“No” Is Killing America

1. Do we have meaningful health care reform . . . NO.
2. Do we have substantive and rigorous regulation of banks and financial institutions . . . NO.
3. Has the credit card industry been brought under control and under strict supervision . . . NO.
4. Have real estate practices and investments been rigorously investigated, detoxified, and simplified . . . NO.
5. Has anything been done to tame Wall Street and to make them more responsive to, and stop betting against America . . . NO.
6. Is there any prospect that the unregulated financial gimmicks that caused catastrophe will be prevented, detected, and prohibited . . . NO.
7. Have those who profited from betting against America be caught and punished, and their practices abolished and criminalized . . . NO.
8. Are the millions of unemployed being helped to find work by our government . . . NO (except for unionized government workers).
9. Has Congress done anything that recognizes how responsible they are for all the disasters we suffered in the last year and a half, including past similar disasters . . . NO.
10. Should the same people who engineered and profited from the problems they triggered be in charge of fixing things . . . NO.
11. Can the forces of NO actually help us make progress, solve problems, and have a better life . . . NO.
12. Is there anyone currently in Washington, D.C. who can make progress in any of these areas . . . NO.
13. Are the 575 people we elected to run the country doing anything meaningful to move our country forward . . . NO.

My father used to say when in doubt, do something. It’s the only way to find out what comes next that could be better. How can we find someone who can stop the killing and actually help do something?

The Toyota Brand Sinking? C’mon

Of the relatively few dumb statements published about Toyota’s current recall troubles—one by Maryann Keller quoted in a Bloomberg story, “People aren’t going to buy Toyotas . . . their image is finished . . . ”—is premature, but silly enough to get a reporter to bite. And here’s another statement, by Brenda Wrigley (chair of the Department of Public Relations at Syracuse University’s School of Public Communications) and quoted by the Associated Press on January 27, 2010, “The story just kind of drags on. That’s just deadly for a reputation. It just spirals into a big situation that’s probably going to have long-term financial impact for the company. Quality was their differentiator and now it’s their Achilles heel.” How about some history?

Jerry Delefamina, a brilliant, Long Island advertising maven of the ’80s and ’90s, told ABC News (and many other news outlets in 1982) that Tylenol would disappear as a brand within a year after the mysterious 1982 Chicago-area cyanide poisonings where seven died, there were copycat cases, which caused a massive recall of the product. The capsules were off the market for six weeks.

In 1986, there was second Tylenol tampering cyanide poisoning, this time in Westchester County, New York that caused one death, another massive recall, and the end of Tylenol capsules over the counter for 25 years.

McNeil Laboratories (the division of Johnson and Johnson that makes Tylenol) and J&J’s handling of the two incidents set the global standard for ethical, open, and disclosive crisis response and public communication for industries, government, and commercial organizations around the world.

Toyota’s response is clearly meeting this global standard. The Toyota brand, like Tylenol, is likely to be stronger as a result of such excellent, open, and responsive corporate behavior.

Negative speculation, which the media loves more than the truth, by so called experts, only serves to underestimate the intelligence, competence, and loyalty of satisfied customers.

When Death Is the Crisis

Operational and Communication Guidelines

One of the most difficult challenges leaders and their communicators face is what to do, what to say, how to behave, and what decisions to make when someone is killed. This problem does arise, all too frequently. Here are some useful guidelines for both operators and communicators:

1. The bigger the market, the less a single death seems to matter unless:

• The death is spectacular.
• The death reflects a pattern of malpractice, malfeasance, omission, negligence, or cover up.

2. Lukaszewski’s first law of adversity and crisis survival is to recognize that neither the government, the new media or news media, politicians, regulators, critics, nor your enemies have the power to defeat you. Defeat is almost always caused by uninformed or distracted bosses, insider leaks (from management or leadership, or especially from attorneys), well meaning friends and peers, or relatives.

3. Managing the victims and their survivors is 95 percent of your success. Anything less than a full throated communication and operational effort leaves the perpetrator vulnerable. Victim management is a long-term scenario. It can go well beyond settlement or even the end of litigation.

4. If you want to affect public opinion effectively, you have to influence employee opinion effectively, first. External communication strategies only work when there is a base in place that understands, supports, advocates, or remains neutral.

5. There is a pattern for successfully obtaining forgiveness.

6. There is a pattern for making your own problems worse.

7. There is a pattern to the power victims will have over you.

8. Focus on promptly settling these matters as aggressively, compassionately, and positively as possible.

9. Delay, stalling, timidity, and hesitation are the ingredients of failure. Silence is toxic to the perpetrator.

10. Avoid:

• Speaking for others
• Disparaging or discrediting
• All negative words and language
• Metaphors, paraphrases, or analogies
• Creating new critics or enemies
• Using old information to justify or forgive today's actions
• Relying on corporate or legal assumptions rather than the realities victims and their survivors/families believe they are actually facing.
• Taking any of this personally (stay at altitude)
• Testosterosis
• Whining

11. Be compassionate, extremely empathetic, open, responsive, transparent, truthful, candid, and engaging. Get to a place where you could consider apologizing.

12. Answer all the questions. For every question you skip, someone makes up an answer that you are going to wind up eating and owning.

Obama 2009 Performance Review: Stuck in the Muck

If we examine President Obama’s performance in terms of the five most common reasons why CEOs get fired, the analysis is quite revealing.

Reason #1: Failure to deliver what was promised upon hiring

Where do we begin? The economy remains a mess. Unemployment keeps increasing. There is mistake after mistake, with no real sense of urgency about solving any particular problem. All Obama does is tell us how tough it is and how much we will have to suffer. Bad ideas continue, like closing Guantanamo, and trying terrorists in the U.S. court system. For killing thousands of Americans, terrorists get American citizenship.

Reason #2: Over optimism

Homeland Security’s Chief Officer, Napolitano, said it best. After a terrorist successfully defeated security measures, boarded a U.S. aircraft in Amsterdam, but (through his own stupidity) failed to detonate the bomb strapped to his body and was apprehended by a passenger, Napolitano’s comment was, “The system worked!” And, within hours, Americans get subjected to further humiliation at airports.

Meanwhile, during the most extraordinary security lapse since 9/11/2001, the President remains on vacation while the news media drives the country into turmoil. Any governor or mayor knows that if these serious events happen (on Christmas Day no less), they better get back to their desks and lead the investigations.

Obama hardly ever uses the word “terrorist” in his speeches. Is he afraid?

Misfiring, lost opportunity, and premature ejaculation are the strategies of this administration.

Reason #3: People problems

The second responsibility of any chief executive is to put in place the people who can make the leader’s vision happen. There is, apparently, only one visionary in this administration, Hillary Clinton. Everyone else seems to be a problem, whether it's his spokespeople, his chief advisers (a bunch of Chicago politicians), or his own unenthusiastic, visionless style. We have no national team with national experience. We have enormous inexperience and a couple rogues, like the U.S. Attorney General whose decision to do terrorist show trials near Ground Zero will only accelerate terrorist attack attempts. These trials should be done in The Hague or some remote village in Siberia.

Reason #4: AWOL

This president has visited more countries than any first-year president ever has. Why? He has spent most of this time sucking up to foreigners instead of stating carefully fashioned, clearly understandable United States policy. Then, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, an award he should have refused as being unqualified. In pursuit of mindless visibility, the Nobel committee made the award and, in the process, diminished its importance. Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech required that he admit to the world that he had no real accomplishments or credentials to justify the award, except that it's really tough running two wars at the same time.

This kind of travel and vacuous activity is usually reserved for the second term when a president has very little to do and is out of ideas. Obama has started early on his second term.

Reason #5: Stuck in the muck

What has been accomplished for the average American this year? Banks, insurance companies, Wall Street, the credit card industry, and real estate all have been bailed out or protected by the American taxpayer. Banks, while refusing to loan money to help restart the economy, hoarded plenty of cash to pay enormous bonuses to the very perpetrators who have destroyed the lives of millions of Americans. The insurance industry, led by AIG, will pay the largest bonuses in history after perpetrating unspeakable damage on America’s economy for which we have given them hundreds of billions. The credit card industry, completely unbridled and arrogant, continues to gouge Americans without punishment, without regulation, and without shame (thanks, of course, mostly to U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd D-CT). The real estate industry, led by the same perpetrators of the last collapse, have found new ways to package mortgages, perpetuate credit default swaps, and other predatory financial practices. And then there is Wall Street, the theme park of American greed. They never stop, they always take, and they always get away with it. America is the laughing stock of Wall Street. (This, of course, mostly engineered by America’s business schools who look down on the American working person and only look up to the person who makes the most money and acts like the biggest bully.)

This president has done nothing to reassure the American public that something has been done or will be done to get this quintumverate of economic disaster and greed under control.

Even healthcare reform will turn out to be a financial bonanza for every key economic player, especially the insurance industry, courtesy of U.S. Senator “Goofy” Lieberman, except, of course, American taxpayers and American patients. The quintumverate wins again.

Summary Assessment

Presidents get about 210 days to get their vision launched, their dreams in wide circulation, and to marshal their forces to achieve what they set out to accomplish. Then the postmortems begin, coupled with midterm elections. Following the midterms, comes to 24-month effort at reelection. This president has effectively missed three crucial milestones to his future success: the failure to state a vision this country could strive for (“change” is a jingle, not a vision); failure to assemble a credible, powerful, highly accomplished national team; and failure to execute a credible, productive sense of urgency or crisis management so necessary to mobilize public attitudes and public support. No American president in history, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, has been presented with such a monumental series of opportunities for great, even immortal leadership.

His legacy, thus far, has been to resuscitate a moribund Republican Party, help us all forget just how bad a president George W. Bush was, and to wonder if anyone actually knows or understands the state of our Union.

Washington D.C., to quote futurist John Naisbitt, “is the theme park of American democracy.” But, as it stands at the end of 2009, most of the rides are broken or in very bad repair, and the guy we hired to fix them (who promised change) has yet to show up for work. He’s out there stuck in the muck.

Any other CEO with this track record would be looking for work, after having received a tremendous severance package.

Maybe it’s not too early to ask . . . “What would Hillary, or Sarah, or somebody else do?”

Where’s the Dream?

Our nation needs a dream. Whatever your political persuasion or philosophical bent, most of us across all strata of society get energized by the dreams of those who lead us. Right now there is a sensational vacuum.

One of the reasons we may be stumbling, fumbling, mumbling, and bumbling as we enter 2010 is that “Change” is not a dream, and deflecting major decision making to outside groups — the UN or Congress — is definitely not a dream.

What is our next destination as a nation? Kennedy used space; Johnson had the Great Society; Clinton had the end of big government as we knew it; Reagan had the end of the Soviet Union.

America is truly the place on the planet where personal dreams can come true, but we need more and bigger goals or aspirations to strive for and take pride in . . . or to hate and target. Dreams show us the way. Dreams help us all set timelines, deadlines, and expectations.

Big dreams help define the next phase of our destiny. The bigger the dream, the greater the impact.

We are waiting.

Have great holidays and keep asking, “Where’s the dream?”

What’s Next for Tiger Woods

I know you’re tired of hearing this stuff, but I couldn’t resist. Tiger and his troubles fit an unmistakable pattern.

His life will increasing resemble being at war—long periods of boring quiet and inattention punctuated by explosive, disclosive, sometimes disturbing events. What do we know for sure?

1. He'll be back bigger than ever, if he plays the way he has. We love to celebrify criminals and fallen celebrities who strive to rehabilitate and return. (Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy is advertising Gold on national television.)
2. A whole new Tiger’s Failures industry has been born, “What did Tiger really do?” “What did Elin use the golf club for?” “Tiger’s girls” “Who’s Tiger putting now?” This will “dog” him for the rest of his professional life. He won’t make a dime from it. Many, many show business, sports, political, and business leaders (especially those who have failed gigantically or miserably) become highly visible and famous due to the magnitude of their mistakes or misfortunes. We love the recovering. They don’t even have to be repentant.
3. The worst has yet to be disclosed.

What Would Tiger’s Dad Have Done?

Perhaps the way to approach the state of Tiger Wood’s affairs is to ask the question, “What would his dad, the architect of his life, do?” How would Tiger’s father analyze what Tiger has done thus far? Using Tiger Woods’ December 2, 2009 statement (on http://www.tigerwoods.com/), let’s walk through his “comments on current events” through the eyes of someone who really cared about him.

1. “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart.”

Comment: What are the transgressions? The first rule of apology is that the admission must contain meaningful specificity.

2. “I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.”

Comment: What are those values, Tiger? Benjamin Franklin had 13 values, ranging from frugality to humility. How do we know what your values really are without specifying which ones you transgressed?

3. “I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect.”

Comment: What are those faults, Tiger? What are the imperfections to which you refer?

Note: We’re only three sentences into Mr. Woods’ comments and already there are a dozen questions.

4. “I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family.”

Comment: The problem is that you’ve opened the doors by talking about these things. If you really wanted to be helpful, you would outline what one or two of those personal failings happen to be.

5. “Those feelings should be shared by us alone.”

Comment: Why? You’re a brand. Brands are owned by those who trust, use, and benefit from them. It is the brand owners who determine what is private and what isn’t.

6. “Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means.”

Comment: You’ve lived in a highly positive cocoon for much of your life. This tends to make you a virgin when it comes to operating in a real world situation. There is nothing more fascinating to the news media than deflowering someone who lives by the media, but who feels they shouldn’t have to die by similar fashion. Welcome to the real world.

7. “For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives.”

Comment: From the perspective of most of us, you live in the protective environment of what appears to be a wonderful home, a gated community and private property, where you’re pretty insulated from “hounding” by anyone. This is classic arrogant, frat boy whining.

8. “The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious.”

Comment: Now you tell us. How do we know? We need more information, because of how much you’ve already not told us.

9. “Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.”

Comment: Yes, Tiger, it’s only her forgiveness that matters. And it sounds as though you’ve got a ways to go to achieve that.

10. “But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

Comment: There is no saint like a reformed sinner. Mr. Woods has, apparently, sinned mightily and now asks that it remain covered up until he can somehow manage its affects.

11. “I realize there are some who don't share my view on that.”

Comment: Like most of us, Tiger, when you do stupid things you get dumb visibility.

12. “But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one's own family.”

Comment: There’s that comment about virtue again. What are the virtues we’re talking about? The virtue must mean, “Leave me alone when I want to be left alone.”

13. “Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions.”

Comment: When you’re a public person and, more importantly, a brand, every aspect of your existence is open to explanation, debate, and questioning.

14. “Whatever regrets I have about letting my family down have been shared with and felt by us alone.”

Comment: There’s a book in there somewhere, by someone.

15. “I have given this a lot of reflection and thought and I believe that there is a point at which I must stick to that principle even though it's difficult.”

Comment: What is that principle? How has sticking to that principle helped you so far?

16. “I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves.”

Comment: Again, Tiger, what does this mean, specifically? What behaviors will you change? What about your virtues and values needs to be repaired? What are the lessons you’ve learned that you will apply in this circumstance? In the forgiveness game, you need to acknowledge, specifically, what the faults and errors were.

17. “For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology.”

Comment: What about the rest of us? Those of us who didn’t get to come to the cocktail parties or couldn’t afford to be in the galleries when you were playing, but who admire you just as much? What’s the purpose of limiting your apology to those who know you? When you’re a brand, you need to apologize to the entire universe that your brand affects.

The formula for Tiger Woods, which will still work, is a profound, humble, positive, open, sincere, and conditionless public apology by him, in person, along with an explanation for the questions he’s already raised.

Most public sinners wind up on 60 Minutes talking to Mr. Kroft, the show’s angel of righteousness (prophylactic humiliation).

Maybe this time, instead of the usual cast of 60 Minutes, they should get Frank Deford, who actually knows something about sports and celebrities to conduct the interview. We all look forward to it and to the end of Tiger’s troubles.

Tiger’s Troubles

He Can Putt 50 Yards But Stumbles, Fumbles, Mumbles, and Bumbles a Simple Direct Apology

What should Tiger Woods really have done?

Within the first 30 to 45 minutes of the incident occurring, he should have given the police a statement and had the police give it out to the public:

"About an hour ago, following an intense argument about a family matter, and upset, I angrily drove my SUV out of my driveway, lost control of the vehicle—apparently hitting a fire hydrant, perhaps a couple of parked cars, and ultimately a tree across the street from my driveway. The incident happened pretty fast, and I got a little banged up. Within seconds of the crash, my wife, Elin, was outside of my SUV breaking a window to help get me out of the vehicle.

This is a silly, needless, three-minute incident, all my fault, which will cause my family and those who know me some brief anguish and public exposure. For that I am profoundly sorry.

I will do whatever the police instruct and humbly ask the forgiveness of my family and neighbors for the disruption I’ve caused in their lives this evening."

Such an initial statement would create four things that, in hindsight, Mr. Woods seems to think he is owed:

1. Some semblance of privacy
2. Being able to avoid the embarrassing speculation of others and moderate media frenzy that occurred
3. The ability to control his personal circumstances
4. His integrity and brand value largely intact

There has yet to be a true apology from Mr. Woods and, indeed, there may never be one revealed publicly.

The most constructive structure for apology I’ve seen is in The Five Languages of Apology: How to Experience Healing in All Your Relationships, a book by Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas. Here, with some paraphrasing and modification based on my experiences, are the ingredients of the perfect apology:

1. Regret (acknowledgment): A verbal acknowledgement by the perpetrator that their wrongful behavior caused unnecessary pain, suffering, and hurt that identifies, specifically, what action or behavior is responsible for the pain.
2. Accepting Responsibility (declaration): An unconditional declarative statement by the perpetrator recognizing their wrongful behavior and acknowledging that there is no excuse for the behavior.
3. Restitution (penance): An offer of help or assistance to victims, by the perpetrator; action beyond the words “I’m sorry”; and conduct that assumes the responsibility to make the situation right.
4. Repentance (humility): Language by the perpetrator acknowledging that this behavior caused pain and suffering for which he/she is genuinely sorry; language by the perpetrator recognizing that serious, unnecessary harm and emotional damage was caused.
5. Direct Forgiveness Request: “I was wrong, I hurt you, and I ask you to forgive me.”

Do apologies matter? Twenty-nine states seem to think so. These states have enacted legislation exempting voluntary expressions of regret and apology at traffic accidents from being considered by juries when setting auto liability damages. Legislation is pending in Congress to mitigate the impact of liability on malpractice insurance claims against doctors and medical personnel who apologize immediately, or very quickly, and sincerely.

The hard part of apologizing is the admission of having done something hurtful, damaging, or wrong and requesting forgiveness. In practice, skip even one step and you fail to convince anyone of your sincerity or integrity.

My immediate advice to Mr. Woods:

1. Get better legal counsel; get better communications counsel (they are very different disciplines); then listen up.
2. Brands (which is what you have intended to be) have no rights to privacy. There are owned by the publics who purchase and trust them.
3. Abject, humble, meaningful, and sincere words of apology—personally delivered—generate enormous public sympathy. The single most powerful benefit of this behavior is that the media hate it and generally won’t cover it, for long.

Remember the rules for forgiveness:

1. Silence is toxic.
2. Candor builds trust.
3. Openness calms the masses.
4. Apology is the atomic energy of empathy for your believers, followers, and wannabes; disables the media; and disempowers attorneys.
5. Public repentance is required. Some extraordinary act of generosity affecting a wide variety of people and places is called for, something that preferably really hurts.

In my next blog post, I’ll take Mr. Wood’s most recent statement and specifically, sentence by sentence, describe what he should have done.

If you’re interested in reading more about apology, visit Who's Sorry Now: The Growing Art of the Apology.

Terrorist Trials in New York, a Tragic Decision

The decision by US Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, cheered on by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and members of the media to stage terrorist trials in New York City reflects the present culture of leadership training our society fosters in its government leaders, business leaders, even legal and religious leadership. They are taught to overwhelm, defeat, and vanquish. Winning is never enough. True leaders have to hold the defeated up for public ridicule, prophylactic humiliation, then strut their heads around on a stick. How can this be seen as any kind of propaganda victory for America?

In the process, while a few public officials, aggressive prosecutors, plaintiff attorneys and a 24/7 bloviator-driven media that, with unfairness and imbalance, plus the all bull, all bias boys and girls, enjoy focusing on all the negativity about America the spectacle will generate . . . the rest of us will be held hostage to the needless circus while the terrorists as civilian criminals have a global platform to hate us and spit on us for months, maybe years.

We have very effective military tribunals to try war criminals. These tribunals take place in less significant locations under circumstances that befit the crimes. Who is clamoring for show trials and, in the process, baiting and needlessly focusing the destructive energies of thousands, perhaps millions of militant America haters? These trials will be seen for what they are, a victory of testosterosis over justice.

What Are the Attributes of the Ethical Executive?

For some time now, I’ve been conducting my own completely unscientific “poll” of senior advisors, asking them, from their experience, to provide up to 10 attributes of executives with integrity. The question I asked was, “What are the characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of the ethical executive?” I asked each individual for 10 examples. Here’s the list from a superstar mid-30s female:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Fairness
• Confidence
• Vision
• Ability to view issues through multiple lenses
• Ability to flex communication styles for critical conversations
• Ability to take feedback
• Appreciation/gratitude
• Responsiveness

Then there’s this from a late 40s top-notch consultant:

• Truthful
• Courageous
• Honest
• Respectful
• Compassionate
• Just
• Humble
• Wise
• Responsible
• Reliable

Here’s the list from a Ph.D. college professor:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Accuracy
• Transparency
• Accountability
• Fair
• Responsible
• Loyalty
• Truthful
• Professional

And, how about this from a late 50s senior agency counselor:

• Honesty
• Moral understanding and conviction
• Uncompromising (re: established standards)
• Versed in acceptable social norms
• Fair
• Unwilling to accept double standards
• Willing to share information (transparent)
• Leads by example
• Believable
• Mature value structure
• Teacher/ethical evangelist

So far, honesty and truthfulness appear on three out of the four lists. Ultimately, I think I’d like to begin creating a roster of executives who meet a great proportion of these attributes, because we only tend to hear about those who succeed or fail in spectacular ways.

My experience is that there are very few lessons to learn from those who fail. The models we need are those who have consistently demonstrated the qualities of ethical behavior, integrity, and credibility as defined by those around them.

What’s your list? Who are your candidates?

Send these to me and I’ll publish them. We’ll create a matrix of ethical executive expectations, and then, the next step will be to ask for nominations of individuals who manage and lead in the space called “integrity.”