I lived in Boise for more than six years, and I will contend it's the most delightful spot on Earth. So I've followed the exploits of Senator Larry Craig with a special interest. He was a pro-development, anti-wilderness politician way back when I was an active member of the Idaho Conservation League voting against him. Setting aside his political views (which I largely disagree with) and his sexual orientation (which I don't care about either way), I have some observations to make about how he has handled this entire bathroom stall fiasco. We business communications types can draw some analogies to our companies and nonprofits.
Let's pretend Senator Craig had held a media briefing shortly after pleading guilty. Imagine he had said, "I pleaded guilty simply to put the event behind me. I am not gay. I did nothing wrong in the Minneapolis men's room or any other place. My wife and friends will now have to listen to even more rumors and innuendo. I can't bear to see people I care about suffer on my account. I therefore have chosen to serve the remainder of my term and not seek re-election to the Senate or any other public office."
The good Senator could have sailed quietly off into the sunset and would have been remembered for his many years of service. His confessed indiscretion would have been a mere asterisk on his career. Or what if at the news conference he had outed himself. That wouldn't have gone over well with his conservative supporters, but it would have made him a hero to gay rights folks across the country. His dignity would have been bruised, but he still could have held his head up and finished his term.
But no. Look what he did. He hid the arrest and confession from the public and, apparently, from his wife, his attorney, and his staff. (See http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/192823.html) When the news broke, he announced his resignation effective at the end of the month. Even at that point, if he had simply cleaned out his desk and gone home to Eagle when he said he would, Jay Leno would have had to find some other material for his monologues. Instead, Craig decided to bring in the legal team to change his plea and announced he would serve the rest of his term in the Senate. The Idaho Statesman is reporting today that Craig hired an attorney and public relations counsel four months before his arrest. So why didn't he consult them before his court appearance? If he did, I hope he fired them. He allowed himself to remain in the headlines and the butt of monologues.
How will Idaho remember Senator Craig? As a long-time elected official who worked tirelessly for the good of Idaho people? Not a chance. He'll be remembered for the toe tap and then the fancy footwork that followed to try to undo his poor courtroom strategy. He's gone down in flames instead of quietly retiring.
The lesson for business people is to admit your transgressions. "We made a mistake. I'm sorry. We are taking measures to be sure it never happens to us again. I hope our customers/clients/donors will forgive us and allow us to continue effectively delivering our products/services as we have for many years." It's a lot harder staying angry at someone who is repentant. (That holds true most of the time for spouses, too. I've tried it both ways.)
So when your company errs, do what you can to make it a one-day news story. Be honest. Accept responsibility when you are responsible. Be consistent in what you say. Reveal only as much as you need to. Say how you will fix the problem that caused the crisis. Just think of Larry Craig; then do the right thing.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Insensitivity and Lack of Ethics Strand Handicapped Man
We define a crisis as a significant business disruption which results in extensive public attention and financial loss. The story I’m about to relate isn’t a crisis by definition. I hope that someone in the offending business will read this, become as incensed by it as I am, and change the procedure.
A friend of mine, a professor at the University of Louisville, wanted to watch the U of L football game Saturday evening. Not having access to ESPNU, he decided to meet a former student at Buffalo Wild Wings, popular for its food and many televised sports events. This former student is about 40 years old and must use a wheelchair after being involved in an auto accident some years back. He drives a retrofitted van that has no driver’s seat, which allows him to operate from his wheelchair. The restaurant is in the Highlands of Louisville, where parking is a challenge anytime, but especially on a Saturday night when the home team is playing out of town. Without handicap parking available, the man parked at a nearby Taco Bell, where he was able to roll easily to eat and watch some football. Taco Bell wasn’t busy and he thought it would be all right.
When he was ready to leave, his van was missing. The woman working in Taco Bell said that a towing company comes by every hour and tows unauthorized vehicles from the lot. There are signs, she said. Well, those signs aren’t readable from the handicap parking space. And wait a minute. How does the towing company know which vehicles are unauthorized? I’ll explain in a moment. Now the man had a dilemma. It was 10:30 on a Saturday night. My professor friend couldn’t give this man a ride because he couldn’t get the wheelchair into his car. He couldn’t go pick up the van from the lot because it didn’t have a driver’s seat. Besides, impoundment wouldn’t open until 8:30 Monday morning. He could have rolled all the way home along the road. I don’t know how far away he lives, but that clearly wasn’t a safe option, day or night. He could have waited at Taco Bell until the lot opened on Monday, but he would still have the same issues with how he could get to the lot to reclaim his car. He was stranded.
Here’s where this story gets ugly. The tow truck driver came by to tow another car and explained that this fellow could pay him $160 -- $110 to get his car released, which he would have to pay on Monday anyway, and $50 to have the car towed back to him. This man had little choice but to pay the $160, which he did, and eventually recovered his van. As they say, here’s the rest of the story: The driver explained that the woman working at Taco Bell watches the lot. If someone parks and doesn’t enter Taco Bell, she calls immediately for the tow truck. The driver tows the car a few blocks to an auto garage. That leaves the driver able to return quickly to tow more cars while the garage takes the vehicles to the impoundment lot. The Taco Bell employee gets a cut, the tow truck driver gets a cut, and the garage gets a cut. Nice business! By making sure the nearly empty Taco Bell lot was cleared of unauthorized vehicles, this Taco Bell employee left a handicapped man stranded late at night with no way to go anywhere unless he paid $160 on he spot. This is a man who also happens to be unemployed at the moment.
Taco Bell needs to post signs more clearly. It should stop paying this woman who, on company time, tips off a towing company for a fee. And it needs to show a little compassion for a paraplegic who had no other place to park his van and enjoy wings and a ball game. I say shame on you, Bardstown Road Taco Bell. Perhaps you deserve a crisis for your lack of sensitivity.
A friend of mine, a professor at the University of Louisville, wanted to watch the U of L football game Saturday evening. Not having access to ESPNU, he decided to meet a former student at Buffalo Wild Wings, popular for its food and many televised sports events. This former student is about 40 years old and must use a wheelchair after being involved in an auto accident some years back. He drives a retrofitted van that has no driver’s seat, which allows him to operate from his wheelchair. The restaurant is in the Highlands of Louisville, where parking is a challenge anytime, but especially on a Saturday night when the home team is playing out of town. Without handicap parking available, the man parked at a nearby Taco Bell, where he was able to roll easily to eat and watch some football. Taco Bell wasn’t busy and he thought it would be all right.
When he was ready to leave, his van was missing. The woman working in Taco Bell said that a towing company comes by every hour and tows unauthorized vehicles from the lot. There are signs, she said. Well, those signs aren’t readable from the handicap parking space. And wait a minute. How does the towing company know which vehicles are unauthorized? I’ll explain in a moment. Now the man had a dilemma. It was 10:30 on a Saturday night. My professor friend couldn’t give this man a ride because he couldn’t get the wheelchair into his car. He couldn’t go pick up the van from the lot because it didn’t have a driver’s seat. Besides, impoundment wouldn’t open until 8:30 Monday morning. He could have rolled all the way home along the road. I don’t know how far away he lives, but that clearly wasn’t a safe option, day or night. He could have waited at Taco Bell until the lot opened on Monday, but he would still have the same issues with how he could get to the lot to reclaim his car. He was stranded.
Here’s where this story gets ugly. The tow truck driver came by to tow another car and explained that this fellow could pay him $160 -- $110 to get his car released, which he would have to pay on Monday anyway, and $50 to have the car towed back to him. This man had little choice but to pay the $160, which he did, and eventually recovered his van. As they say, here’s the rest of the story: The driver explained that the woman working at Taco Bell watches the lot. If someone parks and doesn’t enter Taco Bell, she calls immediately for the tow truck. The driver tows the car a few blocks to an auto garage. That leaves the driver able to return quickly to tow more cars while the garage takes the vehicles to the impoundment lot. The Taco Bell employee gets a cut, the tow truck driver gets a cut, and the garage gets a cut. Nice business! By making sure the nearly empty Taco Bell lot was cleared of unauthorized vehicles, this Taco Bell employee left a handicapped man stranded late at night with no way to go anywhere unless he paid $160 on he spot. This is a man who also happens to be unemployed at the moment.
Taco Bell needs to post signs more clearly. It should stop paying this woman who, on company time, tips off a towing company for a fee. And it needs to show a little compassion for a paraplegic who had no other place to park his van and enjoy wings and a ball game. I say shame on you, Bardstown Road Taco Bell. Perhaps you deserve a crisis for your lack of sensitivity.
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Naked Truth About Authority Figures and Liability
At ICM, we classify crises as sudden, smoldering, perceptual, or bizarre. Here is a case that would fit into the bizarre category, with plenty of smoldering crisis characteristics as well.
Louise Ogborn was an 18-year-old employee of McDonald's three years ago in Mt. Washington, Kentucky. One day, her manager, Donna Summers, received a call from a man claiming to be with the police, accusing Ogborn of stealing a customer's purse. He ordered Summers to call the girl into her office, and then gave a lengthy list of commands. He ordered her to strip-search Ogborn, and at one point, told her to make Ogborn perform calisthenics while naked. This went on for 3 ½ hours. Summers called her boyfriend in and, when left alone with Ogborn, he sexually molested her. He was found guilty in 2006 and is serving a five-year prison sentence. Summers entered an Alford plea to unlawful imprisonment and was sentenced to one year's probation. David Stewart, a private prison guard from Florida, was charged with impersonating an officer and soliciting sodomy. He was tried in Bullitt County, Kentucky, and acquitted. Police say they believe Stewart is responsible for making hoax calls to fast-food restaurants all over the country, but he has never been charged for any other hoaxes.
In fact, the first documented strip search took place at a McDonald's in Saybrook, Ohio, in 1994. But the company failed to warn managers at its restaurants that this hoax was being carried out. This happened 40 times over 10 years. It was no surprise then when Ogborn sued McDonald's for $200 million. What did surprise me a bit was that Summers claimed she too was a victim of McDonald's failure to notify managers, and so she sued for $50 million. After a lengthy trial and 31 pages of the judge’s instructions to the jury, the ruling was in favor of Ogborn and Summers. The jury awarded Ogborn $6.1 million, $5 million of which was for punitive damages. The Jury found McDonald’s responsible for half the compensatory damages (The caller is responsible for the other half.) and the entire punitive award. Summers also won and is to receive $1.1 million. For more information, see http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710060475.
Okay, so here's what we can learn from all this. First, there are people who will do ridiculous things if ordered by an authority figure. It's easy for us to say we wouldn't fall for something this weird, but I wonder. If a policeman is threatening you if you don't do what he says.... Ogborn also succumbed to an authority figure, her boss's orders. The office door wasn't locked. She could have walked out with her clothing and dignity intact. Instead, she put up with 3 1/2 hours of nakedness in front of her boss and her boss's boyfriend.
While this makes for an interesting study of human behavior, the lesson for businesses is to not sit on something that has the potential to bite you on the anatomy used for sitting. Someone in McDonald's knew about strip search hoaxes in its restaurants, but no one had the smarts to warn store managers that this was taking place. There apparently was an obscure sort of warning that went out not long before the Mt. Washington incident. But Summers said at the civil trial it was worded unclearly and so she deleted it. It is essential in every for-profit and non-profit organization to share information, discuss problems, and raise red flags at the earliest hint that something could be amiss. It's easier to deal with those things in the conference room than in a court of law. But somewhere today, you can be sure that someone is sitting on some vital piece of information that will one day cost his organization dearly.
Louise Ogborn was an 18-year-old employee of McDonald's three years ago in Mt. Washington, Kentucky. One day, her manager, Donna Summers, received a call from a man claiming to be with the police, accusing Ogborn of stealing a customer's purse. He ordered Summers to call the girl into her office, and then gave a lengthy list of commands. He ordered her to strip-search Ogborn, and at one point, told her to make Ogborn perform calisthenics while naked. This went on for 3 ½ hours. Summers called her boyfriend in and, when left alone with Ogborn, he sexually molested her. He was found guilty in 2006 and is serving a five-year prison sentence. Summers entered an Alford plea to unlawful imprisonment and was sentenced to one year's probation. David Stewart, a private prison guard from Florida, was charged with impersonating an officer and soliciting sodomy. He was tried in Bullitt County, Kentucky, and acquitted. Police say they believe Stewart is responsible for making hoax calls to fast-food restaurants all over the country, but he has never been charged for any other hoaxes.
In fact, the first documented strip search took place at a McDonald's in Saybrook, Ohio, in 1994. But the company failed to warn managers at its restaurants that this hoax was being carried out. This happened 40 times over 10 years. It was no surprise then when Ogborn sued McDonald's for $200 million. What did surprise me a bit was that Summers claimed she too was a victim of McDonald's failure to notify managers, and so she sued for $50 million. After a lengthy trial and 31 pages of the judge’s instructions to the jury, the ruling was in favor of Ogborn and Summers. The jury awarded Ogborn $6.1 million, $5 million of which was for punitive damages. The Jury found McDonald’s responsible for half the compensatory damages (The caller is responsible for the other half.) and the entire punitive award. Summers also won and is to receive $1.1 million. For more information, see http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710060475.
Okay, so here's what we can learn from all this. First, there are people who will do ridiculous things if ordered by an authority figure. It's easy for us to say we wouldn't fall for something this weird, but I wonder. If a policeman is threatening you if you don't do what he says.... Ogborn also succumbed to an authority figure, her boss's orders. The office door wasn't locked. She could have walked out with her clothing and dignity intact. Instead, she put up with 3 1/2 hours of nakedness in front of her boss and her boss's boyfriend.
While this makes for an interesting study of human behavior, the lesson for businesses is to not sit on something that has the potential to bite you on the anatomy used for sitting. Someone in McDonald's knew about strip search hoaxes in its restaurants, but no one had the smarts to warn store managers that this was taking place. There apparently was an obscure sort of warning that went out not long before the Mt. Washington incident. But Summers said at the civil trial it was worded unclearly and so she deleted it. It is essential in every for-profit and non-profit organization to share information, discuss problems, and raise red flags at the earliest hint that something could be amiss. It's easier to deal with those things in the conference room than in a court of law. But somewhere today, you can be sure that someone is sitting on some vital piece of information that will one day cost his organization dearly.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Keeping Secrets From Your Board (or Management) Is a Bad Idea
The Louisville Regional Airport Authority's Board of Directors meets today and wants some answers. Executive Director Skip Miller seems to be on the hot seat. He fired his executive assistant, Mary Calhoun, last November. Her attorney sent Miller a letter in which he termed the firing "unlawful" and attached copies of crude, suggestive e-mails Miller had sent to Calhoun. The Airport Authority's outside legal counsel negotiated an out-of-court settlement for $53,000 plus paid health insurance for 18 months. Board Chairman J. D. Nichols authorized the payment in March, but the board never approved it or knew the details. A lawyer for the board says it is within Nichol's authority to approve the payment. Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, a member of the board, called for today's special meeting, saying the alleged sexual harassment is "unacceptable." Whether Miller, whose contract expires next year, gets to keep his $192,000 job remains to be seen. An article in The Courier Journal detailing these events is at http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710050460.
There are several lessons to be learned here, but two of them stand out for me. First, don't do stupid stuff at work. When you get caught, it's embarassing and it doesn't do much for your career path. Such acts also are expensive for your employer. Besides the $53,000 and free health insurance, the Airport Authority was billed $36,000 in legal fees.
A second lesson is to conduct business openly. I'm not talking about news releases to show all your pimples. But it seems in this case, the board should have been involved in the settlement, even if the chairman had a legal right to handle it himself. This could have been dealt with discretely in an executive session. Instead, the board unity appears to be fractured and Mr. Miller's name is in the paper.
What is your organization like? Does the CEO, board chairman, director, etc. like to hold information close to the vest? Do you have a kill-the-messenger mentality? Smoldering crises, like sexual harassment cases which are one far too common, are usually avoidable. The Institute for Crisis Management, where I am a consultant, works with many organizations who learned that lesson the hard way. Louisville's Airport Authority is in the process of learning this was a crisis that could have and should have been avoided.
There are several lessons to be learned here, but two of them stand out for me. First, don't do stupid stuff at work. When you get caught, it's embarassing and it doesn't do much for your career path. Such acts also are expensive for your employer. Besides the $53,000 and free health insurance, the Airport Authority was billed $36,000 in legal fees.
A second lesson is to conduct business openly. I'm not talking about news releases to show all your pimples. But it seems in this case, the board should have been involved in the settlement, even if the chairman had a legal right to handle it himself. This could have been dealt with discretely in an executive session. Instead, the board unity appears to be fractured and Mr. Miller's name is in the paper.
What is your organization like? Does the CEO, board chairman, director, etc. like to hold information close to the vest? Do you have a kill-the-messenger mentality? Smoldering crises, like sexual harassment cases which are one far too common, are usually avoidable. The Institute for Crisis Management, where I am a consultant, works with many organizations who learned that lesson the hard way. Louisville's Airport Authority is in the process of learning this was a crisis that could have and should have been avoided.
Reward for Good Neighbors: Class Action Suits
Rubbertown is a group of chemical plants located in western Louisville, Kentucky, along the Oho River. The chemical industry, while it has made huge improvements in environmental performance and communication with plant neighbors the past 15-20 years, still carries a tarnished image. And there certainly are a few bad companies out there that perpetuate and perpetrate perceptions. (Try saying that fast!) Not true of the 11 Rubbertown plants, in my estimation. One early outreach effort came in 1991 when they united to form a community advisory panel. Learn more at http://www.rubbertowncac.org/. This helped bring them out from behind their fences, understand the concerns and needs of the community, and seek ways they could make the neighborhood surrounding their plants better. As community relations manager for one of those plants, I was always urging them to come out and test the waters. Your neighbors don’t bite!
But apparently some of them do. A smoldering crisis was brewing. The plants backed an effort by the West County Task Force (http://louisville.edu/org/wjcctf/), comprised of environmental activists, Rubbertown plant representatives, the University of Louisville, and others, who wanted to find out what was in the air. They successfully lobbied EPA to install air monitors at 10 locations around Rubbertown and two more monitors some 15 miles upwind and downwind to get a sense of ambient air levels. The monitoring lasted for one year. Four monitors continue to collect data seven years after they were installed. For detailed results, see http://208.249.124.184/EJP2/Air_Quality/Database/.
The consultants who analyzed the data and wrote the report in 2003 used the commonly accepted standard of no more than a one-in-a-million added risk of cancer as insignificant. The highest reading found the risk to be 690 in a million. This was on one day from one monitor. The one-in-a-million standard assumes a person will breathe that amount of a given compound non-stop for 70 years. Should the companies take action to reduce emissions? They have been for many years, as evidenced by their Toxic Release Inventories. Should people panic? Clearly not. The value of the air monitoring has been to help the companies decide on priorities when they budget for environmental capital projects.
I should have seen this as a smoldering crisis, but my belief in the good in all people clouded my vision. Several class action suits are pending against most of the companies. One is settled (Hexion, for $5.25 million. (See http://www.gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=572). A settlement with Zeon is pending (http://www.courierjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070825/NEWS01/708250453).
My point is that these companies took a chance by becoming engaged in the community, supporting the placement of air monitors, and then establishing environmental priorities and timetables. Once they became visible, they became targets. The law suits probably would have been filed anyway, but these are companies doing the right things. I believed that doing good in the community made you a welcome neighbor. It does. But when there’s easy money to be made and lawyers looking for more business, goodness doesn’t always count. The Pollyanna that once lived in my community relations bag has moved out.
Before you dismiss my ranting as coming from a heartless corporate type without feelings for the people who must live near chemical plants, I will leave you with two more facts. First, these plants (except Hexion) were built in the early ‘40s to supply the country with rubber for the war effort. When they were built – and aerial photos will back me up – there were few homes. There was a pole treating plant and some scattered truck farms. Homes were built around Rubbertown, not the other way around. Only those living here in 1941 have a beef. Everyone else moved in knowing they were moving next to an industrial complex that, frankly, smells bad from time to time. Second point: Some claim health impacts from the air quality near Rubbertown. In 1958, a two-year air pollution study led by the U.S. Public Health Service traced most West End “dust and odor” to Rubbertown. It reported emission rates of 22 million pounds a month. That compares with less than 5 million pounds a year now. If Rubbertown is such a health risk, people should have been dropping in the streets in 1958. The question is: Do people who willingly move next to a chemical plant deserve compensation for nuisance odors, unsubstantiated health claims, and lower property values? (Those low property values are the reason cited by many as the reason they moved there: “It was all I could afford.”) What do you think?
But apparently some of them do. A smoldering crisis was brewing. The plants backed an effort by the West County Task Force (http://louisville.edu/org/wjcctf/), comprised of environmental activists, Rubbertown plant representatives, the University of Louisville, and others, who wanted to find out what was in the air. They successfully lobbied EPA to install air monitors at 10 locations around Rubbertown and two more monitors some 15 miles upwind and downwind to get a sense of ambient air levels. The monitoring lasted for one year. Four monitors continue to collect data seven years after they were installed. For detailed results, see http://208.249.124.184/EJP2/Air_Quality/Database/.
The consultants who analyzed the data and wrote the report in 2003 used the commonly accepted standard of no more than a one-in-a-million added risk of cancer as insignificant. The highest reading found the risk to be 690 in a million. This was on one day from one monitor. The one-in-a-million standard assumes a person will breathe that amount of a given compound non-stop for 70 years. Should the companies take action to reduce emissions? They have been for many years, as evidenced by their Toxic Release Inventories. Should people panic? Clearly not. The value of the air monitoring has been to help the companies decide on priorities when they budget for environmental capital projects.
I should have seen this as a smoldering crisis, but my belief in the good in all people clouded my vision. Several class action suits are pending against most of the companies. One is settled (Hexion, for $5.25 million. (See http://www.gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=572). A settlement with Zeon is pending (http://www.courierjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070825/NEWS01/708250453).
My point is that these companies took a chance by becoming engaged in the community, supporting the placement of air monitors, and then establishing environmental priorities and timetables. Once they became visible, they became targets. The law suits probably would have been filed anyway, but these are companies doing the right things. I believed that doing good in the community made you a welcome neighbor. It does. But when there’s easy money to be made and lawyers looking for more business, goodness doesn’t always count. The Pollyanna that once lived in my community relations bag has moved out.
Before you dismiss my ranting as coming from a heartless corporate type without feelings for the people who must live near chemical plants, I will leave you with two more facts. First, these plants (except Hexion) were built in the early ‘40s to supply the country with rubber for the war effort. When they were built – and aerial photos will back me up – there were few homes. There was a pole treating plant and some scattered truck farms. Homes were built around Rubbertown, not the other way around. Only those living here in 1941 have a beef. Everyone else moved in knowing they were moving next to an industrial complex that, frankly, smells bad from time to time. Second point: Some claim health impacts from the air quality near Rubbertown. In 1958, a two-year air pollution study led by the U.S. Public Health Service traced most West End “dust and odor” to Rubbertown. It reported emission rates of 22 million pounds a month. That compares with less than 5 million pounds a year now. If Rubbertown is such a health risk, people should have been dropping in the streets in 1958. The question is: Do people who willingly move next to a chemical plant deserve compensation for nuisance odors, unsubstantiated health claims, and lower property values? (Those low property values are the reason cited by many as the reason they moved there: “It was all I could afford.”) What do you think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
