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Stop with the Wandering Generalities, Please. Get Specific.

Wandering generalities are a plague on humanity. When in doubt, people hide behind bland, useless, and often misleading statements. Below I show three examples of these typical types of statements and how to make them meaningfully specific.

Wandering GeneralitiesMeaningfully Specific Translation
1. “We’re a great company.”1. “We are a powerful company, leading three important business sectors, digitalization, transmission efficiency and end user acceptance.”
2. “Everybody loves our company.”2. “We use three techniques every month to test our customer acceptance: direct contact with key users; short, direct questionnaires; and, seeking testimonials.”
3. “We’ve successfully dealt with this problem in the past.”3. “We made three crucial improvements in this process starting four years ago: first, we significantly reduced defects; second, we began more careful education of our customers; and third, we introduced a monitoring program to catch defects earlier.”

Translate Generalities into Specificity

Rather than say:

  • Everyone…name them
  • Everybody…name them
  • They…say specifically who
  • That…say specifically what
  • Theirs…name or itemize them
  • Those…name or specifically identify what it is
  • It’s…Again identify what It’s is
  • Her…name her
  • His…name him

You get the idea.

Generalities are barriers to understanding and actually help people miss the importance of what you are trying to communicate.

More GeneralitiesMeaningfully Specific Translation
1. “Everything will be fine, we’ve been through this before.”1. “We live by three success initiatives: start early; stay customer engaged; and follow up for results. These three initiatives will work to improve our accuracy, activity, and performance.”
2. “I’ve always enjoyed their work.”2. “The strategy teams work is essential to our success. We need their accuracy, their persistence, and their intuitiveness.”
3. “They’ve always been a championship outfit.”3. “Mary and Bill always show their leadership, their skill, and their consistent responsiveness.”
4. “This idea is very important.”4. “Our success depends on three crucial ingredients: speed, accuracy, and choosing a limited number of targets.”

Also see Packing and Bundling.

© Copyright 2023, James E. Lukaszewski. America’s Crisis Guru®Get permission to reproduce or quote. Contact the copyright holder, jel@e911.com.

Thousands of Human Starfish, The Story of an Extreme Decency

The Time Before:

Steve Harrison became a client of mine in 1995. From that first engagement and a number of others over the years, Steve and I became close friends, as did our wives, Barbara and Shirley. It would be fair to say that Steve became more or less a disciple of my kind of crisis management and other management and leadership recovery techniques. He was already known as Mr. Decency throughout his industry. Something that further deepened our relationship. In 2014, Steve and I decided to write a book on civility and decency. Something that has long since largely disappeared from American culture. There are still too few signs of these important cultural qualities returning anytime soon.  

The Diagnosis:

In 2014, my wife of 50 years was diagnosed with bilateral ovarian cancer. That evening we had dinner with Steve and Shirley and among the topics of conversation was this new frightening development in Barbara’s life.

The First Call:

The next day, Steve and Shirley called together and talked to us briefly about what they learned the night before and offered to be helpful in any way that they could. For Barbara and I, this was the beginning of a long journey cumulating in her death from Alzheimer’s in August of 2019.

The Next 2,999 Calls:

Following that first phone call from Steve and Shirley, they called us nearly every single day from the time of Barbara’s diagnosis with cancer and the follow-up diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The number of phone calls from these two dear friends from that first conversation to a kind of final conversation in late 2019, the Harrisons had talked to us almost 3000 times. Stop a moment, take a breath, and realize what a totally amazing gift for a couple of human beings to do for another couple of human beings. Steve and I finished the book, “The Decency Code, The Leader’s Path to Building Integrity and Trust,” and it was published by McGraw Hill in 2021. We discussed another book project going forward, but nature intervened, and Steve passed away in July of 2021.

Steve’s Legacy Lives On:

I’ll never have the opportunity to repay this extraordinary decency. Shirley and I do keep in touch. And I write, quote, and talk about Steve whenever I can.  He was such an extraordinary friend and his 2005 book, “The Manager’s Book of Decencies, How Small Gestures (he called them small decencies) Build Great Companies,” from McGraw Hill is a classic business book in the field of decency and civility.

Steve’s Life Metaphor:

Steve’s favorite story and the metaphor for his life was about a person searching for seashells on the seashore and coming across a starfish unlikely to survive being caught aground. Almost absent-mindedly the man picked up the starfish and tossed it back into the sea.

Human Starfish:

In the course of that starfish’s life, it will reproduce thousands of times and produce an extraordinary number of offsprings and generations. Steve’s company Lee Hect Harrison, which he and two colleagues founded in the late 1990’s, and later acquired by Adecco Inc., the world’s largest part-time work placement company, made Steve’s company now the LHH division of  Adecco, the world’s largest outplacement firm. The purpose of the LHH division of Adecco is to help people intentionally unemployed by large businesses to learn new job-finding skills and other techniques to regain employment and return to productive lives. You might say his company has a way of returning human starfish to the working world by the thousands every year.

What an Amazing Legacy:

Decencies come in all sizes and shapes. This is the most extreme, miraculous, and wonderful decency for two people I’ve ever seen. Give it a try.  

Maybe The Tech Industry Deserves a Platinum Anvil?

With Just three words . . . “Leave it alone,” the tech industry globally mobilized thousands of companies, organizations, individuals, and industries. Like an experienced parent who wants their child to do something, or not do something, but might have difficulty persuading them, they simply say, “Don’t do . . . you name it” and it becomes a do-or-die mission. So it has become for AI.

Are these tech people brilliant, or are they really that smart? We may never know. What we do know is that thousands have been mobilized, and millions or billions are being spent and all in the quest to figure something out with little or no help from the tech industries who started all of this. Clearly, the tech industries deserve a prize of some kind.

Never have so few words mobilized so many human beings and a colossal amount of cash for what appears far less fearsome than forecast.

Typically, in such a huge venture, something called an “Operational and reputational risk assessment and fact based recommendations” would have been prepared. In the case of AI, since no one had any facts to go on, everything kind of got made up in a huge fiction like activity. Which has yet to yield much except sporadic anecdotal success stories. And one large failure that of Donald Trump’s former attorney using AI to generate what turned out to be fake legal references for a motion he was proposing in federal court.

That’s because, of course, the tech industry does not intend to share additional information until it’s in their interest to do so. During the last year, I have attended a number of policy-level discussions (people who own, run, and make crucial decisions in the organizations)  of AI and while organizations like PRSA were busy developing hypothetical situational responses based on zero facts and data, the tech companies were having a great success with “leave it alone.” Why spoil all the fun with facts?

In contrast, virtually every policy-level discussion I attended developed only a sketchy, fuzzy concept called things like, “Responsible AI.” The responsibilities were described in a list of words with little explanation: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. Sometimes described as core principles without much additional explanation. It’s still impossible to know what guidance is truly needed. We’ll need a few surprises and disasters to begin developing useful information.

It’s probably time for all of us to get back to work on our regular jobs and regular activities and await the inevitable catastrophes the media has predicted, always aiming for the worst-case scenarios. Where are the truth tellers when you need them most?

Destructive Language Decimates Trust

Leadership language choices in difficult situations are often early indicators of dysfunction. In fact, their adverse behaviors and language choices are often diagnostic of their dysfunction. Here are some examples to watch for:

  • Denial
  • Defensiveness
  • Deflection
  • Denigration
  • Disrespect
  • Demeaning
  • Discrediting
  • Distain

Not only do these behaviors, attitudes, and language choices destroy trust, they create victims, critics and angry people, families and organizations. These groups will work tirelessly to make leadership pay the price for unwanted behaviors.

These negative examples are enormously time-wasting, often trigger similar even more emotionally negative responses in return, foster contentiousness, confrontation, contempt, confusion and consternation. These behavior choices are corrosive to trust.

James E. Lukaszewski (loo-ka-SHEV-skee) is widely known as America’s Crisis Guru. He is a speaker, author (13 books and hundreds of articles and monographs), lecturer and ethicist (Emeritus member of the PRSA Board of Ethics and Professional Standards BEPS). His book Lukaszewski on Crisis Communication, What Your CEO Needs to Know About Reputation Risk and Crisis Management had dozens of examples of corrosive behaviors and what to do about them.

© Copyright 2023, James E. Lukaszewski. America’s Crisis Guru® Get permission to reproduce or quote. Contact the copyright holder, jel@e911.com.

New Year’s Resolutions 2024

Action #1 Required This Day

Your Personal Daily Ethics Audit

By James E. Lukaszewski,
 ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus

Resolve today to get in the habit of regularly assessing your personal daily ethics exposure. It’s likely that your exposures will be a surprise. This paper presents a simple series of response options. In my crisis work the appearance of ethical questions was pretty frequent and I found that I needed a way to quickly assess these situations and determine what, if any, action might be needed.

We start with the first signs…the queasy stomach that tells you something is out of order or going there, perhaps soon. Then the remaining steps in the process are designed to help you move into a response mode if necessary, even a deeply responsive mode if extremely necessary.

Click on Moral Questions link to review a blog post for deeper penetration of more serious situations.

Step One:
Respond to First Signs or Concerns

The moment your stomach gets that twinge about what you are doing or planning to do, or someone else in your company is starting or plans to start doing, stop and ask yourself:

    1. What is the ideal ethical behavior here?
    2. How are ethical questions being surfaced and addressed?
    3. What is remaining unsaid, ignored, actually covered up?
    4. When will leaders address the ethical expectations of others?
    5. Is the profit or personal gain motive in balance with The PRSA Code of Ethics and your own ethical expectations?
  2.  
  3. First mentioned to me eons ago by Emmanuel Tchividjian former PRSA BEPS member, Principal –  The Markus Gabriel Group – US Phone Number: 646-209-0711, Norwegian Phone Number: 983-555-63,    Email: emmanueltchividjian@gmail.com, Website: www.markusgabrielgroup.com.

Step Two:
Ethical Decision-Making Guide to
Help Resolve Ethical Dilemmas

By Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, JD, APR, Former Member BEPS
On PRSA.org

*Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, J.D., APR – Former Member of BEPS   Director and Professor, The Zimmerman School at University of South Florida   Email: fitzpatrick10@usf.edu   Website: usf.edu/zimmermanschool

For public relations and other professionals, ethical dilemmas arise when responsibilities and loyalties conflict and a decision about the appropriate – i.e., ethical – course of action must be made. Often, a choice is required among actions that meet competing obligations. For example, when might the obligation to serve the public interest override loyalty to clients? When does a particular stakeholder’s interest take priority over an employer’s interest? In other words, just exactly what is “responsible advocacy”? Apply these questions to sort things out:

    1. Define the specific ethical malpractice issue/conflict.
    2. Identify internal/external factors (e.g., legal, political, social, economic) that may influence the decision.
    3. Identify key values.
    4. Identify the parties who will be affected by the decision and define the public relations professional’s obligation to each.
    5. Select ethical principles to guide the decision-making process.
    6. Make a decision and justify it.
  2.  

  3. Step Three:
    Use The Lexicon Of Unethical
    Public Relations Behavior

Every Code provision in the PRSA Code of Ethics, as well as every Professional Standards Advisory (PSA) contains examples of improper conduct. As subsequent Professional Standards Advisories are developed by the PRSA Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS), approved and deployed, additional terms to describe improper conduct will be further explained, and examples provided.

The current PRSA Code lexicon of improper conduct includes:

    • Unethical conduct – Clear conduct that goes against the Code.

    • Improper conduct – Conduct that should be questioned.

    • Malpractice – Obviously, poor or flawed judgment and behavior.

    • Inappropriate behavior – Feels wrong, needs to be stopped.

    • Inconsistent with the Code

    • Disruptive to or can undermine ethical practice – Behavior that should stop, may require remedial action.

    • Destructive to the reputation of practitioners, our profession, or our Society – You’ll know it when you see it, stand up, speak out, and stop it.

a. Voluntary Societies Have,
Established Inspirational Codes Of Conduct.

Journalism, public relations, advertising, Word of Mouth (WOM), The Global Alliance, and many other voluntary professional or trade associations, failing to have a legal basis for using enforceable regulatory oversight, have focused on inspiration and education of their members. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, police officers, dentists, hairdressers, barbers, and other services that are licensed by a state, county or government authority, can and do impose penalties and sanction violations. The PRSA Code is an aspirational document designed to facilitate, educate, and inspire ethical behavior and also to call out malpractice and unethical conduct.  

b. Using the PRSA Code of Conduct (From PRSA.org)
With Examples of Improper Conduct

Conduct #1 – Free Flow of Information

Core Principle:

Protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information is essential to serving the public interest and contributing to informed decision-making in a democratic society.

Intent:

  • To maintain the integrity of relationships with the media, government officials, and the public.

  • To aid informed decision-making.

Guidelines:

A member shall:

  • Preserve the integrity of the process of communication.

  • Be honest and accurate in all communications.

  • Act promptly to correct erroneous communications for which the practitioner is responsible.

  • Preserve the free flow of unprejudiced information when giving or receiving gifts by ensuring that gifts are nominal, legal, and infrequent.

Examples of Improper Conduct Under this Provision:

  • A member representing a ski manufacturer gives a pair of expensive racing skis to a sports magazine columnist, to influence the columnist to write favorable articles about the product.

  • A member entertains a government official beyond legal limits and/or in violation of government reporting requirements.

Conduct #2 – Competition

Core Principle:

Promoting healthy and fair competition among professionals preserves an ethical climate while fostering a robust business environment.

Intent:

  • To promote respect and fair competition among public relations professionals.

  • To serve the public interest by providing the widest choice of practitioner options.

Guidelines:

A member shall:

  • Follow ethical hiring practices designed to respect free and open competition without deliberately undermining a competitor.

  • Preserve intellectual property rights in the marketplace.

Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:

  • A member employed by a “client organization” shares helpful information with a counseling firm that is competing with others for the organization’s business.

  • A member spreads malicious and unfounded rumors about a competitor in order to alienate the competitor’s clients and employees in a ploy to recruit people and business.

Conduct #3 – Disclosure of Information

Core Principle:

Open communication fosters informed decision-making in a democratic society.

Intent:

To build trust with the public by revealing all information needed for responsible decision-making.

Guidelines:

A member shall:

  • Be honest and accurate in all communications.

  • Act promptly to correct erroneous communications for which the member is responsible.

  • Investigate the truthfulness and accuracy of information released on behalf of those represented.

  • Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented.

  • Disclose financial interest (such as stock ownership) in a client’s organization.

  • Avoid deceptive practices.

Examples of Improper Conduct Under this Provision:

  • Front groups: A member implements “grassroots” campaigns or letter-writing campaigns to legislators on behalf of undisclosed interest groups.

  • Lying by omission: A practitioner for a corporation knowingly fails to release financial information, giving a misleading impression of the corporation’s performance.

  • A member discovers inaccurate information disseminated via a website or media kit and does not correct the information.

  • A member deceives the public by employing people to pose as volunteers to speak at public hearings and participate in “grassroots” campaigns.

Conduct #4 – Safeguarding Confidences

Core Principle:

Client trust requires appropriate protection of confidential and private information.

Intent:

To protect the privacy rights of clients, organizations, and individuals by safeguarding confidential information.

Guidelines:

  • A member shall: Safeguard the confidences and privacy rights of present, former, and prospective clients and employees.

  • Protect privileged, confidential, or insider information gained from a client or organization.

  • Immediately advise an appropriate authority if a member discovers that confidential information is being divulged by an employee of a client company or organization.

Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:

  • A member changes jobs, takes confidential information, and uses that information in the new position to the detriment of the former employer.

  • A member intentionally leaks proprietary information to the detriment of some other party.

Conduct #5 – Conflicts of Interest

Core Principle:

Avoiding real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest builds the trust of clients, employers, and the publics.

Intent:

  • To earn trust and mutual respect with clients or employers.

  • To build trust with the public by avoiding or ending situations that put one’s personal or professional interests in conflict with society’s interests.

Guidelines:

A member shall:

  • Act in the best interests of the client or employer, even subordinating the member’s personal interests.

  • Avoid actions and circumstances that may appear to compromise good business judgment or create a conflict between personal and professional interests.

  • Disclose promptly any existing or potential conflict of interest to affected clients or organizations.

  • Encourage clients and customers to determine if a conflict exists after notifying all affected parties.

Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:

  • The member fails to disclose that he or she has a strong financial interest in a client’s chief competitor.

  • The member represents a “competitor company” or a “conflicting interest” without informing a prospective client.

Conduct #6 – Enhancing the Profession

Core Principle:

Public relations professionals work constantly to strengthen the public’s trust in the profession.

Intent:

  • To build respect and credibility with the public for the profession of public relations.

  • To improve, adapt and expand professional practices.

Guidelines:

A member shall:

  • Acknowledge that there is an obligation to protect and enhance the profession.

  • Keep informed and educated about practices in the profession to ensure ethical conduct.

  • Actively pursue Personal Professional Development.

  • Decline representation of clients or organizations that urge or require actions contrary to this Code.

  • Accurately define what public relations activities can accomplish.

  • Counsel subordinates in proper ethical decision-making.

  • Require that subordinates adhere to the ethical requirements of the Code.

  • Report practices that fail to comply with the Code, whether committed by PRSA members or not, to the appropriate authority.

Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:

  • A PRSA member declares publicly that a product the client sells is safe, without disclosing evidence to the contrary.

  • A member initially assigns some questionable client work to a non-member practitioner to avoid the ethical obligation of PRSA membership.

A Days End Assessment

When those days come along where your stomach is queasy at the very beginning, you know you’re going to have a long day and you will want to have a sensible process for wrapping things up at the end of the day. Just take a few moments to review what happened during the day from an ethical point of view on the things you need to be concerned about and take action on. Create a simple to-do list to get these things done before they fall through a crack.

If you have any questions at all, contact your Chapter Ethics Officer who is ready and waiting to be of assistance. Good luck and remember, working through these ethical issues and questions is one of the most important things we can do as practitioners.

I, too, am available 24/7 to answer questions and to be of service in these important matters at any time. Besides, I’ve committed my life to working these areas of importance and really do love talking about them and helping others have better days. jel@e911.com

James E. Lukaszewski, ABC, Fellow IABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, BEPS Emeritus, is the longest-serving member of BEPS, 35 years. In 2015, the PRSA Board of Directors conferred Emeritus status. So far, Jim is the only Emeritus BEPS board member. He publishes a wide variety of commentaries, lexicons, manifestos, and analyses of ethics practices and malpractices in public relations, business, and society every year.

Moral Questioning A Key Process For Resolving Ethical Dilemmas  

Step One:
Noticing Early Warning Signs

The moment your stomach gets that twinge about what you are doing, just hearing about, or planning to do, or someone else in your company, your family, or the community is starting or plans to start doing, stop and ask yourself, and perhaps others:

  1. What is (is there) ideal behavior here?
  2. How are ethical questions being surfaced and addressed?
  3. What remains unsaid, ignored, actually covered up?
  4. When will leaders address the ethical expectations of others?
  5. Is the profit (personal benefit) motive in balance with your own ethical expectations?

Step Two:
Use the Fitzpatrick Ethical Decision-Making Guide
to Help Resolve, Some Ethical Dilemmas

By Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, JD, APR, Former Member Public Relations Society Of America (PRSA) Board Of Ethics And Professional Standards (BEPS) Found On PRSA.org

For public relations and other professionals, ethical dilemmas arise when responsibilities and loyalties conflict and a decision about the appropriate – i.e., ethical – course of action must be made. Often, a choice is required among actions that meet competing obligations. For example, when might the obligation to serve the public interest override loyalty to clients? When does a particular stakeholder’s interest take priority over an employer’s interest? In other words, just exactly what is “responsible advocacy”? Apply these questions to sort things out:

  1. Define the specific ethical issue/conflict.
  2. Identify internal/external factors (e.g., legal, political, social, economic) that may influence the decision.
  3. Identify key values.
  4. Identify the parties who will be affected by the decision and define the public relations professional’s obligation to each.
  5. Select ethical principles to guide the decision-making process.
  6. Make a decision and justify it.

Step Three:
When We Need to Go Beyond the Fitzpatrick Model
The Moral Questioning Menu

Often at first, it seems most ethical questions have simple direct answers. Closer examination generally requires that we expand our investigations and questions to develop more thoughtful, deeper, and often more complex responses.

This list of questions is a menu of deeper exploration of ethical issues. Pick the questions that are most likely to reveal and explore important information to help you make your decisions and choices.

  • Who does the questionable behavior bother?
  • Who has been involved, injured, afflicted, or victimized??
  • Who made decisions?
  • Who was asking questions, and of whom?
  • What affirmative steps are now being taken to remedy the situation?
  • What are the principles involved?
  • What are the relevant facts of the situation?
  • What alternatives are available?
  • What decisions were made, when, where, and by whom?
  • What did we know, and when did we know it?
  • What ethical standards or principles of conduct are involved or at issue?
  • What is the fundamental cause of the situation?  Omission? Commission? Negligence? Arrogance? Action? Inaction? Denial? Indecision?
  • What is the truth?
  • What lessons can the organization learn as this dilemma is revealed?
  • What other questionable decisions or actions may come to light?
  • What was sacrificed to benefit the outcome or the victims?
  • How could this have been avoided?
  • How will future unethical behavior be disclosed? To whom and how fast?
  • How will our principles be advanced or violated by each alternative action?
  • Is it really our problem?
  • Is it really an ethical question?
  • Are all the critical ethical questions being asked and answered?
  • Are our actions open and honest?
  • As an organization are we prepared to comment on the behavior that led to ethical compromise?
  • Did this happen because there’s an institutional code of silence?
  • Has all of the information been presented honestly and correctly thus far?
  • Was there a serious and prompt attempt to find out what was really going on?
  1. When bad things happen, they often come to our attention as dilemmas – that is, situations where we must choose between two equally bad, sometimes repugnant choices:
    1. “Are you still beating your wife or just being arrogant and obstructive?”
    2. “Did you or your company/organization do this intentionally, maliciously, or negligently?”
  2. Bad situations often have a moral dimension and questions that need to be asked promptly to assess the moral dimension, if any. Asking these moral questions early can trigger prompt, appropriate detoxifying actions and decisions and assess appropriate ethical behaviors.

Failure to ask questions can be considered an ethical failure by omission. Ask the right questions early as suspect situations are developing. Moral questioning may help you to head off serious difficulty or perhaps even enhance the value of your decisions and actions.

The Bosses Most Critical
Roles in Crisis

Effective crisis responses are led by leaders with five specific personal and operational roles in crisis situations.

  1. Assert the moral authority expected of ethical leadership.
    1. Leadership takes appropriate and expected steps to learn from and deal with the issues crises situations raise, very promptly.  
    2. Moral authority consists of:
      1. Candor and disclosure.
      2. Prompt patient explanation.
      3. Commitment to communicate.
      4. Oversite with empathy.
      5. Commitment to zero errors, victimizations, and avoidable mistakes.
      6. Restitution, penance, or at least maintenance while victim issues are resolved.
  2. Take responsibility for the care of victims.
    1. Victims and victimization provide the energy that makes these situations so explosive, highly emotional, and unpredictable.
    2. Taking responsibility for victims moderates and mitigates the emotion of crisis events.
    3. Yes, it can be interpreted as taking responsibility. Just clearly explain the extent and duration of your assistance. Simply ignoring victims creates a raft of new complications and blame shifting towards you.
  3. Set the appropriate tone for the organizational response.
    1. If leadership gripes and groans, everybody gripes and groans.
    2. If leaders whine, everybody whines.
    3. Productive, constructive, instructive, and inspirational tone from the top will move the entire organization towards a more prompt resolution of the crisis, limit the impact, and mitigate reputation damage. An empathetic tone reduces the tension and stress victims feel.
  4. Set the organizations emotional voice.
    1. Be compassionate.
    2. Be helpful.
    3. Be courteous.
    4. Stop taking events, comments, and commentary personally.
    5. Communicate regularly directly with victims, survivors, and survivor families.
  5. Commit random acts of leadership at every level. Teach, encourage, and insist that every level of manager in the organization does the same.
    1. Walk the floor.
    2. Talk the floor.
    3. Encourage people.
    4. Knock down barriers.
    5. Help everyone stay focused on the ultimate response goals of the organization.

Silence is a Toxic Mistake to Your Reputation, and Possibly Your Career.

Above all begin communicating immediately. The most frequent, permanent, and avoidable reputation and career damage comes from remaining silent.

There is no believable or rational reason for saying nothing even for a brief period of time. If the crisis response is technically perfect, the leader will be criticized for doing nothing. Excuses for silence never pass the straight-face test. Whatever you do, it turns out that saying nothing means doing nothing. This becomes the legacy of even timely responses when there is failure to communicate.

“How Can I Get Decency, Happiness, and Trust Started in my Organization, Family, Company, or Community?”

Steve Harrison, my colleague and co-author of The Decency Code, The Leaders Path to Integrity and Trust (McGraw Hill © 2020), always immediately answered, “OBSESSION!!!” “BE THE ONE” or find the one who can eat, sleep, dream, advocate, irritate, motivate, and inspire decency, civility, honesty, truthfulness, trust, and finding happiness.

Second Most Important Questions: Can You Be The One?

Steve also talked about the many pathways to BE THE ONE. “If it’s you, then BE THE ONE…”

Pathways to Be The One:

“Who is accountable.”“Who has integrity.”
“Who is agreeable.”“Who is open.”
“Who is apologetic.”“Who is patient.”
“Who is candid.”“Who is peaceful.”
“Who shows character.”“Who is pleasant.”
“Who is charitable.”“Who is polite.”
“Who is chivalrous.”“Who is positive.”
“Who is civil.”“Who is principled.”
“Who shows compassion.”“Who is respectful.”
“Who is constructive.”“Who is responsible.”
“Who is courteous.”“Who is sensible.”
“Who is decent.”“Who is sensitive.”
“Who is dignified.”“Who is simple.”
“Who is empathetic.”“Who is tactful.”
“Who is engaged.”“Who is thoughtful.”
“Who is forgiving.”“Who is tolerant.”
“Who is helpful.”“Who is transparent.”
“Who is honest.”“Who is trustable.”
“Who is honorable.”“Who is truthful.”
“Who is humble.”

I did say Steve was OBSESSIVE!!

So many paths to civility, decency, integrity, truth, and finding happiness. Take as many as you can, as often as you can every day…encourage others to do the same.

Make progress every day. Work to increase the paths you take daily, every day. Challenge yourself. Keep a log. Encourage others beginning with those around you.

Note: Steve Harrison died on July 10th, 2021. He revitalized an industry, was obsessive about the power of small decencies, those actions, and decisions often unseen, but powerful enough to make good companies great places to work, good families, communities, and lives great.

How about it? Can you BE THE ONE in your life, household, family, neighborhood, work, community, and other places?  

Good luck.


Let me know how you are doing.

Jim Lukaszewski

jel@e911.com

Jim Lukaszewski – Snap Wisdom #4

Compassionate but with Caution

  1. Control your language and control your own emotions: Avoid taking personal criticism, inflammatory language, and emotionally charged words, such as “ashamed,” “embarrassed,” “humiliated,” “bad,” “ugly,” “weird,” “worried,” and “scum.” They are just words. Until you react. Then they become headlines.
  2. Instead, move to answer questions constructively and manage your emotional reaction by focusing on positive declarative responses.
  3. Compassion and empathy sometimes use Color (emotional) Words to emphasize that we understand the damage we’ve done, or that others have suffered, such as:
AshamedShocked
Concerned Tragic
DisappointedUnfortunate
EmbarrasedUnhappy
FailedUnintended
HumiliatedUnnecessary
MortifiedUnsatisfied
Regrettable

CAUTION: Be very careful how and whether you express empathy.
Empathetic sentiments can cause negative reactions from victims. Be
ready for that.

Do constructive, positive, helpful actions and deeds they will speak
louder than words.

Remain quiet. Let someone else speak, or simply, let your empathetic
actions and deeds do the talking.

© Copyright 2023, James E. Lukaszewski. America’s Crisis Guru®
Get permission to reproduce or quote. Contact the copyright holder, jel@e911.com.

Some Dare Call It Reason. The US Supreme Court released it’s Impression of My Words. A code of conduct.

Much of my nearly 40-year career in communications involved codes of conduct, compliance, and grievance procedure development. Some observations.

  • The Supreme’s Impressions of a Code of Conduct contain five Canons, and with commentary is more than 5000 words. A Canon, in the Catholic Church, is an ecclesiastical rule or law enacted by a council or other competent authority and approved by the Pope.
  • In perspective, The Ten Commandments (in Exodus) is 313 words that, standing alone, have spoken more powerfully to the world for thousands of years, never really needing 50, 500, or 5000 words of explanation or interpretation. It got them anyway, but they don’t matter. Well, except for the George Carlin “Ten Commandments” version on You Tube . Funny but crude.
  • The Gettysburg address was 272 words.
  • The SCOTUS Toothless Code has five Canons, but no compliance, enforcement,or penalties for mistakes and intentional errors. The Catholic Church has 1752 Canons complete with penalties and punishments. Enforced by men purportedly representing God.
  • Look where their Canons got them.
  • Strangely missing from the SCOTUS Code are the who and how the Code is monitored rand enforced. Instead, it is explained that SCOTUS is more than just another court system, it is The Head of all courtm systems.
  • The SCOTUS introduction to its Code sounds a lot like the opening of a legal defense than setting conduct standards. It contains this phrase: “For the most part these rules and principles are not new.” Indicating that the entire document is suspect, guilt averse, and “Not New.” than setting conduct standards. It contains this phrase: “For the most part these rules and principles are not new.” Indicating that the entire document is suspect, guilt averse, and “Not New.”
  • Defendant statements like this one frequently contain “Not” statements where the “Not” usually precedes or succeeds a lie. “I am not a crook.”, “I did not have sex with that woman.”, “I am not a racist.”, you get the idea.
  • The Justice’s avoid setting behavior standards and absolute guidance by sprinkling the five Canons with mealy mouthed equivocation and uncertainties primarily using the word “should”.
  • Set Behavior Standards by replacing the words should, may, might, could, and would, everywhere in the five Canon’s document with will, must, or shall.:
    • Canon ONE: A Justice Should Perform. A Justice Should Uphold The Integrity And Independence Of The Judiciary. Why not, must, will, or shall?
    • Canon TWO: A Justice Should Avoid Impropriety And The Appearance Of Impropriety In All Activities. . Why not, must, will, or shall?
    • Canon THREE: A Justice Should Perform The Duties Of The Office Fairly, Impartially, And Diligently. . Why not, must, will, or shall?
    • Canon FOUR: Replace Should with must, will, or shall.
    • Canon FIVE: Replace Should with must, will, or shall.
    • To be credible, Codes set Behavior Standards by using clear language of accountability and authorize sanctions and penalties.
    • The net effect of the 5000-word SCOTUS Code commentary seems to ordain justices as Demigods, sort of deified mortals. In a democracy, it is the people who have the last word. Several concepts for Code oversight have been proposed. Recent Further revelations of long-time judicial impropriety and that of with their friends, family, and political associates dramatically illustrates the immediate need for this extra level of protection for our democracy.
    • The Supreme’s Troupe is operating like any large corporation in trouble. In the introduction, they advance an ex post facto explanation to demonstrate that they were in the right from the very beginning, and it is we who misunderstood. Oh, it’s our fault. This despite weeks and months of news stories where some of them are clearly in the wrong. Plus, we have suspected liars, during their confirmations, among the Supreme’s. It appears these individuals are still working for the person who appointed them and only part-time for the American people.
    • Surely, there should be a scale of penalties up to and including suspension and expulsion. When the Supreme’s can whittle this 5000-word tome down to one or two 8.5” x 11” sheets of paper, on one side double-spaced, including compliance requirements, some of the credibility they seek to re-establish may yet return. Most of the collateral language in the existing commentary can be boiled down to being an exculpatory and deflective exercise meaning, “Never mind, just trust us.” Trust but verify, yes.

    SCOTUS, in fact, acts as many of my large corporate clients have over the years when in trouble. They believe that producing an overwhelming amount of data (5000+ words?) demonstrates the truth of any position and the insidious falseness of the non-believers (many, many of us). They ignore the basic structure of truth, which in my experience is 15% facts and data. 85% is responding to the emotions of its audiences and victims who are responsible for the ongoing disappointedly low and declining levels of respect for SCOTUS. The court says we misunderstood. The court chooses negative condescension and condemnation as its defense against you and me.
    -It is we who are too stupid to understand what these omnipotent deities should be doing and working on.

    The Justices call their Code exercise a “codification.” In plain English? The translation: from the bureaucratic to self-forgiving obfuscation.

    Why do the smart ones in trouble always blame the victims (you and me) and question our intelligence? The answer is this pattern of misbehavior so prevalent these days at the top of things. This Code is an exercise in invincibility. Enabled by ignoring what it considers petty misbehaviors, then uses these mundane systemic personal leadership failures to justify even authorize their previously committed bad acts and subsequent misbehavior.

    Also see: “The Psychology Behind Unethical Behavior,” Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg, Harvard Business Review, 4/12/19. Her theory of omnipotence (invincibility), cultural numbness, and justified neglect is a truly original and invaluable insight into the misbehavior of powerful people.

    Republican Debate #3 Was Informative (Surprise)

    Trump’s absence allows a much better view of those he is about to defeat. The poling results in 2020 were a disaster (to quote someone we shall not name.) Please, remember, in American politics, nothing is certain until the votes are counted. The media still uses polls mixed together. Each poll alone is likely misleading and inaccurate.

    The media’s solution is mixing polls together. But, unlike a tasty midwestern hotdish, mixing polls keeps a small, fading industry alive and produces what? False hopes, misleading information, and confusion. Look for repeat polling failure in 2024. Notice the word Truth is missing from the media’s product list. Been gone a long time.

    What We Learned From The Third Debate

    Mr. Scott Departed.

    Mr. Ramaswamy Departed.

    Mr. Christie, sometimes makes sense, states the obvious, but you just can’t see him as a president. He may be younger than Biden, but he still represents yesterday. Is that where America wants to go?

    Mr. DeSanctimonious remains the self-declared better person than everyone else unless you are too stupid to see it. Hah! Even on television, his nose is so high it almost leaves the screen. His decline continues. He begs you to hate him. He wants to teach your children. That is scary.

    Mrs. Haley, New leaders are often discovered during controversy. This happened during Debate a viable/peaceful resolution to the abortion conundrum plaguing American politics for the last half century, amazing. Her numbers are up and , leading Mr. DeSanctimonious in some early primaries.

    Some Things Seem Certain

    • The primary season already underway is going to be long, with lots of fake, non-news, and phony information and predictions sold as “breaking news.” (The biggest lie in communications.)
    • CNN will reach 40 commercials per hour.
    • Heavyset sick people will continue dancing happily in television commercials (fromtheir residuals) for really expensive diabetes drugs. I have diabetes, I’m in the doctor’soffice frequently. I can assure you; no one is dancing in there.
    • Medicare Insurance Scams Must Be Stopped. The insurance vultures and crooks ledby formerly trustworthy movie, television and sports stars are out in force ripping offmillions of seniors selling unneeded Medicare advice, and needless extra insurance. Medicare was designed so that senior citizens could easily and conveniently get Medicarehelp and information from empathetic and helpful Government agencies. I am 82, I do know.
    • The Department of Justice needs to powerfully prosecute and penalize the Licensed insurance Agents and the celebrities who benefit if fraud is occurring.