IBM

0223 IBM ILT CADDICK LETTER

[this is yet another of the documents which were exchanged in my final battle with IBM]

D.I. Caddick - Personnel Staff Director  21 February 1985 North Harbour

Dear Ilt,

Thank you for your two recent letters, received yesterday and today. Although neither of us has minuted the meeting at North Harbour I would confirm that, as you state, it covered the material already documented in my various memos and minutes. May I say that I found your review of this sympathetic, constructive and helpful, and I am grateful for the two hours you devoted to my problem.

It is clear from your latest letter, dated 19 February, that my fears are unfortunately proving to be well founded. It is apparent for example from the second paragraph of that latest letter that the events surrounding my "dismissal" from PSL have had the damaging effect that I feared, at least in terms of management's perception of my performance, abilities and attitude; even for those of management who now have had some chance to review the true facts of the situation. Clearly the damage may well be far worse in terms of those persons whose views have been developed only by exposure to the falsely based stories and rumours, without the benefit of any of the subsequent corrections.

In reply to your comments about the availability of the various minutes, it was never my intention to distribute these as a formal record of the meetings, since it was apparent at the early meetings that all those involved were under considerable stress, and were acting often in haste, and as a result some of the comments made to me might have been damaging to third parties as well as to the persons at the meeting, As I explained to Jayne Prattis my intention was simply to keep you (and Personnel Department) informed of the various developments to the best of my understanding. The strict confidentiality of the Speak - Up procedure doubly ensured that no damage could come to any of the people who were the subjects of the discussions, even as a result of their own actions or comments; and it was for this same reason that I have not invoked the Open -Door process, I wish to minimise the damage to IBM and its management as well as to myself. To guarantee the necessary confidentiality all such material up to the point of my first meeting with Jayne Prattis was sent direct to you. Following that meeting, at your suggestion, I sent the subsequent material to Jayne Prattis as your representative. Once more, though, I requested that it be kept similarly confidential to protect the people discussed. The only exceptions were the "censored" memo which I made available to Adrian Peach, again on a confidential basis ( and indeed it was the further circulation of this, against my wishes, that confirmed my decision to restrict all material to confidential handling by Personnel only), and the minutes of my first meeting with Stafford. Taylor which I subsequently cleared with him (subject to the change from "none of his management had confidence in me" to "some of his management had no confidence in me").

From your comments it would appear that the management team have now

seen the various documents with the exception of the second memo and minutes that I sent direct to you (though I discussed the contents in detail with Jayne Prattis). For the same reasons of confidentiality I am still loathe to allow similar, wider circulation for the whole of this memo and minutes. I am quite willing, however, for such parts of them as you feel would not in any way be damaging to the third parties discussed, but would be of assistance to you in your investigation, to be released on a restricted basis. In any case I had assumed that you would use these documents in your brief for your investigation and would have asked suitably phrased questions related to all the points covered, even where my material was itself not generally available in written form. In practice all the key points are referred to, at least in outline, in the other documents which now have the wider circulation.

Finally may I take up your offer of a further meeting. As you surmise, the failure to provide a suitable solution for my preferred alternative does indeed significantly narrow the options open to me, and I would now like to discuss the remaining alternatives further.

Yours sincerely,

(David Mercer)

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