeting. My most common thought [during the Tuesday meetings] was, ‘I miss Larry.’” Sometimes, Lazaridis says, his direct reports would tell him they were already well aware of an issue raised by Balsillie’s side of the house and dealing with it. “It bothered me that I was hearing about stuff [from salespeople] that I should have heard from the team that reports to me every week,” says Lazaridis. Morrison says, “It became evident [Lazaridis] was losing control of some of these problems and he wasn’t getting straight answers … [or] support from people he needed.””