Morrison

"Conlee’s responsibilities and title were split between handset chief Thorsten Heins and manufacturing head Jim Rowan, both of whom he had groomed, leaving Lazaridis with two chief operating officers; a third, Morrison, still reported to Balsillie. Lazaridis’s direct reports, including software head David Yach and chief information officer Robin Bienfait, met regularly with Morrison to ensure they were on the same page, “but nobody could stand up and say ‘Okay, all opinions heard, this is the decision’” as Conlee had done, says a former senior executive. “It slowed the company down. It was not that people didn’t perform in their roles; it was just purely the structure that was established did not lead to good, sound, and convergent decision making.” With Conlee gone, inertia and frustration set in at the senior levels. “There wasn’t the individual accountability that we needed,” says Morrison. “It was too splayed because it was across three different organizations. Now, all of a sudden, Mike is trying to manage something, but he doesn’t have the genetic code Larry has.”"

"One thing Morrison didn’t get was Balsillie’s objections to talking about the company’s stock price, a ritual in most executive suites. Anyone caught talking about RIM’s share value was penalized. Balsillie didn’t want staff becoming complacent or distracted about company or personal fortunes. When Morrison sent Balsillie a congratulatory e-mail about RIM’s soaring stock price, he had to buy hundreds of donuts for RIM employees. Stock prices and quarterly results were precisely what Conlee believed needed more attention. He’d been hired to expand RIM “from millions to billions.” The company wasn’t going to get there unless it paid more respect to commercial details. That, the Texan knew, called for “a different culture.” Conlee invited RIM’s engineers to the Waterloo Inn to explain new marching orders. He introduced a detailed schedule of product milestones for Project Tachyon’s 5820 BlackBerrys, goals that would be enforced by a new product management office. Going forward, deadlines would be short and inflexible. All software features on the 5820 had to be completed within two weeks; for hardware design and beta-testing, the deadline was six weeks."

"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.”"