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What can a CEO do when the founder makes a mistake?

Relationships between the head executive and those under him or her may be one thing, but what can a CEO do when someone who has more authority than them makes a mistake? When the current CEO tenure is dwarfed by that of other important figures in that company, there might be some anxieties and issues of who has the real power in such situation.

Normally, the principle of those with different jobs sticking to what they do best can win out, but when facing a PR crisis, some interaction may be unavoidable. 

Take the ongoing crisis at Lululemon. This company faced a very public error earlier this year when some of the exercise pants it produced turned out to be transparent in certain conditions and had to be recalled as such. More recent complaints have also left the company very much in the public scorn and called its performance into question.

Now, more controversy.

In words that recalled the similarly infamous words uttered by the head of Abercrombie and Fitch, the founder of Lululemon, Chip Wilson, made comments in a video interview with Bloomberg that were quickly interpreted as offensive.

"Quite frankly some women's bodies actually don't work for it," he said.

Though Wilson has apologized, imagine if he hadn't. The CEO of the company, Christine Day, will be departing from the company, and would have been in a somewhat awkward position: would she tow the company line or confront the founder about his statements and beg him to reconsider?

Whatever the CEO decides to do when confronted with a predicament of this nature, it's clear that there can be a lot riding on that relationship, but YES Partners can gather information about an executive candidate to see in advance if he or she is cut out for working with a prominent, active founder.

Finding people is easy, but finding the RIGHT people is not. YES Partners helps companies FIND the right people – for all company functions, across many industries and globally.

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