Does it take a Hurricane to shift Peanut Butter?

So, next week Carol Bartz will be removing the peanut butter jar at Yahoo. About a year ago we wrote (in response to one of Umair Haque's posts) that we thought the DNA could be mixed up, so long as the peanut gallery was removed, based on experience of corporate turnaround work we've done:

Now, Umair Haque reckons its all in the DNA, and thus they are doomed already - Kismet quick!

Is he right, or can they mount a transformation - a soup to peanuts re-engineering of the business, to maximise their assets, as GigaOm suggests?

History teaches that companies can and do come back from the brown stuff - in fact there is a strong element of cyclicality in many companies and industries. However, the "coming back from the brink" usually requires some fairly major housekeeping - some throwing out of baggage, bathwater and a few babies as well.

But it is a sad fact that the people who get companies into these states of affairs are too often the ones with the reins in hand when it comes to sorting it out, and if there is one lesson to take about companies in trouble its that senior management will fire legions of innocents before the market finally fires them in turn.

So, instead of laying off 1,400 people at $70k a year, how about cutting to the chase and laying off c 70 people at $1.4m a year first (OK, the number reversal is for effect, but you get my drift) - since there is so little synergy, shoot all those who were supposed to enable it first.

Net net, if Hurricane Carol can shift the peanut butter conspiracy, then it has a good chance of working out.

(The peanut butter is a reference to a memo a former Yahoo exec made about the difficulty of getting things done being like trying to move in Peanut Butter)