Any Incident

/ rant on /

A few weeks ago Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Brett Myers had a domestic dispute with his wife in the streets of Boston. It's tough to get clear facts about what happened -- he may or may not have hit her with a closed fist, he may or may not have pulled her hair, he may or may not have been trying to help her somehow. But he did get tossed in the clink, and she did bail him out.

And so some relationships go.

What's interesting is how the Phillies handled the situation. They let Brett start the next night against the (hated) Red Socks. He tanked, the crowd was predictably merciless, and the Phils lost. The Phils then reversed field, putting Brett on a "leave of absence" through the All Star break. He rejoined the team yesterday and will pitch tomorrow.

Two things about the story got my attention. The first was the "let him play, then suspend him" tack taken by the Phils. This reversal was unfair to Brett, unfair to his wife, unfair to his fans, and unfair to the team. It shows a poor decision making process in the front office and a general lack of good sense. It's one thing for a leader to make a bad call and then have the guts to admit the mistake and make amends. That's not what the Phils did. They made a bad call and used a values-based argument to back it up -- We stand by our man -- and then backed away from the value.

So what's the message? Now we don't stand by our man? We stood by our man until it was unpopular to do so? If you stick a flag in a value, you better be prepared to stand by it lest the value -- and your credibility -- lose meaning.

The second thing that got my attention is a line from a story about Myers in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Brett gave a brief statement to the press yesterday, in which we said:

"I have been humbled greatly by this problem, and I deeply regret any incident that happened"

...

"I want to apologize to my wife, family, teammates, the entire Phillies organization, and especially the fans. I would like to thank you for respecting our privacy, and we both have decided that it's time for me to rejoin the team. Unfortunately, I can't answer any more questions about this due to the ongoing court case."

The Phillies said that they provided Myers no help with his statement, and that the words were his. No way, don't believe it, not a chance. The language is virtually torn from the PR Agency Style Manual. No real person writes this way; only flacks do. Perhaps the Phillies PR staff didn't directly help him with his statement, but somebody did -- either the PR agency on the Phillies account, a crisis communication firm they brought in, or Brett's attorney. No business lets a $3.3 million-a-year asset that's involved in a court case make a public statement to the press without professional guidance. So on this the Phils are splitting hairs, or if you don't like to split hairs, lying.

As for Brett's statement, what raised my left eyebrow was the phrase "I deeply regret any incident that happened." "Any" incident? What, a clean-up on aisle seven? The Holocaust? Zidane's head butt? What?

Language like this is a disservice to everyone involved. It suggests that, well, maybe nothing at all happened in Boston. It intentionally obfuscates the speaker's personal responsibility, and it's a direct result of the PR culture in which we live. I get that Brett's in a bind, and I understand domestic conflict and the shape-shifting facts and circumstances it brings. But leaders -- heck, reasonable men and women -- don't obscure responsibility, they take it. If the lawyers don't want you to touch the matter, then don't: "I have been humbled greatly by this problem. My attorneys have asked that I not speak to what happened in Boston, but I want to apologize to my wife, family, teammates ..." But not "any incident that happened." Come on.

The only thing worse than spin is bad spin, and this story has it in buckets. As was noted on a local sports radio station earlier this week, if the Phillies were a blimp they'd be the Hindenburg. If they were a ship they'd be the Titanic. And if they were a baseball team they'd be the Philadelphia Phillies.

/ rant off /

Tell NBC What You Think

NOT TO BE A CRITIC, but NBC seems to be doing a fine job of messing up the Olympics. Bob Costas, whose poetic leanings work well in the pastoral realm of baseball, seems oddly forced ... almost clinical ... in the Olympic setting. The sport-specific announcers, whose producers have clearly coached to invoke an endless stream of human interest facts rather than play-by-play, are distracting.

And worst of all: No medal ceremonies! We're three nights in, and Kate and I have yet to see a medal ceremony. We have seen four- and five-minute blocks of advertising, often immediately following some athlete's gold-medal performance. Lots of Bud ads; no podiums. Don't know about you, but the inspiration that comes with seeing someone achieve their life's dream whilst realizing the significance of representing their country? It's a big reason why we watch (and it's one of the main reasons the Olympics exist at all).

Shame on you, NBC. We went ahead and made our thoughts on the lack of medal ceremonies known, firing off an email to the NBC Olympic feedback email address. Thought you might want to do the same:

nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com

Have fun, and keep it clean.

Tags: Olympics, NBC

FROM YESTERDAY'S USATODAY:

Bake sales, raffles and other fundraisers no longer bring in enough money for some Ohio high schools building new football stadiums.

So a handful in the state and elsewhere have turned to selling personal seat licenses just like the pros.

Boosters and longtime ticket holders are being asked to plunk down from $150 to $1,500 so they can reserve comfy seats in prime locations.

"It's an innovative way of raising money," said Art Bucci, athletic director at Fremont Ross High School in Fremont, Ohio. "Years ago, you just put some bleachers up and spray painted the field."

...

Seat licenses priced at $1,500 and $1,000 helped pay for part of a football-soccer stadium in Ravenna, Ohio. And Napoleon (Ohio) High School sold 784 seat licenses at $300 each for its stadium.

...

Fremont is planning to build a new stadium next year and will sell $600 seat licenses. Buyers will get seats with cupholders and their name engraved on the chair.

A few fans, though, have complained that they'll be moved from seats they've held for years.

"I sympathize with them," Bucci said. "You've got people on fixed incomes who've had the same seats for 30 years. They can't really afford to do that."

Where's the spin? Wait for it ...

The school will try to move those fans to spots near where they had before, he said. "We're not out to make a lot of money," Bucci said. "This is to build a facility and give it back to the community."

Yes: It's all about giving a facility back to the community ... that many in the community cannot afford.

LIFE AT BIGCO:

At BigCo, we believe we know how to morph seamlessly.  We will visualize the commonly-accepted term "innovative". The customized infinitely reconfigurable, web-enabled, backward-compatible efficient R&D factor is virally-distributed. What does the industry jargon "TQC" really mean? A company that can visualize elegantly will (eventually) be able to matrix correctly. If you enhance holisticly, you may have to monetize dynamicly. The ultra-structuring factor can be summed up in one word: C2C2B. It seems marvelous, but it's realistic! Imagine a combination of HTTP and HTTP. We think that most B2C entry pages use far too much XForms, and not enough IIS. A company that can optimize fiercely will (at some undefined point of time) be able to deliver fiercely.

Source: The Corporate Gibberish Generator (courtesy David Weinberger). Try it yourself!

The Right Way And The Wrong Way

ONE REASON TO LIKE CONTINENTAL AIRLINES: They offer free wifi in many of their frequent flier clubs. Unfortunately I don't often fly Continental, but they share a number of clubs with Northwest, which I frequently fly, and as a result I get to surf for free from time to time.

It's a great example of the right way to leverage a technology: take a killer-app and satisfy a customer longing for free. Of course, Continental's practice has also prompted a response: Boston Logan's attempting to pull the plug under the auspices of safety.

Continental's free service poses an "unacceptable potential risk" to communications gear used by the state police and the Transportation Security Administration.

And that's the wrong way to leverage technology: to take a killer-app that satisfies a customer longing for free and replace it with a (slower, weaker) fee-based alternative. Want to make it worse: do so for reasons that, frankly, lack narrative fidelity.

At stake is a sizable chunk of revenue that Massport receives from its pay-per-use Wi-Fi service, which is operated by a commercial provider called Advanced Wireless Group. Massport did not respond to queries about the current sum, but the Boston Globe reported two years ago that the contract gives Massport "up to a maximum of 20 percent of annual gross revenues, which could exceed $1 million annually."

Hmmm. Wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Talk about the spin zone. I mean, here I sit, typing this in a Continental club at O'Hare international, one of the busiest airports on Earth. If there's a place anywhere on the planet with more wifi-enabled security, safety, and logistical equipment than O'Hare, I'd be shocked.

And yet here I type, happily, with the infrastructure streaming past me, not a "boo" about safety or an "unacceptable potential risk."

I hope Boston loses this one and the native wifi of Logan continue to roam free ...

The Hewitt List

Hewitt has released the results of their annual U.S. Top Companies For Leaders study. Details: Sample of HR execs. from 373 companies; median revenue of $2 bil.; median employee size of 7,300. If you're not into downloading the PDF of the results, FC Now has them here.

Frankly, and as a partner in a consulting firm, I always cringe when I see consulting firms conducting these types of studies and releasing their resulting lists. At the firm we've been exposed to their inner workings and methodologies on several occasions (although not this particular Hewitt study), and with a research practice of our own in-house, we've frankly never been very impressed with the rigor of the processes involved.

So, in general, like the Oscars, we say take them with a grain of salt. In this instance the methodology seems a bit more robust, with multiple steps for screening the "best" leadership companies, including comparisons of financial performance, with the final call coming down to a panel of judges (from the study booklet):

• John Byrne is the Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company magazine and the author of eight books on business, leadership, and management. He was previously a senior writer at BusinessWeek and the author of 57 cover stories at the magazine. He is a frequent commentator and public speaker on topics ranging from creativity and innovation to leadership and corporate governance.
• Price M. Cobbs is an internationally recognized psychiatrist and management consultant. Pacific Management Systems, the company he founded, consults with organizations on leadership, executive development, and diversity strategies. He is the author of several books, including Cracking the Corporate Code: From Survival to Mastery.
• Marshall Goldsmith is a leading executive coach, prominent speaker, and author of many books and articles on leadership. He is an authority on how to help leaders achieve positive, measurable changes in their own behavior and that of their people and teams. The author of 18 books, he has been named one of the five most respected executive coaches by BusinessWeek, and one of the 50 greatest thinkers in the field of management by American Management Association.
• Jay Jamrog is the Executive Director of the Human Resource Institute and identifies and analyzes the major issues and trends affecting the management of people in organizations. He is an associate editor of Human Resource Planning, and is frequently quoted in business publications on topics relating to the future of people management.
• Joseph McCann is Dean of the John H. Sykes College of Business, Dean of Graduate Studies, and Co-Chief Academic Officer at the University of Tampa. He is a consultant, researcher, and author on organizational design and strategic change, mergers and acquisitions, rapidly growing technology companies, and new business venturing. He is an associate editor of Human Resource Planning.

So take it for what it's worth. I must say that if the staff at CRA were to sit around a table and call out names of companies we think have great leadership development programs, many of Hewitt's top 20 would be in our top 20 (due to personal exposure, reputation, or both). But I also know there are lots of smaller firms, and many, many privately-held firms, that due to lack of exposure (or a preference for privacy) simply wouldn't be in the mix.

Not Your Father's Water

For the Corporate Spin file: The spring water on a recent US Airways flight, made by Absopure, was labeled repeatedly on its packaging as "the hydration drink." What's in Absopure's "hydration drink" that makes it so remarkable at hydration?

Water.

Amenity Spin

Here's a great little example of corporate spin--in the bathroom of my Clarion hotel rests a sign that reads:

Dear Guest

Due to the popularity of our guest room amenities, our Housekeeping Department now offers these items for sale:

• Bath Towels $9.00
• Bath Mats $12.00
• Hand Towels $5.00
• Face Cloths $2.00
• Pillows $15.00

Each guest room attendant is responsible for maintaining the guest room items. Should you decide to take these article from your room instead of obtaining them from the Executive Housekeeper, we will assume you approve a corresponding charge to your account.

Thank You.

Now I know what to bring home as gifts for the folks back the office ...