Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Tony G]

New school damage control is to admit it up front, apologize profusely, take strong measures to prevent reoccurance.


But not before exhausting every attempt to keep it hidden and then some transparent denials.

No. PR firms these days have a "How to handle a crisis" guideline or procedure and what you described is not in it.

Examples of successful crisis management[edit] Tylenol (Johnson and Johnson)

In the fall of 1982, a murderer added 65 milligrams of cyanide to some [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tylenol"]Tylenol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] capsules on store shelves, killing seven people, including three in one family. Johnson & Johnson recalled and destroyed 31 million capsules at a cost of $100 million. The affable CEO, James Burke, appeared in television ads and at news conferences informing consumers of the company's actions. Tamper-resistant packaging was rapidly introduced, and Tylenol sales swiftly bounced back to near pre-crisis levels.[19]
When another bottle of tainted Tylenol was discovered in a store, it took only a matter of minutes for the manufacturer to issue a nationwide warning that people should not use the medication in its capsule form.[20]
[edit] Odwalla Foods

When [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odwalla"]Odwalla - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]'s apple juice was thought to be the cause of an outbreak of E. coli infection, the company lost a third of its market value. In October 1996, an outbreak of E. coli bacteria in Washington state, California, Colorado and British Columbia was traced to unpasteurized apple juice manufactured by natural juice maker Odwalla Inc. Forty-nine cases were reported, including the death of a small child. Within 24 hours, Odwalla conferred with the FDA and Washington state health officials; established a schedule of daily press briefings; sent out press releases which announced the recall; expressed remorse, concern and apology, and took responsibility for anyone harmed by their products; detailed symptoms of E. coli poisoning; and explained what consumers should do with any affected products. Odwalla then developed - through the help of consultants - effective thermal processes that would not harm the products' flavors when production resumed. All of these steps were communicated through close relations with the media and through full-page newspaper ads.
[edit] Mattel

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattel"]Mattel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Inc., the toy maker, has been plagued with more than 28 product recalls and in Summer of 2007, amongst problems with exports from China, faced two product recall in two weeks. The company "did everything it could to get its message out, earning high marks from consumers and retailers. Though upset by the situation, they were appreciative of the company's response. At Mattel, just after the 7 a.m. recall announcement by federal officials, a public relations staff of 16 was set to call reporters at the 40 biggest media outlets. They told each to check their e-mail for a news release outlining the recalls, invited them to a teleconference call with executives and scheduled TV appearances or phone conversations with Mattel's chief executive. The Mattel CEO Robert Eckert did 14 TV interviews on a Tuesday in August and about 20 calls with individual reporters. By the week's end, Mattel had responded to more than 300 media inquiries in the U.S. alone."[21]
[edit] Pepsi

The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi"]Pepsi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Corporation faced a crisis in 1993 which started with claims of syringes being found in cans of diet Pepsi. Pepsi urged stores not to remove the product from shelves while it had the cans and the situation investigated. This led to an arrest, which Pepsi made public and then followed with their first video news release, showing the production process to demonstrate that such tampering was impossible within their factories. A second video news release displayed the man arrested. A third video news release showed surveillance from a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convenience_store"]Convenience store - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] where a woman was caught replicating the tampering incident. The company simultaneously publicly worked with the FDA during the crisis. The corporation was completely open with the public throughout, and every employee of Pepsi was kept aware of the details.[[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]Wikipedia:Citation needed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]] This made public communications effective throughout the crisis. After the crisis had been resolved, the corporation ran a series of special campaigns designed to thank the public for standing by the corporation, along with coupons for further compensation. This case served as a design for how to handle other crisis situations.[22][[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]Wikipedia:Citation needed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]]
[edit] Examples of unsuccessful crisis management

[edit] Bhopal

The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster"]Bhopal disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] in which poor communication before, during, and after the crisis cost thousands of lives, illustrates the importance of incorporating cross-cultural communication in crisis management plans. According to American University’s Trade Environmental Database Case Studies (1997), local residents were not sure how to react to warnings of potential threats from the Union Carbide plant. Operating manuals printed only in English is an extreme example of mismanagement but indicative of systemic barriers to information diffusion. According to Union Carbide’s own chronology of the incident (2006), a day after the crisis Union Carbide’s upper management arrived in India but was unable to assist in the relief efforts because they were placed under house arrest by the Indian government. Symbolic intervention can be counter productive; a crisis management strategy can help upper management make more calculated decisions in how they should respond to disaster scenarios. The Bhopal incident illustrates the difficulty in consistently applying management standards to multi-national operations and the blame shifting that often results from the lack of a clear management plan.[23]
[edit] Ford and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

The [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford[/ame]-[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_Tire_and_Rubber_Company"]Firestone Tire and Rubber Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] dispute transpired in August 2000. In response to claims that their 15-inch Wilderness AT, radial ATX and ATX II tire treads were separating from the tire core—leading to grisly, spectacular crashes—Bridgestone/Firestone recalled 6.5 million tires. These tires were mostly used on the Ford Explorer, the world's top-selling sport utility vehicle (SUV).[24]
The two companies committed three major blunders early on, say crisis experts. First, they blamed consumers for not inflating their tires properly. Then they blamed each other for faulty tires and faulty vehicle design. Then they said very little about what they were doing to solve a problem that had caused more than 100 deaths—until they got called to Washington to testify before Congress.[25]
[edit] Exxon

On March 24, 1989, a tanker belonging to the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon"]Exxon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Corporation ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska. The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez"]Exxon Valdez - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters off Valdez, killing thousands of fish, fowl, and sea otters. Hundreds of miles of coastline were polluted and salmon spawning runs disrupted; numerous fishermen, especially Native Americans, lost their livelihoods. Exxon, by contrast, did not react quickly in terms of dealing with the media and the public; the CEO, [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Rawl[/ame], did not become an active part of the public relations effort and actually shunned public involvement; the company had neither a communication plan nor a communication team in place to handle the event—in fact, the company did not appoint a public relations manager to its management team until 1993, 4 years after the incident; Exxon established its media center in Valdez, a location too small and too remote to handle the onslaught of media attention; and the company acted defensively in its response to its publics, even laying blame, at times, on other groups such as the Coast Guard. These responses also happened within days of the incident.[26]

These are issues which every company with potentially catastrophic processes, products, or plants needs to answer with a special team of "worst case" analysts. Such analysis then has to be transformed into a response plan. Where the issue involves government — and in most cases it will — the company needs to coordinate its planning with federal, state and local authorities. After 9/11, many companies analyzed these issues with respect to terrorist acts at their facilities or terrorist acts which, if not directed at the company, could still have significant impact on people, facilities, information and supply chain.
Yet, many experts in crisis response and crisis management would say that without practice, without simulations, these response plans merely gather dust and are not effective when the hundred-year event occurs. In the military, war games can be a vital tool for learning how to respond to crisis situations. We need a "war game" mentality in the private sector to address the severe conceptual and operational problems in crisis response and crisis management which the Gulf Spill and the Japan nuclear events so starkly illustrate. Ben W. Heineman, Jr.
Ben Heineman has held senior positions in business, law, and government, is a senior fellow at Harvard's Law and Kennedy Schools, and is author of High Performance With High Integrity (Harvard Business Press, 2008)

[Tony G]

New school damage control is to admit it up front, apologize profusely, take strong measures to prevent reoccurance.


But not before exhausting every attempt to keep it hidden and then some transparent denials.

No. PR firms these days have a "How to handle a crisis" guideline or procedure and what you described is not in it.

Examples of successful crisis management

Tylenol (Johnson and Johnson)
In the fall of 1982, a murderer added 65 milligrams of cyanide to some Tylenol capsules on store shelves, killing seven people, including three in one family. Johnson & Johnson recalled and destroyed 31 million capsules at a cost of $100 million. The affable CEO, James Burke, appeared in television ads and at news conferences informing consumers of the company's actions. Tamper-resistant packaging was rapidly introduced, and Tylenol sales swiftly bounced back to near pre-crisis levels.[19]
When another bottle of tainted Tylenol was discovered in a store, it took only a matter of minutes for the manufacturer to issue a nationwide warning that people should not use the medication in its capsule form.[20]
[edit]

Odwalla Foods
When Odwalla's apple juice was thought to be the cause of an outbreak of E. coli infection, the company lost a third of its market value. In October 1996, an outbreak of E. coli bacteria in Washington state, California, Colorado and British Columbia was traced to unpasteurized apple juice manufactured by natural juice maker Odwalla Inc. Forty-nine cases were reported, including the death of a small child. Within 24 hours, Odwalla conferred with the FDA and Washington state health officials; established a schedule of daily press briefings; sent out press releases which announced the recall; expressed remorse, concern and apology, and took responsibility for anyone harmed by their products; detailed symptoms of E. coli poisoning; and explained what consumers should do with any affected products. Odwalla then developed - through the help of consultants - effective thermal processes that would not harm the products' flavors when production resumed. All of these steps were communicated through close relations with the media and through full-page newspaper ads.

Mattel-Mattel Inc.,
the toy maker, has been plagued with more than 28 product recalls and in Summer of 2007, amongst problems with exports from China, faced two product recall in two weeks. The company "did everything it could to get its message out, earning high marks from consumers and retailers. Though upset by the situation, they were appreciative of the company's response. At Mattel, just after the 7 a.m. recall announcement by federal officials, a public relations staff of 16 was set to call reporters at the 40 biggest media outlets. They told each to check their e-mail for a news release outlining the recalls, invited them to a teleconference call with executives and scheduled TV appearances or phone conversations with Mattel's chief executive. The Mattel CEO Robert Eckert did 14 TV interviews on a Tuesday in August and about 20 calls with individual reporters. By the week's end, Mattel had responded to more than 300 media inquiries in the U.S. alone."[21]

Pepsi -
The Pepsi Corporation faced a crisis in 1993 which started with claims of syringes being found in cans of diet Pepsi. Pepsi urged stores not to remove the product from shelves while it had the cans and the situation investigated. This led to an arrest, which Pepsi made public and then followed with their first video news release, showing the production process to demonstrate that such tampering was impossible within their factories. A second video news release displayed the man arrested. A third video news release showed surveillance from a convenience store where a woman was caught replicating the tampering incident. The company simultaneously publicly worked with the FDA during the crisis. The corporation was completely open with the public throughout, and every employee of Pepsi was kept aware of the details.[citation needed] This made public communications effective throughout the crisis. After the crisis had been resolved, the corporation ran a series of special campaigns designed to thank the public for standing by the corporation, along with coupons for further compensation. This case served as a design for how to handle other crisis situations.[22][citation needed]

[edit] Examples of unsuccessful crisis management[edit]

Bhopal
The Bhopal disaster in which poor communication before, during, and after the crisis cost thousands of lives, illustrates the importance of incorporating cross-cultural communication in crisis management plans. According to American University’s Trade Environmental Database Case Studies (1997), local residents were not sure how to react to warnings of potential threats from the Union Carbide plant. Operating manuals printed only in English is an extreme example of mismanagement but indicative of systemic barriers to information diffusion. According to Union Carbide’s own chronology of the incident (2006), a day after the crisis Union Carbide’s upper management arrived in India but was unable to assist in the relief efforts because they were placed under house arrest by the Indian government. Symbolic intervention can be counter productive; a crisis management strategy can help upper management make more calculated decisions in how they should respond to disaster scenarios. The Bhopal incident illustrates the difficulty in consistently applying management standards to multi-national operations and the blame shifting that often results from the lack of a clear management plan.[23]

Ford and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
The Ford-Firestone Tire and Rubber Company dispute transpired in August 2000. In response to claims that their 15-inch Wilderness AT, radial ATX and ATX II tire treads were separating from the tire core—leading to grisly, spectacular crashes—Bridgestone/Firestone recalled 6.5 million tires. These tires were mostly used on the Ford Explorer, the world's top-selling sport utility vehicle (SUV).[24]
The two companies committed three major blunders early on, say crisis experts. First, they blamed consumers for not inflating their tires properly. Then they blamed each other for faulty tires and faulty vehicle design. Then they said very little about what they were doing to solve a problem that had caused more than 100 deaths—until they got called to Washington to testify before Congress.[25]

Exxon
On March 24, 1989, a tanker belonging to the Exxon Corporation ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska. The Exxon Valdez spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters off Valdez, killing thousands of fish, fowl, and sea otters. Hundreds of miles of coastline were polluted and salmon spawning runs disrupted; numerous fishermen, especially Native Americans, lost their livelihoods. Exxon, by contrast, did not react quickly in terms of dealing with the media and the public; the CEO, Lawrence Rawl, did not become an active part of the public relations effort and actually shunned public involvement; the company had neither a communication plan nor a communication team in place to handle the event—in fact, the company did not appoint a public relations manager to its management team until 1993, 4 years after the incident; Exxon established its media center in Valdez, a location too small and too remote to handle the onslaught of media attention; and the company acted defensively in its response to its publics, even laying blame, at times, on other groups such as the Coast Guard. These responses also happened within days of the incident.[

[hack]

But what Penn State did is not that. What John Edwards did is not that, and the same goes for Anthony Weiner or Mark Sanford. What Ohio State did is not in it. That also goes for JP Morgan recently, Bank of America, and, well, pretty much everyone else who got caught lately.

Organisations create policy manuals all the time and fail to follow them. Later, they can point to the policy and portray a small proportion of their overall response strategy as laudatory. In reality, its ``Hello, shocked victim! Please take this $200 and sign this piece of paper saying you won't sue us later. (We're gonna try to get this episode in a Harvard Business Review case study as an example of corporate social responsibility).''

[Jeff Buchanan]

Tony, what you bring up (in a rather stunning manner I would add) has to do with corporate damage control with regard to public image.

Certainly, PSU players in this affair were all about damage control after the fact. But what I see as the problem here is the lack of integrity from the start of all this. Once Sandusky's predatory sexual abuse came into public view, individuals who were aware of this failed to take responsiblity for (1) confronting Sandusky directly and in no uncertain terms and (2) alerting appropriate state authorities and making sure they intervened.

Instead, they talked about it ..... then did nothing of substance. This result isn't about damage control. This is about a lack of integity and character among an identifiable group of individuals ....... most of whom were in an age group and in positions where they have a responsiblity to act with strong leadership and integrity as a matter of setting an example for those younger than them and who might be looking to these men as a guide for their own future conduct.

What we have then is a hypothesis that men of this generation acting in this decade have failed to show the kind of leadership and integirty demanded of them as a means of example setting for subsequent generations.

I find that to be among the most disturbing aspects in this affair.

[Tony G]

It's actually the same actions, just from a different viewpoint. The good examples there were about acting with integrity and character from an organizational POV. You can couch it in terms of damage control (which could be perceived to have a different objective but that is not my intent) Or as an example of leadership. The actions required are the same. In the end, it's "The right thing to do" no matter what terms you couch it in.

[hack]

Well, in Tony's defense, you can see he quoted a comment about that and was responding to that specifically. But, well, yeah - your feelings are understood.


What we have then is a hypothesis that men of this generation acting in this decade have failed to show the kind of leadership and integirty demanded of them as a means of example setting for subsequent generations.

Tough one. It would be great for the older and wiser to mentor the young and fresh. The difficulty there for the older and wiser is to understand what's different about things now and to calibrate their advice and leadership so it is relevant and useful in the different conditions the young exist in. That's no easy task. It's helpful to know that, at least from my perspective, young people seem to find the environment they are about to enter as adults completely absurd, unjust and unsustainable. They aren't clueless without a guiding hand. They know they're screwed. So at least there's awareness.

[Tony G]

What we have then is a hypothesis that men of this generation acting in this decade have failed to show the kind of leadership and integirty demanded of them as a means of example setting for subsequent generations.

Your hypothesis remains unproven. You have way too small a sample size to make such a broad statement.

This result isn't about damage control. This is about a lack of integrity and character among an identifiable group of individuals

Let me try to make my comment clearer. When I speak about damage control I should have made it clearer that I'm not talking about just "putting spin on it". I'm talking more about damage control in a triage sense. In this case the patient (PSU) found out back in the 90's it had a grievous malignancy in it. The day they knew of his actions is when the "damage control" should have started. In this case by excising the malignancy and exposing it to the light of day. Instead they went down the path of half measures and wishing things would go away. This failure is the same failure you talk about with integrity, only it encompasses a larger more institutional level. The culture among the PSU leadership was devoid of the willingness to face this crisis head on and do what was best for society and the school. Instead more boys were victimized causing an unconscionable amount of damage to them and as a by-product bringing the school to its current vast exposure.

[hack]

The sample size of men of that generation that have done things that set a bad example for the youngsters, whether intentionally or not, is rather large. I don't buy the argument centered on age, but if Jeff wants to make it he has a massive sample size to work with.

As for the second paragraph, I'm not sure what you're saying. I think I get it, but there seems to be in there, given language choices like ``devoid of the willingness to...'' or ``damage control in a triage sense'', a conscious complication of what can be put in very simple and direct language.

[Tony G]

I think it's more than just an individual choice in this case. There is a culture that was established at PSU that permitted this to happen. It's not just a weak moral compass of these men, it's a force that helped these men deviate from the correct path. The system at the school contributed to failing the victims of the protection they should have had.

[hack]

I get it. Well, yes. People would rather serve the needs of the institution than do the right thing. They have families and bills to pay and would rather keep their heads down and hope for the best rather than be out suddenly looking for new jobs.

Still, though -- each of the people who did that made a choice. It's not like the university has some mind-bending gear they used to alter the brains of all involved.

[Tony G]

I am saying that all of the school's previous actions helped take it to this point. I don't know your background but I've seen where a bad culture contributed to to such bad decision making.

[hack]

Two questions:

1. At that point do you think individuals are responsible for their own actions?

2. How different do you think PSU's culture is from the norm? My suspicion is that it's not very deviant. As cited above, the basic response to any sort of scandal is to cover up and hope, and then, when that doesn't work, fess up and pledge to fix things.

[Tony G]

those decisions don't take place in a vacuum. I study human performance at work and the culture of an organization plays a part in decision making. Existing culture is widely recognized as a factor in the chain of events that lead to an incident.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Tony .... I agree with you about the unproven hypothesis comment. It is unproven and I tossed it out there as just that. Hack does offer that the sample size I might use to prove it is sizable though. Just my got feeling ..... I can show the null hypothesis to be false thus proving its opposite (talent hates this form of debate and refuses to engage in it ..... heh).

I still hang my hat on what Hack has been hinting at. Individual responsibility to act. You don't need the influence of institutions or institutional culture to form a moral compass. You might want to avoid that thinking. If you allow it to influence you, you might end up thinking it is perfectly OK to lie and cheat.

I do agree with you that it does happen and too often men put their trust in institutional values to find true north on their own moral compasses. Mistake #1, in my view. I'd offer that in forming your value system, look into a man's soul first. That is why I put so much importance on individual actions as means of assessing character .... do as I do not as I say sort of thing .... and deciding how you want to incorporate that individuals behavior into one's own repertoire of it.

From there, you should be able to see why I so detest how the principals, including Joe Paterno, acted in this affair and how they utterly failed in setting a good example for those younger and less experienced than they were that were watching them for leadership

[madootra]

look into a man's soul first. That is why I put so much importance on individual actions as means of assessing character .... do as I do not as I say sort of thing ....

Completely agree......even with the lack of the full quote....forgive me for cherry-picking. But my favorite quote has always been, "Well done is better than well said." Environmental or cultural differences don't diminish the responsibility of doing what is, simply, the right thing.