When a friend from Nortel sent me James Bagnell's story earlier this month detailing the strange circumstances in which Gary Daichendt was let go, it did sound a bit too bizarre for the average reader to believe in (note: the story originally appeared on the Canada.com portal that belongs to the Asper family of newspapers, including the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald and the Montreal Gazette, however, it is no longer available; that piece claimed that Daichendt pulled a "mission-from-God power play" stunt that did not go very well with the Nortel Board). But James Bagnell is a bona-fide reporter, earning the acclaim not only from readers but also other fellow colleagues. So the issue is - did Bagnell's source deliberately feed him with an "embellished" version of what truly happened? Or was it in fact a true story?
Either way, one knew that Daichendt would categorically deny the Ottawa Citizen story and give his own account of how he resigned from his post. And he has done so - in an interview with Globe and Mail reporter Gordon Pitts. Not surprisingly, Daichendt flatly denied the original story, claiming that the allegation is "so false, it isn't even close". Interestingly enough, he did acknowledge the fact that he did tell five or six people at Nortel that he and his wife had prayed for guidance before he offered his resignation. But he said that the comment was part of a broader conversation about prayer involving the other people. "I prayed with my wife; that's a true statement because I am a man of faith."
While we will never really know 100% what truly transpired on that day, one reality is becoming increasingly clear (as per my original post on this story): what works for Cisco may not necessarily work for Nortel. Mr. Daichendt might have ruffled a few feathers internally by making it public that he was hired to eventually be the next CEO (when the more politically astute thing to do would have been to remain quiet, even if this information was leaked to the press). The only question is: by proposing a plan that was too radical (given the level of changes, and the suggested timeline, which really was very aggressive according to what I heard), was he really trying to find an excuse to leave?
