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