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Toronto - September 12, 2011 – The recent firing/resignation of Carol Bartz as the CEO of Yahoo! provides some great lessons in how not to act in the world of business. Firstly, there was the way she was let go - over the phone by the chairman of the board. We can argue until the cows come home about this one, but the right thing to do would have been to do this in person. As CEO of a well-known company for almost three years, she deserved more than just a phone call. Instead, she receives a call just before going to speak at a conference and is told she is being let go. Secondly, we have Ms. Bartz's outbursts in a Fortune magazine interview a couple of days after being fired, calling the board a bunch of doofuses and essentially saying that they were collectively incompetent. Talk about taking a few parting shots on the way out the door. I can understand that she was upset at how the situation was handled, but she needs to control her emotions and save the drama and anger for close friends and family. It now appears that she will be leaving the board as well (which should surprise no one). So we have a company and an executive, both whose reputations will be tainted by this situation, all of which could have been avoided by a little common courtesy and respect for others. Apparently common sense and doing the right thing are not as common as they should be. If this behaviour continues to be prevalent, it makes it pretty easy to differentiate yourself or your company by just doing the right thing.