A CEO I know called to rant about having to terminate her marketing VP. I asked why and she said that in addition to being dissatisfied with his work she’d found out that his degree was in history, not marketing, as he claimed. She said that if she’d known about the degree she would never have hired him.

This was strange, since I know the VP has over ten years of experience. When I asked why she did hire him and she said that he’d been in marketing for his whole career, had a reputation for doing very creative work, knew her industry and market and his references were fantastic. She ended up by saying that if she’d know about the degree she never would have hired him.

When I suggested that maybe something else was going on, she vehemently told me that if he had the marketing degree he claimed he would know what he was doing.

Think about it, here’s a guy known for his creativity, with a great reputation in marketing, excellent references, knows the industry and market, but can’t perform. And this is because his ten-year-old degree isn’t in marketing—I don’t think so.

Obviously, he shouldn’t have changed his major, especially after ten+ years of success.

The key change here is one of culture and management—the culture the CEO created and her management of him—not a decade-old college major, or even that he lied about it.

So, what did I say? Thankfully, this CEO isn’t a client, so I uttered some inanity and got off the call before I said what I was actually thinking.