If at First You Don’t Succeed -- Reorganize

In the face of overwhelming competitive odds, hostile investors, and key employees jumping ship faster than a microprocessor can count, Yahoo management is taking the tried and true way to face adversity: reorganization — its fourth in 18 months.

VentureBeat is finding the situation predictable because so much upper management has taken a hike in the last few weeks:

What exactly is going on behind the scenes with Yahoo/Microsoft/Google is not entirely clear, but Yahoo needed to make these moves to solidify its company. Oh, and billionaire investor Carl Icahn who is trying to lead a hostile takeover of Yahoo probably still wants cut off that pesky head entirely.

No wonder Icahn wants to see heads roll – it would take singleminded determination to intentionally make as many mistakes as Yahoo’s management and board have done. (Portfolio.com has a pretty funny take on the latest shareholder letter from Yahoo.)

I don’t even want to think about the new structure in detail, because the problem with this “tried and true” solution — particularly if a company has used it multiple times in a short period — is that it’s tired and a trap. In such cases, reorganization is not an attempt to get to the root of a problem, or even to keep things temporarily afloat, so much as it is a search for a scapegoat and a delaying tactic to keep the people at the top where they are.