Discoveries Made About the Exxon Valdez to Share With the Class
Prior to researching my final paper, in which I wrote about the Exxon Valdez case, I was ready to pile on Exxon Corporation as so many others have done. After all, the captain was drunk at the time of the accident, right? Wrong. Not only was he not drunk, he was acquitted of the charge. This was just one of several very interesting discoveries I made. Surprisingly, the evidence was there that the company did plenty of things well. However, the one thing that it did most badly on – besides not having a clear and consistent crisis plan but relying instead on the plan of one of their partners – was that the company never fully appreciated the value and power of fast, accurate and efficient PR. They did not contact and reach out to the media when the accident happened. When the media caught wind of it, Exxon allowed the media to frame the accident, which placed the corporation in the position of being reactive from beginning to end.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Thoughts on Technology in Harming Others and Invading Another’s Privacy
After I read this chapter, I scanned it again to see if it addressed any issues about the prevalence of photographs being taken by cell phones. While some general issues were raised about the Web and photographs in general, there was nothing mentioned about cell photographs. I’m surprised there’s not more legal discussion about this.
As the textbook points out, people cannot expect to have the same kind of privacy protection in a public place. Yet what recourse might someone have whose image is taken without permission by someone with a cell phone and that person’s image is placed out on the Internet in a few moments for thousands to view. Even if the victimized person has a good case against the photographer, the damage is already done and irretrievable.I think this raises some interesting question about how we can help our future clients avoid trouble with hit-and-run cell phone photographers who have made it a reality that there are very few truly private places left anymore.
After I read this chapter, I scanned it again to see if it addressed any issues about the prevalence of photographs being taken by cell phones. While some general issues were raised about the Web and photographs in general, there was nothing mentioned about cell photographs. I’m surprised there’s not more legal discussion about this.
As the textbook points out, people cannot expect to have the same kind of privacy protection in a public place. Yet what recourse might someone have whose image is taken without permission by someone with a cell phone and that person’s image is placed out on the Internet in a few moments for thousands to view. Even if the victimized person has a good case against the photographer, the damage is already done and irretrievable.I think this raises some interesting question about how we can help our future clients avoid trouble with hit-and-run cell phone photographers who have made it a reality that there are very few truly private places left anymore.
Thoughts on Corporate Speech
Thoughts on Corporate Speech
I understand the distinction between corporate speech and commercial speech – the former being related to issues of social and political polices and receiving full First Amendment protection, and the latter being related to company business and subject to government regulation. However, it seems that the laws about corporate speech are somewhat flawed and perhaps that category of speech may need a bit of regulating too.
I agree with the 1978 Supreme Court recognition that corporations contribute to public policy debates and that we have a right to hear what they have to say. However, what they contribute is always going to be that side of the debate and that information only that best benefits them. While there is nothing wrong with championing those ideas that benefit you the most, I fear that other equally viable ideas are not going to be heard as clearly or as thoroughly and – most importantly – as often because corporations are always going to have the financial resources to buy a bigger microphone for that debate than many other groups, organizations or can afford. This point is mentioned in our text, and I agree with the notion that corporations are going to drown out a lot of dissenting voices.
I also understand that the purpose of the Federal Election Act of 1971 is to prevent corporations from buying candidates, which is a good thing. It does not allow for money to go to the candidates but rather to the campaign in the form of soft money. This is the point that is confusing to me. It seems that this really doesn’t change things and that the end result is still the same. It’s like arriving at the same destination but just using a different car to do it.
I understand the distinction between corporate speech and commercial speech – the former being related to issues of social and political polices and receiving full First Amendment protection, and the latter being related to company business and subject to government regulation. However, it seems that the laws about corporate speech are somewhat flawed and perhaps that category of speech may need a bit of regulating too.
I agree with the 1978 Supreme Court recognition that corporations contribute to public policy debates and that we have a right to hear what they have to say. However, what they contribute is always going to be that side of the debate and that information only that best benefits them. While there is nothing wrong with championing those ideas that benefit you the most, I fear that other equally viable ideas are not going to be heard as clearly or as thoroughly and – most importantly – as often because corporations are always going to have the financial resources to buy a bigger microphone for that debate than many other groups, organizations or can afford. This point is mentioned in our text, and I agree with the notion that corporations are going to drown out a lot of dissenting voices.
I also understand that the purpose of the Federal Election Act of 1971 is to prevent corporations from buying candidates, which is a good thing. It does not allow for money to go to the candidates but rather to the campaign in the form of soft money. This is the point that is confusing to me. It seems that this really doesn’t change things and that the end result is still the same. It’s like arriving at the same destination but just using a different car to do it.
Pure Baloney at Whole Foods
Pure Baloney at Whole Foods
I’m in complete agreement with writer Alyce Lomax’s assessment of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and his sham blogging under a fake name. Like Lomax, I, too, am fond of the company. My understanding is that it has long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best company’s to work for, and as a long time patron of its largest store – the one in Plano at Park and Preston – I noticed that there were many long term employees.
I also noticed that, generally, there are three basic types of customers who patronize that store: 1.) People who are ill and seeking quality foods and vitamin supplements to help their condition and who, because of their circumstances, value the truth and nothing but the truth. 2.) People whom I fondly refer to as the “nuts and berries types” who eschew some of the more traditional practices of food production – such as the spraying or other methods of application of chemicals to food crops and the adding of hormones and other unsafe and / or inhumane practices of the beef and poultry industry. These are people who want to leave a small footprint on the environment and are people with a social conscience, which they have perceived Whole Foods as having too. 3.) Affluent people who want the best and are wiling to pay a high price for it and are accustomed to being treated well and treated with respect.
These are not the kind of folks who seem prone to take unethical, deceitful behavior lightly. Mackey’ behavior is an insult to them and to their respective core values and beliefs. As someone who is supposed to be a good leader, he demonstrated a real lack of understanding of his audiences and a real lack of respect.
He betrayed several principles of PR. He did not show good stewardship, truth or transparency, which is ironic for a store that is known for carefully and completely listing all the ingredients found in it’s products. The company has long enjoyed a good, solid reputation and is perceived as a company that is socially conscious. Mackey jeopardized all of that by playing the kind of unseemly, cheap trick that one would find in a carnival show. Shame on him.
I’m in complete agreement with writer Alyce Lomax’s assessment of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and his sham blogging under a fake name. Like Lomax, I, too, am fond of the company. My understanding is that it has long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best company’s to work for, and as a long time patron of its largest store – the one in Plano at Park and Preston – I noticed that there were many long term employees.
I also noticed that, generally, there are three basic types of customers who patronize that store: 1.) People who are ill and seeking quality foods and vitamin supplements to help their condition and who, because of their circumstances, value the truth and nothing but the truth. 2.) People whom I fondly refer to as the “nuts and berries types” who eschew some of the more traditional practices of food production – such as the spraying or other methods of application of chemicals to food crops and the adding of hormones and other unsafe and / or inhumane practices of the beef and poultry industry. These are people who want to leave a small footprint on the environment and are people with a social conscience, which they have perceived Whole Foods as having too. 3.) Affluent people who want the best and are wiling to pay a high price for it and are accustomed to being treated well and treated with respect.
These are not the kind of folks who seem prone to take unethical, deceitful behavior lightly. Mackey’ behavior is an insult to them and to their respective core values and beliefs. As someone who is supposed to be a good leader, he demonstrated a real lack of understanding of his audiences and a real lack of respect.
He betrayed several principles of PR. He did not show good stewardship, truth or transparency, which is ironic for a store that is known for carefully and completely listing all the ingredients found in it’s products. The company has long enjoyed a good, solid reputation and is perceived as a company that is socially conscious. Mackey jeopardized all of that by playing the kind of unseemly, cheap trick that one would find in a carnival show. Shame on him.
Is Something Fishy About the Recommendation to Eat More Tuna?
Is Something Fishy About the Recommendation to Eat More Tuna?
The New York Times story by Marian Burros outlines the actions of a children’s health coalition, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, that went against government warnings that eating more than 12 ounces of fish a week can be harmful to women of child-bearing age because of the mercury contamination risks associated with it. The coalition accepted money from the National Fisheries Institute. Other organizations and individuals see that as a conflict of interest, and they are right.
This type of behavior can hurt the credibility of an organization and make their findings appear suspect. Personally, I think it is unethical and is also somewhat exploitive of pregnant women – that sector of the consumer population most effected – and very likely bewildered – by these conflicting findings.
The coalition should never have accepted the financial gift. There is another name for this type of conduct and it’s called graft, which is how far too many organizations in Mexico and Russia conduct business.
I should think that the coalition cares a great deal about it is perceived, and if so, then the ethical thing to do would be to return the money and work hard to restore what I would think would be a tarnished reputation.
The New York Times story by Marian Burros outlines the actions of a children’s health coalition, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, that went against government warnings that eating more than 12 ounces of fish a week can be harmful to women of child-bearing age because of the mercury contamination risks associated with it. The coalition accepted money from the National Fisheries Institute. Other organizations and individuals see that as a conflict of interest, and they are right.
This type of behavior can hurt the credibility of an organization and make their findings appear suspect. Personally, I think it is unethical and is also somewhat exploitive of pregnant women – that sector of the consumer population most effected – and very likely bewildered – by these conflicting findings.
The coalition should never have accepted the financial gift. There is another name for this type of conduct and it’s called graft, which is how far too many organizations in Mexico and Russia conduct business.
I should think that the coalition cares a great deal about it is perceived, and if so, then the ethical thing to do would be to return the money and work hard to restore what I would think would be a tarnished reputation.
PRSA Code of Ethics - Utilitarian or Communitarian?
PRSA Code of Ethics – Utilitarian or Communitarian?
In the preamble of the of the PRSA Code of Ethic is the statement, “ Ethical practice is the most important obligation of a PRSA member,” which implies that a member should always do the right thing of all audiences even when no one is looking. This is a strong communitarian value and is tied to the principle of truth. If everyone behaves ethically at all times, it increases the chances that everyone’s needs will be meet or at the very least, they will be heard and will have the opportunity to for a reasonable compromise.
The advocacy section in the statement of professional values refers to “acting as responsible advocates for those we represent.” One can be an advocate for one’s client and one’s clients only, which can often times involved coerciveness toward other involved parties, and under those circumstance would definitely be considered utilitarian and would not be representative of the principle of good stewardship. However, the statement makes clear that advocacy is also about being responsible, which, if adhered to faithfully, should never involve any type of coerciveness. Additionally, an “informed public” that the statement refers to is the ideal state in two-way communication.
Adhering “to the highest standards of accuracy and truth” are always a communitarian value.
The statements about expertise – advancing the profession through continued professional development, research and education – generally describe goals that seem, on the surface, to be utilitarian and seem to primarily benefit those within the PR profession. However, those goals can have secondary benefits to others besides PR professionals and have certain aspects associated to the principle of stewardship and taking actions that have long term benefit.
Independence from those they represent has communitarian implications in that it sets the standard for PR professionals to be more than just utilitarian “yes men.”
The statement about loyalty is the one that seems to be the most contradictory and difficult to achieve and balance and can run counter to transparency and to the principle of truth. Being loyal in the corporate world is often associated with being closed-mouth. Being “faithful to those we represent” is utilitarian, yet “honoring our obligation to serve is communitarian and also implies a connection to the principle of justice.
Fairness in dealing with all parties and in respecting “all opinions” and supporting “the right of free speech” are strong communitarian values.
Another clause that seems to be contradictory and run counter to the openness and transparency that PRSA promotes is in the statement of professional values – specifically the clause about safeguarding confidentiality. Though one can easily understand why a business client would want certain aspects of its operations kept in confidence, this, too, is a difficult task to balance and has a utilitarian element to it.
In the preamble of the of the PRSA Code of Ethic is the statement, “ Ethical practice is the most important obligation of a PRSA member,” which implies that a member should always do the right thing of all audiences even when no one is looking. This is a strong communitarian value and is tied to the principle of truth. If everyone behaves ethically at all times, it increases the chances that everyone’s needs will be meet or at the very least, they will be heard and will have the opportunity to for a reasonable compromise.
The advocacy section in the statement of professional values refers to “acting as responsible advocates for those we represent.” One can be an advocate for one’s client and one’s clients only, which can often times involved coerciveness toward other involved parties, and under those circumstance would definitely be considered utilitarian and would not be representative of the principle of good stewardship. However, the statement makes clear that advocacy is also about being responsible, which, if adhered to faithfully, should never involve any type of coerciveness. Additionally, an “informed public” that the statement refers to is the ideal state in two-way communication.
Adhering “to the highest standards of accuracy and truth” are always a communitarian value.
The statements about expertise – advancing the profession through continued professional development, research and education – generally describe goals that seem, on the surface, to be utilitarian and seem to primarily benefit those within the PR profession. However, those goals can have secondary benefits to others besides PR professionals and have certain aspects associated to the principle of stewardship and taking actions that have long term benefit.
Independence from those they represent has communitarian implications in that it sets the standard for PR professionals to be more than just utilitarian “yes men.”
The statement about loyalty is the one that seems to be the most contradictory and difficult to achieve and balance and can run counter to transparency and to the principle of truth. Being loyal in the corporate world is often associated with being closed-mouth. Being “faithful to those we represent” is utilitarian, yet “honoring our obligation to serve is communitarian and also implies a connection to the principle of justice.
Fairness in dealing with all parties and in respecting “all opinions” and supporting “the right of free speech” are strong communitarian values.
Another clause that seems to be contradictory and run counter to the openness and transparency that PRSA promotes is in the statement of professional values – specifically the clause about safeguarding confidentiality. Though one can easily understand why a business client would want certain aspects of its operations kept in confidence, this, too, is a difficult task to balance and has a utilitarian element to it.
More Mamet on the State of the Nation
More Mamet on the State of the Nation
Some of the assertions made in the play, Glengarry Glen Ross, about marketing ethics made me more curious about David Mamet, and I found a 1997 interview of him by Salon magazine that contains some interesting quotes. Here is the URL
http://www.salon.com/feature/1997/10/cov_si_24mamet.html
I’ve cut and pasted some of the quotes from the interview that I thought are pertinent to some of the discussions we’ve had about the American market place, planned obsolescence and such. He makes a very interesting, thought-provoking comment that one of his characters even views love as a “commercial endeavor.”
Mamet makes some interesting comments on consumerism as a value in America and observes that we haven’t been very conscious about why we do it. Some of the observartions he makes about technology are also rather interesting and tie back into our discussions about Steve Jobs and Apple marketing overpriced, glorified phones that none of us really need.
Are your films a reflection of the way you look at life? Is all of life a con game of some sort?
No, I don't think that all of life is, but I certainly think that all of commerce is. In the United States, it's our pleasure and joy to consider life as a commercial enterprise. That's our national character.
When do we get out of that mode?
I think that's part of our national problem, how to extricate ourselves sufficiently to be able to take a look at the life we lead and perhaps have a better time.
You said in your recent book of essays, "Make Believe Town," that Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" was your favorite American novel and that the story shows how violence takes precedence over love in America. Could you explain that a bit?
If you look at "An American Tragedy," which I've always considered the great American novel, the reason it's specifically an American tragedy is that the problem with the hero is that he sees love as basically a commercial endeavor. He wants to trade up. He finds this perfectly nice girl who wants to sleep with him and who loves him and whom he's very fond of and then he finds someone he likes better. And the only way he can get rid of the first girl is to kill her. That's the American tragedy.
How has that changed over time?
I don't think it has. It's still a problem of the national character. I don't think any country has it better than any other country. For example, in Scandinavia, they have to eat very, very salty fish. One wouldn't want to live like that either. But in America, our problem is we're a consumer culture and there's nothing we won't do if someone tells us -- or we intuit -- that it's going to make money, or it's going to make us happy through consumerism. That's our American problem. It's the American equivalent of the salty fish. We're constantly buying crap we don't need and devoting ourselves to endeavors which, perhaps on reflection, with a little bit of distance, would reveal themselves to be contrary to our own best interests.
How do films feed into this?
We have our own film tradition which has created some extraordinary works of film, some masterpieces. Nonetheless, the American tradition of film overall is that it's a commercial medium. That's not necessarily bad. The films of William Wyler came out of that and the films of Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick happened in spite of that. Nonetheless, we don't have a tradition of film as art. As the media gets more and more powerful, film as mass entertainment, which is to say solely as marketing of the consumer product, that tradition gets much, much stronger. The job of mass entertainment is exactly the opposite of the job of art. The job of the artist gets more difficult. On the other hand, maybe that's always been the case.
Why is the job of the artist the exact opposite of mass entertainment?
I like mass entertainment. I've written mass entertainment. But it's the opposite of art because the job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it.
Somewhere, you wrote about the mass media, including the computer industry, conspiring to pervert our need for community. That the dream of having all this information at our fingertips to make us godlike is really doing the opposite and making us forget our humanity. Could you elaborate on that?
It's not really that they're conspiring to, but they might as well be. If you sit down in front of the television with 700 channels, there's probably something on those channels that's going to interest you. It's a very good way to get stupid very quickly.
There's nothing you get from television? The information is just a delusion?
I absolutely think so. If there's any information, it's purely accidental. Furthermore, I don't think there is any information to be gotten from television. I think it's an illusion. It's an interesting narcotic.
Even documentaries or historical programs?
No, it's television.
What about the Internet and the promise of all this information becoming available?
I don't know anything about it, but I'm sure it's worse.
I also wanted to ask you about pornography and why it seems to be on the rise in mainstream films.
That's true. It's on the rise because it doesn't work. It's like the defense department. If you have this fiction of wanting to become the principal power of world domination, no amount of arms is going to work. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, believing that arms are going to make you safe. It's like buying a car to make you beautiful. It doesn't work. So next year, you buy another car and hope that's going to work. It doesn't.
What's the connection between those examples and pornography?
The relationship is that it might seem provocative and fulfilling to see a moment of pornography in a feature film, but it's not. And because it's not, we have to have two moments of pornography. Because that's not fulfilling, we have to have another moment. It's really the compulsion to repeat, to come back to that thing that didn't work previously, because we're addicted to it. A good example is cigarettes. One keeps smoking because it seems like a good idea, but as soon as you light up, you say, "Oh my God, what have I done?"
That's what you mean when you say audiences need to see gratuitous sex in films?
I don't think they need to see it; I think they're habituated to it. Most of the time sex scenes in movies are like the plastic frogman in breakfast cereals. They're put in to fool the audience that what they're getting is a better product.
Some producers think they need to have sex scenes.
That's why they call them producers. It's a fairly ironic name.
Some of the assertions made in the play, Glengarry Glen Ross, about marketing ethics made me more curious about David Mamet, and I found a 1997 interview of him by Salon magazine that contains some interesting quotes. Here is the URL
http://www.salon.com/feature/1997/10/cov_si_24mamet.html
I’ve cut and pasted some of the quotes from the interview that I thought are pertinent to some of the discussions we’ve had about the American market place, planned obsolescence and such. He makes a very interesting, thought-provoking comment that one of his characters even views love as a “commercial endeavor.”
Mamet makes some interesting comments on consumerism as a value in America and observes that we haven’t been very conscious about why we do it. Some of the observartions he makes about technology are also rather interesting and tie back into our discussions about Steve Jobs and Apple marketing overpriced, glorified phones that none of us really need.
Are your films a reflection of the way you look at life? Is all of life a con game of some sort?
No, I don't think that all of life is, but I certainly think that all of commerce is. In the United States, it's our pleasure and joy to consider life as a commercial enterprise. That's our national character.
When do we get out of that mode?
I think that's part of our national problem, how to extricate ourselves sufficiently to be able to take a look at the life we lead and perhaps have a better time.
You said in your recent book of essays, "Make Believe Town," that Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" was your favorite American novel and that the story shows how violence takes precedence over love in America. Could you explain that a bit?
If you look at "An American Tragedy," which I've always considered the great American novel, the reason it's specifically an American tragedy is that the problem with the hero is that he sees love as basically a commercial endeavor. He wants to trade up. He finds this perfectly nice girl who wants to sleep with him and who loves him and whom he's very fond of and then he finds someone he likes better. And the only way he can get rid of the first girl is to kill her. That's the American tragedy.
How has that changed over time?
I don't think it has. It's still a problem of the national character. I don't think any country has it better than any other country. For example, in Scandinavia, they have to eat very, very salty fish. One wouldn't want to live like that either. But in America, our problem is we're a consumer culture and there's nothing we won't do if someone tells us -- or we intuit -- that it's going to make money, or it's going to make us happy through consumerism. That's our American problem. It's the American equivalent of the salty fish. We're constantly buying crap we don't need and devoting ourselves to endeavors which, perhaps on reflection, with a little bit of distance, would reveal themselves to be contrary to our own best interests.
How do films feed into this?
We have our own film tradition which has created some extraordinary works of film, some masterpieces. Nonetheless, the American tradition of film overall is that it's a commercial medium. That's not necessarily bad. The films of William Wyler came out of that and the films of Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick happened in spite of that. Nonetheless, we don't have a tradition of film as art. As the media gets more and more powerful, film as mass entertainment, which is to say solely as marketing of the consumer product, that tradition gets much, much stronger. The job of mass entertainment is exactly the opposite of the job of art. The job of the artist gets more difficult. On the other hand, maybe that's always been the case.
Why is the job of the artist the exact opposite of mass entertainment?
I like mass entertainment. I've written mass entertainment. But it's the opposite of art because the job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it.
Somewhere, you wrote about the mass media, including the computer industry, conspiring to pervert our need for community. That the dream of having all this information at our fingertips to make us godlike is really doing the opposite and making us forget our humanity. Could you elaborate on that?
It's not really that they're conspiring to, but they might as well be. If you sit down in front of the television with 700 channels, there's probably something on those channels that's going to interest you. It's a very good way to get stupid very quickly.
There's nothing you get from television? The information is just a delusion?
I absolutely think so. If there's any information, it's purely accidental. Furthermore, I don't think there is any information to be gotten from television. I think it's an illusion. It's an interesting narcotic.
Even documentaries or historical programs?
No, it's television.
What about the Internet and the promise of all this information becoming available?
I don't know anything about it, but I'm sure it's worse.
I also wanted to ask you about pornography and why it seems to be on the rise in mainstream films.
That's true. It's on the rise because it doesn't work. It's like the defense department. If you have this fiction of wanting to become the principal power of world domination, no amount of arms is going to work. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, believing that arms are going to make you safe. It's like buying a car to make you beautiful. It doesn't work. So next year, you buy another car and hope that's going to work. It doesn't.
What's the connection between those examples and pornography?
The relationship is that it might seem provocative and fulfilling to see a moment of pornography in a feature film, but it's not. And because it's not, we have to have two moments of pornography. Because that's not fulfilling, we have to have another moment. It's really the compulsion to repeat, to come back to that thing that didn't work previously, because we're addicted to it. A good example is cigarettes. One keeps smoking because it seems like a good idea, but as soon as you light up, you say, "Oh my God, what have I done?"
That's what you mean when you say audiences need to see gratuitous sex in films?
I don't think they need to see it; I think they're habituated to it. Most of the time sex scenes in movies are like the plastic frogman in breakfast cereals. They're put in to fool the audience that what they're getting is a better product.
Some producers think they need to have sex scenes.
That's why they call them producers. It's a fairly ironic name.
Glengarry, Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross
Of all the discussions, readings and video viewings we’ve participated in during this class, seeing this play was one of the best exercises. It is absolutely one of the best examples of ethics gone awry in the American business culture, and I thank you, Dr. Lambiase, for the experience. Some years ago, I saw the movie with Jack Lemmon as Shelley Levene, and enjoyed it immensely, but it didn’t have the intensity of the play – and, of course, I wasn’t viewing it as student from the angle of ethics. I got so much more out of it this go around.
Some of my fellow classmates who have not had much work experience out there in the “real world” have no idea – yet – just how accurately some parts of this play portray some things that actually go on in business.
I had the unfortunate experience – no, strike that. I had the fortunate experience – fortunate because I learned some valuable lessons – of working for a while in an environment that was something like the sales office in this play. It was the same kind of shark tank, but the sharks weren’t quite as big as David Mamet’s characters. I worked for about 12 to 18 months in advertising sales for a company – that shall remain nameless – that owned 14 newspapers – that shall remain nameless. We all had sales quotas, which were constantly raised to ridiculous levels, and by some miracle I always managed to make my quotas each month without selling my soul or becoming like some of my co-workers, most of whom were very much like the play’s characters. I’m proud of is that I always did my very best for my clients. I always tried to create the best advertising program for them; I never tried to talk them into anything that wouldn’t benefit them and their business or that they couldn’t afford; I always got the best value for their money and the best coverage.
Just like the play, the manager of my newspaper company had the same despicable practice of displaying everyone’s sales progress in a very large and public way, a practice that I detested. As you can imagine, it created a horrifically competitive and cut-throat atmosphere, and although the manager talked a great line of ‘teamwork,” he knew exactly what he was doing.
During the time I spent in what I came to realize was a den of ruthless cannibals, I occasionally tried to have conversations with the manager, whom I “fondly” remember now as the Head Cannibal, in which I expressed to him (in more careful and diplomatic words than I now use) that my views that this wasn’t / shouldn’t be just about hustling someone to sell an ad and then moving on to the next victim, that it was about building relationships and being credible in the community and in the business sector of the community, and that that would gain us more profits in the long run the type of short-term go-for-the-big kill methods that he like, that anyone could sell one ad to a customer, but that treating the customer fairly so that they would purchase future ads was the ideal. I realize now that those were wasted conversations on my part because I came to realize that I was dealing with one of the most ethically challenged managers in one of the most ethically challenged companies I’d ever encountered.
The epiphany came one day when, after I’d sold a lot of very expensive political campaign ads. I had always been a social and political activist in the community and knew a lot of people who trusted me and had given me their business because of our past, long-term relationships. When I turned in my sales report that day, the manager told me that he knew I could sell three times that amount to those people. I told him that I knew those people and knew their political campaigns and knew their voting base and that they didn’t need three times the amount of ads they’d purchased from me.
His reply was, “Well, I’m not asking you to compromise your integrity.” – which is very much like when someone says, “It’s not about the money,” you can bet that it is about the money. I was looking him directly in the eyes when he said that and it suddenly hit me and I thought to myself, “That’s exactly what you’re telling me to do.” And it simply wasn’t worth it to me to sell the good reputation I had in the community or to sell the years of trust that had developed between those people and me all for the sake of making money for this pompous ass sitting before me. I handed in my resignation to the Head Cannibal not too long after that and told him I was leaving for “personal reasons.”
It was, as I stated earlier, a valuable experience. It allowed me to learn a lot about the business industry and I certainly learned a good lesson in ethics. So I don’t regret that aspect of it, but I certainly don’t regret the day I walked out of there either. The money was great, but it was the right thing to leave, and I never looked back. I could see how easy it was for some of my co-workers to do the wrong thing, the unethical thing, and I wanted to still be able to look at myself in the mirror.
As I watched the play I saw a lot of similarities between it and the mindset of the environment I’d escaped. The characters lied too easily and had no respect for their clients and laughed too hard at how easily they’d taken them and had absolutely no conscience about any of it. Everyone was de-humanized into sales units. They weren’t people; they were prey.
I’ve long thought in a sort of “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” kind of way that the one of the things that distinguishes us is that women seem to define themselves by their relationships and men define themselves by their work. I think it’s a tribal hunter-gatherer kind of thing. As the gatherers, women are more cooperative and as the hunters, men are more competitive. Whoever brings home the biggest kill for the campfire is the “real” man, and some of the dialogue in the play reflects that kind of attitude, which seems to still be so pervasive in corporate America and is still so dominated by men. The swaggering character, Richard Roma, even suggests to his latest client – who is trying to back out of the deal because of his wife’s objections – that he’s not a real man if he’s not willing to take a “to hell with you, I’ll do what I want” attitude.
I also noticed that none of the characters really listen to each other or anyone else. There’s no real two-way communication. They interrupt, they talk over each other, they often yell and they’re all extremely coercive. It’s all pure profit-driven and pure competition. Nothing is as it appears. Nothing is transparent. Even when Moss and Aaronow are actually discussing committing a crime of breaking into the office to steal leads (Hey, all is fair in war with these guys – whatever it takes to get those sales numbers up. That’s all that matters to them. ), they employ the same kind of conniving, evasive con-man dialogue and do a kabuki dance with the meaning of the words “speak and “talk”:
Moss No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him about this [Pause]
Aaronow Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just...
Moss No, we're just...
Aaronow We're just "talking" about it.
Moss We're just speaking about it. [Pause] As an idea.
Aaronow As an idea.
Moss Yes.
Aaronow We're not actually talking about it.
Moss No.
Aaronow Talking about it as a...
Moss No.
Aaronow As a robbery.
Moss As a "robbery"? No.
I can’t even be sure that Shelley Levene’s daughter is real. She may be a manipulative device, something that he made up as a means to an end. Whether she’s real or not, she’s been reduced to being nothing more than part of his sales pitch and his attempted get-out- of-jail-free card. If so, then that suggests that absolutely nothing is sacred as far as Levene is concerned and he has committed the ultimate selling of his soul to the almighty profit margin.
Of all the discussions, readings and video viewings we’ve participated in during this class, seeing this play was one of the best exercises. It is absolutely one of the best examples of ethics gone awry in the American business culture, and I thank you, Dr. Lambiase, for the experience. Some years ago, I saw the movie with Jack Lemmon as Shelley Levene, and enjoyed it immensely, but it didn’t have the intensity of the play – and, of course, I wasn’t viewing it as student from the angle of ethics. I got so much more out of it this go around.
Some of my fellow classmates who have not had much work experience out there in the “real world” have no idea – yet – just how accurately some parts of this play portray some things that actually go on in business.
I had the unfortunate experience – no, strike that. I had the fortunate experience – fortunate because I learned some valuable lessons – of working for a while in an environment that was something like the sales office in this play. It was the same kind of shark tank, but the sharks weren’t quite as big as David Mamet’s characters. I worked for about 12 to 18 months in advertising sales for a company – that shall remain nameless – that owned 14 newspapers – that shall remain nameless. We all had sales quotas, which were constantly raised to ridiculous levels, and by some miracle I always managed to make my quotas each month without selling my soul or becoming like some of my co-workers, most of whom were very much like the play’s characters. I’m proud of is that I always did my very best for my clients. I always tried to create the best advertising program for them; I never tried to talk them into anything that wouldn’t benefit them and their business or that they couldn’t afford; I always got the best value for their money and the best coverage.
Just like the play, the manager of my newspaper company had the same despicable practice of displaying everyone’s sales progress in a very large and public way, a practice that I detested. As you can imagine, it created a horrifically competitive and cut-throat atmosphere, and although the manager talked a great line of ‘teamwork,” he knew exactly what he was doing.
During the time I spent in what I came to realize was a den of ruthless cannibals, I occasionally tried to have conversations with the manager, whom I “fondly” remember now as the Head Cannibal, in which I expressed to him (in more careful and diplomatic words than I now use) that my views that this wasn’t / shouldn’t be just about hustling someone to sell an ad and then moving on to the next victim, that it was about building relationships and being credible in the community and in the business sector of the community, and that that would gain us more profits in the long run the type of short-term go-for-the-big kill methods that he like, that anyone could sell one ad to a customer, but that treating the customer fairly so that they would purchase future ads was the ideal. I realize now that those were wasted conversations on my part because I came to realize that I was dealing with one of the most ethically challenged managers in one of the most ethically challenged companies I’d ever encountered.
The epiphany came one day when, after I’d sold a lot of very expensive political campaign ads. I had always been a social and political activist in the community and knew a lot of people who trusted me and had given me their business because of our past, long-term relationships. When I turned in my sales report that day, the manager told me that he knew I could sell three times that amount to those people. I told him that I knew those people and knew their political campaigns and knew their voting base and that they didn’t need three times the amount of ads they’d purchased from me.
His reply was, “Well, I’m not asking you to compromise your integrity.” – which is very much like when someone says, “It’s not about the money,” you can bet that it is about the money. I was looking him directly in the eyes when he said that and it suddenly hit me and I thought to myself, “That’s exactly what you’re telling me to do.” And it simply wasn’t worth it to me to sell the good reputation I had in the community or to sell the years of trust that had developed between those people and me all for the sake of making money for this pompous ass sitting before me. I handed in my resignation to the Head Cannibal not too long after that and told him I was leaving for “personal reasons.”
It was, as I stated earlier, a valuable experience. It allowed me to learn a lot about the business industry and I certainly learned a good lesson in ethics. So I don’t regret that aspect of it, but I certainly don’t regret the day I walked out of there either. The money was great, but it was the right thing to leave, and I never looked back. I could see how easy it was for some of my co-workers to do the wrong thing, the unethical thing, and I wanted to still be able to look at myself in the mirror.
As I watched the play I saw a lot of similarities between it and the mindset of the environment I’d escaped. The characters lied too easily and had no respect for their clients and laughed too hard at how easily they’d taken them and had absolutely no conscience about any of it. Everyone was de-humanized into sales units. They weren’t people; they were prey.
I’ve long thought in a sort of “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” kind of way that the one of the things that distinguishes us is that women seem to define themselves by their relationships and men define themselves by their work. I think it’s a tribal hunter-gatherer kind of thing. As the gatherers, women are more cooperative and as the hunters, men are more competitive. Whoever brings home the biggest kill for the campfire is the “real” man, and some of the dialogue in the play reflects that kind of attitude, which seems to still be so pervasive in corporate America and is still so dominated by men. The swaggering character, Richard Roma, even suggests to his latest client – who is trying to back out of the deal because of his wife’s objections – that he’s not a real man if he’s not willing to take a “to hell with you, I’ll do what I want” attitude.
I also noticed that none of the characters really listen to each other or anyone else. There’s no real two-way communication. They interrupt, they talk over each other, they often yell and they’re all extremely coercive. It’s all pure profit-driven and pure competition. Nothing is as it appears. Nothing is transparent. Even when Moss and Aaronow are actually discussing committing a crime of breaking into the office to steal leads (Hey, all is fair in war with these guys – whatever it takes to get those sales numbers up. That’s all that matters to them. ), they employ the same kind of conniving, evasive con-man dialogue and do a kabuki dance with the meaning of the words “speak and “talk”:
Moss No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him about this [Pause]
Aaronow Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just...
Moss No, we're just...
Aaronow We're just "talking" about it.
Moss We're just speaking about it. [Pause] As an idea.
Aaronow As an idea.
Moss Yes.
Aaronow We're not actually talking about it.
Moss No.
Aaronow Talking about it as a...
Moss No.
Aaronow As a robbery.
Moss As a "robbery"? No.
I can’t even be sure that Shelley Levene’s daughter is real. She may be a manipulative device, something that he made up as a means to an end. Whether she’s real or not, she’s been reduced to being nothing more than part of his sales pitch and his attempted get-out- of-jail-free card. If so, then that suggests that absolutely nothing is sacred as far as Levene is concerned and he has committed the ultimate selling of his soul to the almighty profit margin.
Southwest Airlines Fashion Statement
Southwest Airlines Fashion Statement
I don’t know who to feel more sad about – Southwest Airlines or some of their customers who – in their selection of travel attire – are doing their part to contribute to the coarsening of our culture. The airlines was soundly derided in the press for being the “fashion police” with mini-skirted Kyla Ebbert, who got her 15 minutes of fame, which she – judging from her attention-grabbing attire, no doubt enjoyed. The airlines issued an apology and offered Ebbert complimentary tickets and wound up with egg on its corporate face.
One would think the folks at Southwest would have learned their lesson and gotten their act together, but they repeated the same thing only a few weeks later, the latest one being a confrontation with Joe Winiecki, who complained that the airline company was infringing on his – I kid you not – freedom of speech.
Currently, the reality in this society is that, as long as Ebbert has certain critical parts of her anatomy fully covered, she’s pretty much free to parade around in public looking like a prostitute in the window of an Amsterdam bordello as much as she likes. And although I can think of more socially conscious ways in which to exercise my freedom of expression than wearing “Master Baiter” on my chest, Winiecki is also free to look like an idiot, too, so long as neither of them violates any public lewdness or pornography laws. The trouble is that these types of laws are vague, and Southwest’s dress code policies are vague. And with these confrontations with fashion-challenged customers, immediately followed by backing off and then later apologizing, their policies are getting even more vague.
They claim that they don’t have a dress code, but that they also reserve the right to ask anyone to leave who is dressed in an offensive manner. That’s pretty subjective stuff. “Offensive manner,” like pornography, is often in the eye of the “I-know-it-when-I-see-it” beholder.
It’s doubtful that either Ebbert or Winiecki offended the flight attendants because FAs tend to be a pretty jaded crowd. I know – I use to have a sister-in-law who worked as a FA for American Airlines for over 20 years, and most of them have seen it all and done it all. Therefore, I suspect that another – or others, plural – passengers complained. And herein lies the problem: Southwest Airlines is has a duty to keep all of its customers reasonably happy. So what to do? Satisfy one at the risk of offending or humiliating another?
I’m sure I’m showing my age here when I say that I can remember when flying use to be a nice – almost glamorous – experience, in which one was surrounded by other civilized, well-behaved folk. As more and more of the public has begun to fly, the experience has evolved – or perhaps I should say “devolved” – into something like being on a bus. I’m sure there are enough of us out there who are not as critical of Southwest as is the media but rather sympathize with them in our longing for the good old days of civility and modesty. So I think Southwest will get more of a free pass from the public on this faux pas than most would imagine.
However, it avoid these future types of black eyes in the press, Southwest is going to have to be consistent with what it has on paper about its policies and regulations and with what it says to the media and what it actually practices. And they’re going to have to make their policies clear to customers ahead of time. Otherwise they’re going to look like incompetent fools even to those of us who are currently willing to give them one more free pass.
This is a case of clearness of objective and clearness of message. Either Southwest Airlines communicates clearly that anything goes on their flights or they clearly communicate that there are dress standards, and if so, then they have to communicate that to all of their audiences. They failed to do so. Therefore, Ebbert and Winiecki do have legitimate grievances and were treated unjustly, and the company does indeed deserve the media whipping that it received.
The company has to decide what kind of reputation does it want. Does it want to be known as a full partner with the community – including those members of it who are questionably dressed? Does it want to brand itself as the company with standards for itself and its customers? Or does it want to continue to be seen as the company that waffles on its decision-making? It has to decide whether or not it is willing to forego some of its profits for dress standards, but it can’t have it both ways, which is what it appears to be doing. Meanwhile, the public will forgive a lot, but it won’t forgive an inability to be fair to all customers, clear and consistent in its message and strong in its decision-making – and thus far, that seems to be an idea that has been lost on Southwest Airlines at least twice in one month.
I don’t know who to feel more sad about – Southwest Airlines or some of their customers who – in their selection of travel attire – are doing their part to contribute to the coarsening of our culture. The airlines was soundly derided in the press for being the “fashion police” with mini-skirted Kyla Ebbert, who got her 15 minutes of fame, which she – judging from her attention-grabbing attire, no doubt enjoyed. The airlines issued an apology and offered Ebbert complimentary tickets and wound up with egg on its corporate face.
One would think the folks at Southwest would have learned their lesson and gotten their act together, but they repeated the same thing only a few weeks later, the latest one being a confrontation with Joe Winiecki, who complained that the airline company was infringing on his – I kid you not – freedom of speech.
Currently, the reality in this society is that, as long as Ebbert has certain critical parts of her anatomy fully covered, she’s pretty much free to parade around in public looking like a prostitute in the window of an Amsterdam bordello as much as she likes. And although I can think of more socially conscious ways in which to exercise my freedom of expression than wearing “Master Baiter” on my chest, Winiecki is also free to look like an idiot, too, so long as neither of them violates any public lewdness or pornography laws. The trouble is that these types of laws are vague, and Southwest’s dress code policies are vague. And with these confrontations with fashion-challenged customers, immediately followed by backing off and then later apologizing, their policies are getting even more vague.
They claim that they don’t have a dress code, but that they also reserve the right to ask anyone to leave who is dressed in an offensive manner. That’s pretty subjective stuff. “Offensive manner,” like pornography, is often in the eye of the “I-know-it-when-I-see-it” beholder.
It’s doubtful that either Ebbert or Winiecki offended the flight attendants because FAs tend to be a pretty jaded crowd. I know – I use to have a sister-in-law who worked as a FA for American Airlines for over 20 years, and most of them have seen it all and done it all. Therefore, I suspect that another – or others, plural – passengers complained. And herein lies the problem: Southwest Airlines is has a duty to keep all of its customers reasonably happy. So what to do? Satisfy one at the risk of offending or humiliating another?
I’m sure I’m showing my age here when I say that I can remember when flying use to be a nice – almost glamorous – experience, in which one was surrounded by other civilized, well-behaved folk. As more and more of the public has begun to fly, the experience has evolved – or perhaps I should say “devolved” – into something like being on a bus. I’m sure there are enough of us out there who are not as critical of Southwest as is the media but rather sympathize with them in our longing for the good old days of civility and modesty. So I think Southwest will get more of a free pass from the public on this faux pas than most would imagine.
However, it avoid these future types of black eyes in the press, Southwest is going to have to be consistent with what it has on paper about its policies and regulations and with what it says to the media and what it actually practices. And they’re going to have to make their policies clear to customers ahead of time. Otherwise they’re going to look like incompetent fools even to those of us who are currently willing to give them one more free pass.
This is a case of clearness of objective and clearness of message. Either Southwest Airlines communicates clearly that anything goes on their flights or they clearly communicate that there are dress standards, and if so, then they have to communicate that to all of their audiences. They failed to do so. Therefore, Ebbert and Winiecki do have legitimate grievances and were treated unjustly, and the company does indeed deserve the media whipping that it received.
The company has to decide what kind of reputation does it want. Does it want to be known as a full partner with the community – including those members of it who are questionably dressed? Does it want to brand itself as the company with standards for itself and its customers? Or does it want to continue to be seen as the company that waffles on its decision-making? It has to decide whether or not it is willing to forego some of its profits for dress standards, but it can’t have it both ways, which is what it appears to be doing. Meanwhile, the public will forgive a lot, but it won’t forgive an inability to be fair to all customers, clear and consistent in its message and strong in its decision-making – and thus far, that seems to be an idea that has been lost on Southwest Airlines at least twice in one month.
Thought on Doing Unto Others Written Into Our Genes
Thoughts On Doing Unto Others Written Into Our Genes
Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents some very provocative views, and I agree that we – at least most of us - do seem to be hard-wired for curbing selfishness as a kind of built in mechanisms that allows us to live in social groups. As the article points out, this has some interesting applications for several areas, including the political arena. And although it does not discuss it in the article, it would seem to surely have applications to the area of business too.
I was curious about what my niece, who is a forensic psychologist, would have to say about some of Haidt’s premises. She has done studies and work in some interesting areas, including autisms in children, neurological development of premature infants, and psychological evaluations of adult individuals in the prison system. I asked her if she thinks there is something within people generally that genetically predisposes them to behave morally or selflessly, and she said, “Absolutely.”
She went on to say that humans have a very strong need to affiliate and this is one of the reasons we often behave in what seems to be selfless and altruistic ways. We are moral and selfless because of our selfish need to belong, to be part of a group or a community. It’s also a vital key to our development. Otherwise we will be developmentally stunted and behave in aberrant, crazy ways, which removes us from the mainstream of society, the very thing we want.
This made me think of some of the stories and TV reports I’d seen on Russian and Romanian orphanages, in which children had been warehoused and deprived of human and social contact. I asked my niece if she’d seen any of those, and she said, yes, that they were a good example of our being hard-wired. If we are deprived of what we are hard-wired to do – which is to affiliate, to belong, to be part of a group, we go hay-wire.
I thought about how all of this applies to the profit-driven business world, in which some of us will soon find ourselves, and I thought about how this ties into corporate social responsibility. Of course, one of the primary reasons businesses participate in charitable and other community related activities is because it is ultimately good for their profits.
Being in community with others isn’t just about survivability (or as the meaning of “survivability” is defined in the corporate world as “beating the competition”), growth (profits) and reciprocity. It is also about our continued development and evolution as human beings. Our genetic hardwiring drives us to plug into a social system that increases and enhances our survivability. And being in community with others gives us the opportunity to become even more virtuous and moral than the basic subconscious morality that first drove us, which, in turn, allows us to become something far more than what we are or originally were. It has a kind of transcendental quality to it.
Working with and for the community also has a kind of additional built-in system of checks and balances for ethical behavior as well: Closeness to the community also means more visibility and more scrutiny. Behavior doesn’t fly under the radar undetected. Many in that type of community scenario watch it.
Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents some very provocative views, and I agree that we – at least most of us - do seem to be hard-wired for curbing selfishness as a kind of built in mechanisms that allows us to live in social groups. As the article points out, this has some interesting applications for several areas, including the political arena. And although it does not discuss it in the article, it would seem to surely have applications to the area of business too.
I was curious about what my niece, who is a forensic psychologist, would have to say about some of Haidt’s premises. She has done studies and work in some interesting areas, including autisms in children, neurological development of premature infants, and psychological evaluations of adult individuals in the prison system. I asked her if she thinks there is something within people generally that genetically predisposes them to behave morally or selflessly, and she said, “Absolutely.”
She went on to say that humans have a very strong need to affiliate and this is one of the reasons we often behave in what seems to be selfless and altruistic ways. We are moral and selfless because of our selfish need to belong, to be part of a group or a community. It’s also a vital key to our development. Otherwise we will be developmentally stunted and behave in aberrant, crazy ways, which removes us from the mainstream of society, the very thing we want.
This made me think of some of the stories and TV reports I’d seen on Russian and Romanian orphanages, in which children had been warehoused and deprived of human and social contact. I asked my niece if she’d seen any of those, and she said, yes, that they were a good example of our being hard-wired. If we are deprived of what we are hard-wired to do – which is to affiliate, to belong, to be part of a group, we go hay-wire.
I thought about how all of this applies to the profit-driven business world, in which some of us will soon find ourselves, and I thought about how this ties into corporate social responsibility. Of course, one of the primary reasons businesses participate in charitable and other community related activities is because it is ultimately good for their profits.
Being in community with others isn’t just about survivability (or as the meaning of “survivability” is defined in the corporate world as “beating the competition”), growth (profits) and reciprocity. It is also about our continued development and evolution as human beings. Our genetic hardwiring drives us to plug into a social system that increases and enhances our survivability. And being in community with others gives us the opportunity to become even more virtuous and moral than the basic subconscious morality that first drove us, which, in turn, allows us to become something far more than what we are or originally were. It has a kind of transcendental quality to it.
Working with and for the community also has a kind of additional built-in system of checks and balances for ethical behavior as well: Closeness to the community also means more visibility and more scrutiny. Behavior doesn’t fly under the radar undetected. Many in that type of community scenario watch it.
iPhone: One Bad Apple Can Spoil the Bunch
iPhone: One Bad Apple Can Spoil the Bunch
It is difficult to ascertain the amount of input Steve Jobs had in presenting Apple’s iPhone to the public. However, based upon the information I was able to find, it appears that – at least in the early stages of the product’s promotion – Apple placed a much greater emphasis on profit rather than customer relations and a campaign that was more utilitarian rather than communitarian. When the campaign began to take a sharp turn south due to a price reduction controversy, Job’s less than stellar apology created as much bruising to the corporation’s image as it had intended to bolster.
The Apple iPhone case timeline is as follows:
In what was a widely covered event by every major national media outlet, the iPhone was released to customers in America through Apple stores on June 29, 2007, at a price of $599.
Apple announced on Sept. 5, 2007, that it was, effective immediately, cutting the price of the iPhone for customers to $399.
Immediately after the announcement of price reduction, numerous irate customers began sending message to Apple and other organizations, forums and chat rooms, in which they expressed their anger over having spent the additional $200 premium price for the iPhone during its initial release just weeks earlier, all of which was also widely reported by major media outlets.
One day later, on Sept. 6, 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs issued an apology and a $100 store credit to early adopters of iPhone, which was posted on the corporation’s Web site.
The values of freedom, stewardship, humaneness, truth and justice in the iPhone case:
Freedom: Apple has the freedom (a value that has a utilitarian dimension), as a competitive for-profit organization, to set prices based on what the market will bear, and it has a history of setting product prices quite high. It is free to pursue the most effective marketing strategies, and according to Andy Abramson, CEO of Comunicano, a marketing communications agency, Apple’s price reducing action was a smart strategy to drive more consumer adoption and allow for a better model to be introduced next “while keeping that at the sub-$600 price point again.”
Apple’s competitive focus is reflected in the corporation’s mission statement: “Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer revolution in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.”
While employees and some of the more extremely devoted Apple customers might find this part history tour part self-congratulations interesting, a corporation’s missions statement that puts so much emphasis on profit and not enough on customer satisfaction can be off-putting to consumers, and any mention of “valued customers,” which Jobs later – much later – refers to in his apology, is glaringly absent from the mission statement, which reads more like a promotional ad than a mission.
Apple also generally ignores the principle of freedom for the first adopters in the inflexibility of its credit terms, which is a $100 credit, not a $200 credit, and it is an Apple store credit, not cash, which is geared to make already disgruntled customers to buy more stuff from Apple.
Stewardship: Effective stewardship is measured by long-term results and profits, which were jeopardized by the price-cutting move for short-term profits. It also risked customer loyalty and tarnished the brand, which are not in the long-term interests of the company, customers and other stakeholders. The steep price cut also raised speculation that product demand was not going to be as great as had been expected, and Apple stock began falling as soon as Jobs announced the price-cut and it continued falling for several days, according to Anthony Gonsalves of Information Week.
From Jobs’ perspective, the iPhone price-cut was good stewardship because it was a strategy to get new customers, which he stated in his apology. However, that strategy does not seem to take into account that first adopters are also a corporation’s first line of advertisers by word-of-mouth. This is extremely important. If for this reason only, businesses should takes every reasonable step to ensure that their first adopters and other audiences do not perceive that they have been taken.
Humaneness: Humaneness suggests two-way communication and contains the element of fairness, which is a communitarian value and suggests fairness to all customers – not just to the latecomers who received price cuts, but also to the loyal early purchasers. On the day he announced the price cut, Jobs was dismissive of customer concerns. In a question and answer interview, he was asked, “What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?” – to which Jobs replied, “That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that’s what happens in technology.” This reply, which is typical of Jobs’ arrogance, is only slightly better than saying, “Tough.”
As customers’ furor reached a crescendo the next day, Jobs still initially refused to give refunds to customers who had purchased iPhones 15 or more days before the price cut. He finally showed some remorse – probably not so much for treating the customers badly as much as for jeopardizing future sales – by announcing his apology and the $100 store credit. However, the announcement, in which he referred to the technology road as “bumpy,” had a condescending and patronizing tone. It was a backhanded apology, in which he all but said that disgruntled customers were simply stupid and / or naïve about the technology industry. Note to Steve: It is not the customers’ job to understand the intricacies and whimsies of technological research, development and marketing. It is your job, Jobs, to constantly monitor and attend to customer satisfaction in a prompt manner.
Truth: In the video, “Great Artists Steal,” Jobs said, “I don’t really care about being right, I just, you know, car about success.” His apology statement to customers about doing “the right thing” stands in sharp contrast to his “don’t really care about being right,” which puts him shaky ground. As CEO, he plays a key goal in the public perception of Apple – as a kind of ambassador – and as such, he must be scrupulously ethical and honest.
Jobs has a history of not being very transparent. In October 2006, less than a year before he apologized to customers and supporters about the iPhone controversy, Jobs apologized to shareholders after admitting “he knew some stock-option grants to employees were backdated to inflate their value, according to Crayton Harrison and Connie Guglielmo of Bloomberg News. Though SEC officials do not think he played a major enough role in this matter to warrant an indictment, they have recently subpoenaed him for questioning, which can feed the perception that where there is smoke there is fire – or where there is possibly one bad apple, there is very often another one close by.
The iPhone controversy also raises questions about transparency, honesty and ethics, and in particular, the practice of inflating value. The fact that Jobs announced such a quick and steep price cut after all the hype leading up to the unveiling of iPhone suggests deliberate overpricing and artificial inflating of the value of the product at the time of its release. The hype prior to the release of the iPhone and the long lines of customers waiting to purchase it also indicate that scarcity of the product was also being created. In fact, Apple had more than enough iPhones on hand for customers to buy at the June debut. According to a New York Times story, the corporation sold its millionth iPhone on Sept. 10, 2007, less than three months after the device debuted and 20 days ahead of its end of September goal. All of these elements suggest that Apple and Jobs were not practicing truth in advertising.
Justice: The principle of justice is, in this case, tied to the principle of truth. Some customers experienced some justice in getting a rebate, which Apple was not required to give, but apparently did so as a gesture of goodwill or as a kind of damage control for those customers who felt duped. Many first adopter customers had expectations of exclusive value when they paid top price for the iPhone. Some of them felt cheated and manipulated, but apparently, from Apple’s perspective, it appears that the corporation’s ends in achieving their profit margins justify the means.
Apparently, some iPhone customers feel that their sense of justice has been so violated that they have filed lawsuits against Apple, AT&T and Steve Jobs. In mid August, a fraud suit was filed against Apple and AT&T because the accuser claims that both organizations neglected to inform iPhone purchasers of the costs associated to keeping a battery working in the device over its lifespan. (MacNN).
A class-action suite was also filed in mid August against Apple is gaining attention. It alleges that the company did not adequately inform iPhone buyers that they would be indefinitely tied to AT&T, which – according to an attorney in a large firm that specializes in new media, entertainment and copyright law – could have legal legs because it might involve a type of anti-trust claim. La Claire, Jennifer, Sci-Tech Today).
According to Findlaw Legal News and Commentary, another lawsuit, which was filed in September against Apple, AT&T and Steve Jobs, claims that Apple and AT&T have committed price discrimination and numerous other deceptive and wrongful acts in marketing the iPhone.
What Apple should have done:
Although brilliantly executed from a profit strategy point of view, Apple should have equaled balanced their focus on profit with customer satisfaction in their research. Early focus groups could have been used to ask probing questions as to what customers would and would not tolerate in the type and scheduling of price reduction, which could have allowed for Apple to develop an alternative plan and avoid some of the negative customer response.
It appears that the biggest blunder Apple made was to introduce the price cuts so soon after the iPhone’s debut. Jobs’ explanation that the early September price cuts were intended to provide an opportunity for holiday shoppers strains credibility. Though Apple and Jobs responded swiftly to the crisis with rebates, their terms and conditions were perceived by many as self-serving and inflexible. Cost-benefits of cash rebates should have been strongly considered, as they probably would have better served the long-term interests of Apple in that they would have probably would have been more satisfying to the customer and resulted in better customer retention.
The other big blunder was Jobs’ stereotypical arrogant apology and announcement of the rebates. Though his timing fairly good, his tone was terrible and he was perceived by many customers as being insensitive and indifferent. This will be very difficult to un-do.
Jobs needs to practice and implement more two-way symmetrical communication. He is often – and I believe rightly so – as talking at people rather than listening. He needed to give customers a much stronger and sincere mea culpa and own his mistake rather than passing it off with what seems to be an attitude of “that’s technology and you people just don’t understand.” More humility and less hubris was needed. Jobs needed to say something along these lines: “We made a mistake. We promise to listen more carefully to you, our valued customers, and we will do whatever it takes to make this right with you.”
It remains to be seen whether or not the short-term profits and new customers Apple gained from the debut of the iPhone will be worth the loss of an indeterminable of positive free publicity from those loyal customers who walked away.
It is difficult to ascertain the amount of input Steve Jobs had in presenting Apple’s iPhone to the public. However, based upon the information I was able to find, it appears that – at least in the early stages of the product’s promotion – Apple placed a much greater emphasis on profit rather than customer relations and a campaign that was more utilitarian rather than communitarian. When the campaign began to take a sharp turn south due to a price reduction controversy, Job’s less than stellar apology created as much bruising to the corporation’s image as it had intended to bolster.
The Apple iPhone case timeline is as follows:
In what was a widely covered event by every major national media outlet, the iPhone was released to customers in America through Apple stores on June 29, 2007, at a price of $599.
Apple announced on Sept. 5, 2007, that it was, effective immediately, cutting the price of the iPhone for customers to $399.
Immediately after the announcement of price reduction, numerous irate customers began sending message to Apple and other organizations, forums and chat rooms, in which they expressed their anger over having spent the additional $200 premium price for the iPhone during its initial release just weeks earlier, all of which was also widely reported by major media outlets.
One day later, on Sept. 6, 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs issued an apology and a $100 store credit to early adopters of iPhone, which was posted on the corporation’s Web site.
The values of freedom, stewardship, humaneness, truth and justice in the iPhone case:
Freedom: Apple has the freedom (a value that has a utilitarian dimension), as a competitive for-profit organization, to set prices based on what the market will bear, and it has a history of setting product prices quite high. It is free to pursue the most effective marketing strategies, and according to Andy Abramson, CEO of Comunicano, a marketing communications agency, Apple’s price reducing action was a smart strategy to drive more consumer adoption and allow for a better model to be introduced next “while keeping that at the sub-$600 price point again.”
Apple’s competitive focus is reflected in the corporation’s mission statement: “Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer revolution in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.”
While employees and some of the more extremely devoted Apple customers might find this part history tour part self-congratulations interesting, a corporation’s missions statement that puts so much emphasis on profit and not enough on customer satisfaction can be off-putting to consumers, and any mention of “valued customers,” which Jobs later – much later – refers to in his apology, is glaringly absent from the mission statement, which reads more like a promotional ad than a mission.
Apple also generally ignores the principle of freedom for the first adopters in the inflexibility of its credit terms, which is a $100 credit, not a $200 credit, and it is an Apple store credit, not cash, which is geared to make already disgruntled customers to buy more stuff from Apple.
Stewardship: Effective stewardship is measured by long-term results and profits, which were jeopardized by the price-cutting move for short-term profits. It also risked customer loyalty and tarnished the brand, which are not in the long-term interests of the company, customers and other stakeholders. The steep price cut also raised speculation that product demand was not going to be as great as had been expected, and Apple stock began falling as soon as Jobs announced the price-cut and it continued falling for several days, according to Anthony Gonsalves of Information Week.
From Jobs’ perspective, the iPhone price-cut was good stewardship because it was a strategy to get new customers, which he stated in his apology. However, that strategy does not seem to take into account that first adopters are also a corporation’s first line of advertisers by word-of-mouth. This is extremely important. If for this reason only, businesses should takes every reasonable step to ensure that their first adopters and other audiences do not perceive that they have been taken.
Humaneness: Humaneness suggests two-way communication and contains the element of fairness, which is a communitarian value and suggests fairness to all customers – not just to the latecomers who received price cuts, but also to the loyal early purchasers. On the day he announced the price cut, Jobs was dismissive of customer concerns. In a question and answer interview, he was asked, “What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?” – to which Jobs replied, “That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that’s what happens in technology.” This reply, which is typical of Jobs’ arrogance, is only slightly better than saying, “Tough.”
As customers’ furor reached a crescendo the next day, Jobs still initially refused to give refunds to customers who had purchased iPhones 15 or more days before the price cut. He finally showed some remorse – probably not so much for treating the customers badly as much as for jeopardizing future sales – by announcing his apology and the $100 store credit. However, the announcement, in which he referred to the technology road as “bumpy,” had a condescending and patronizing tone. It was a backhanded apology, in which he all but said that disgruntled customers were simply stupid and / or naïve about the technology industry. Note to Steve: It is not the customers’ job to understand the intricacies and whimsies of technological research, development and marketing. It is your job, Jobs, to constantly monitor and attend to customer satisfaction in a prompt manner.
Truth: In the video, “Great Artists Steal,” Jobs said, “I don’t really care about being right, I just, you know, car about success.” His apology statement to customers about doing “the right thing” stands in sharp contrast to his “don’t really care about being right,” which puts him shaky ground. As CEO, he plays a key goal in the public perception of Apple – as a kind of ambassador – and as such, he must be scrupulously ethical and honest.
Jobs has a history of not being very transparent. In October 2006, less than a year before he apologized to customers and supporters about the iPhone controversy, Jobs apologized to shareholders after admitting “he knew some stock-option grants to employees were backdated to inflate their value, according to Crayton Harrison and Connie Guglielmo of Bloomberg News. Though SEC officials do not think he played a major enough role in this matter to warrant an indictment, they have recently subpoenaed him for questioning, which can feed the perception that where there is smoke there is fire – or where there is possibly one bad apple, there is very often another one close by.
The iPhone controversy also raises questions about transparency, honesty and ethics, and in particular, the practice of inflating value. The fact that Jobs announced such a quick and steep price cut after all the hype leading up to the unveiling of iPhone suggests deliberate overpricing and artificial inflating of the value of the product at the time of its release. The hype prior to the release of the iPhone and the long lines of customers waiting to purchase it also indicate that scarcity of the product was also being created. In fact, Apple had more than enough iPhones on hand for customers to buy at the June debut. According to a New York Times story, the corporation sold its millionth iPhone on Sept. 10, 2007, less than three months after the device debuted and 20 days ahead of its end of September goal. All of these elements suggest that Apple and Jobs were not practicing truth in advertising.
Justice: The principle of justice is, in this case, tied to the principle of truth. Some customers experienced some justice in getting a rebate, which Apple was not required to give, but apparently did so as a gesture of goodwill or as a kind of damage control for those customers who felt duped. Many first adopter customers had expectations of exclusive value when they paid top price for the iPhone. Some of them felt cheated and manipulated, but apparently, from Apple’s perspective, it appears that the corporation’s ends in achieving their profit margins justify the means.
Apparently, some iPhone customers feel that their sense of justice has been so violated that they have filed lawsuits against Apple, AT&T and Steve Jobs. In mid August, a fraud suit was filed against Apple and AT&T because the accuser claims that both organizations neglected to inform iPhone purchasers of the costs associated to keeping a battery working in the device over its lifespan. (MacNN).
A class-action suite was also filed in mid August against Apple is gaining attention. It alleges that the company did not adequately inform iPhone buyers that they would be indefinitely tied to AT&T, which – according to an attorney in a large firm that specializes in new media, entertainment and copyright law – could have legal legs because it might involve a type of anti-trust claim. La Claire, Jennifer, Sci-Tech Today).
According to Findlaw Legal News and Commentary, another lawsuit, which was filed in September against Apple, AT&T and Steve Jobs, claims that Apple and AT&T have committed price discrimination and numerous other deceptive and wrongful acts in marketing the iPhone.
What Apple should have done:
Although brilliantly executed from a profit strategy point of view, Apple should have equaled balanced their focus on profit with customer satisfaction in their research. Early focus groups could have been used to ask probing questions as to what customers would and would not tolerate in the type and scheduling of price reduction, which could have allowed for Apple to develop an alternative plan and avoid some of the negative customer response.
It appears that the biggest blunder Apple made was to introduce the price cuts so soon after the iPhone’s debut. Jobs’ explanation that the early September price cuts were intended to provide an opportunity for holiday shoppers strains credibility. Though Apple and Jobs responded swiftly to the crisis with rebates, their terms and conditions were perceived by many as self-serving and inflexible. Cost-benefits of cash rebates should have been strongly considered, as they probably would have better served the long-term interests of Apple in that they would have probably would have been more satisfying to the customer and resulted in better customer retention.
The other big blunder was Jobs’ stereotypical arrogant apology and announcement of the rebates. Though his timing fairly good, his tone was terrible and he was perceived by many customers as being insensitive and indifferent. This will be very difficult to un-do.
Jobs needs to practice and implement more two-way symmetrical communication. He is often – and I believe rightly so – as talking at people rather than listening. He needed to give customers a much stronger and sincere mea culpa and own his mistake rather than passing it off with what seems to be an attitude of “that’s technology and you people just don’t understand.” More humility and less hubris was needed. Jobs needed to say something along these lines: “We made a mistake. We promise to listen more carefully to you, our valued customers, and we will do whatever it takes to make this right with you.”
It remains to be seen whether or not the short-term profits and new customers Apple gained from the debut of the iPhone will be worth the loss of an indeterminable of positive free publicity from those loyal customers who walked away.
The Five Principles in the Stonewall of Scissorsgate
The Five Principles in the Stonewall of Scissorsgate
The title sounds a bit like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? And in a sense, it was. In the summer of 1998, the media and the public were getting a story from the Dallas Cowboys organization that sounded much like a fairy tale. Indeed, the organization’s increased reference to itself as a “family” had the same tone as one of those “happily ever after” bedtime stories. However, the story, which was about the circumstances surrounding an incident that came to be nationally known as “Scissorsgate,” wasn’t being believed, and the apparent repeated stonewalling by Cowboys officials increased the media’s speculation over what had actually happened.
We were asked to read a handout of the PR case study, “A Scuffle, a Stonewall, and a Season: Football Superstar Fights Off the Field, But His Team Isn’t Talking,” written by Jaqueline J. Lambiase and John Mark Dempsey, which is in chapter 24 of Contemporary Media Ethics; editors Land, M. and Hornaday, B. (2006); Spokane, WA: Marquette Books. We were also asked to discuss the case and, in particular, how the five principles (stewardship, liberty and freedom, humaneness, justice and truth) and the two perspectives or approaches of utilitarianism and communitarianism were or were not applied to it.
Stewardship: This value or principle can manifest in many ways within corporate settings. For example, good stewardship of a company is not being wasteful of money and resources. Good stewardship can also mean protecting a company’s brand, reputation and profitability. All of this suggests that stewardship has long-term rather than short-term aspects to it.
With profit as a priority and a championship (or at least reaching the play-offs) as one of the ways to achieve that profit, the Dallas Cowboys organization needed its star players, including Michael Irvin, to be fully participating. Already on legal probation for drug offenses, Irvin could not be involved in another criminal matter or investigation because that would jeopardize profits and the team’s chances of making the play-offs. Therefore, preserving profit and play-off opportunities were some of the objectives that drove the organization’s stewardship style – a style that involved stonewalling and a near total silence on the scissors incident.”
Stonewalling is a textbook taboo in PR, but in this case, it worked. However, it can also be argued that the organization’s stewardship was lacking because it did not take into account that the Cowboys were further tarnished by the incident, nor did it take into account the long-term effects of that.
Liberty and freedom: Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys organization and he is free to pursue profit, and in this context, freedom has a utilitarian aspect. Because the organization is a monopoly, Jones does not have any of the concerns that a business might encounter with a competitor giving better value to consumers. The organization is literally “the only game in town” of its kind, which gives Jones and the organization an enormous amount of freedom in how business is conducted.
However, the media and the fans have the right to expect a certain amount of freedom of information. And because the organization is associated with Dallas – it is the Dallas Cowboys, not the Jerry Jones Cowboys – the reputation of the organization and the reputation of the city and its citizens are inextricably tied together. Dallas and its citizens cannot escape having some of the negative perceptions of the Dallas Cowboys also being attributed to them by association.
There is also the issue of the victim’s freedoms, which in this particular case, do not seem to have been given much priority. Offensive lineman Everett McIver received a significant cut on his neck, and one can assume that he would have liked to discuss the circumstances surrounding the injury, but it appears that he was not free to make any comments.
Humaneness: Humaneness is an aspect of communitarianism – greatest good for all parties – and it can be argued that the organization was not acting in a humane manner but was only interested in preserving its profits. However, it can also be argued that Jones and the rest of Cowboy management were protecting Irvin and were attempting to give him a chance to straighten out his legal problems without additional ones. The organization also took care of McIver’s medical needs, which was the least that it could do, and he likely received monetary restitutions.
The organization may have been acting in its own self-interest to avoid a scandal, but it may also have been acting to protect all of the players from the discomfort and distraction of media frenzy. Additionally, it may have also been trying to protect McIver from the scorn and potential danger posed by some of the more zealous fans who might have blamed McIver had a police report been filed and Irvin had been arrested, resulting in the loss of Irvin’s performance on the field and the team’s success.
From the information available though, it appears that real humaneness – applied across the broad to all parties – was lacking in this case.
Justice: Justice is also more an aspect of communitarianism, and it, too, appears to have been lacking in this case. Although the complete information is not available, it does not appear that McIver received very much justice. Irvin had greater standing and more clout in the ball club, and McIver did not have as much power. It appears a deliberate assault was committed and went unpunished, which is certainly unjust and also sends a bad message to young fans.
This case is also another example of many that a different set of standards and rules are applied to athletes than are applied to the average citizen who breaks the law or demonstrates anti-social behavior. All employees should be able to expect that they are going to work in a safe environment and that management is going to take reasonable steps to protect them. If McIver had been an employee in almost any other type of business or corporation and had been assaulted by a fellow employee, that dangerous employee would have been fired and probably arrested.
Truth: Truth is another principle that was lacking in this particular case. It appears that everyone within the organization was instructed to not speak the truth about what really happened, and what seems to have been an assault was referred to as “horseplay” and a “scuffle” and what would have been a police matter in most cases was referred to in this one as a “family” matter. Instead of openness and transparency there was silence and obstruction. The organization, which has enjoyed presenting itself to the public as America’s team and makes much of doing charitable and other types of work for the community allowed thuggish behavior to go unpunished. It can’t have it both ways.
It appears that this case was handled in a utilitarian manner that did not serve the greatest good of all members of the community. The organization had an opportunity to demonstrate that its reputation is more important than profit and that it expects its players to conduct themselves in a manner that brings credit to the team and to the community.
The title sounds a bit like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? And in a sense, it was. In the summer of 1998, the media and the public were getting a story from the Dallas Cowboys organization that sounded much like a fairy tale. Indeed, the organization’s increased reference to itself as a “family” had the same tone as one of those “happily ever after” bedtime stories. However, the story, which was about the circumstances surrounding an incident that came to be nationally known as “Scissorsgate,” wasn’t being believed, and the apparent repeated stonewalling by Cowboys officials increased the media’s speculation over what had actually happened.
We were asked to read a handout of the PR case study, “A Scuffle, a Stonewall, and a Season: Football Superstar Fights Off the Field, But His Team Isn’t Talking,” written by Jaqueline J. Lambiase and John Mark Dempsey, which is in chapter 24 of Contemporary Media Ethics; editors Land, M. and Hornaday, B. (2006); Spokane, WA: Marquette Books. We were also asked to discuss the case and, in particular, how the five principles (stewardship, liberty and freedom, humaneness, justice and truth) and the two perspectives or approaches of utilitarianism and communitarianism were or were not applied to it.
Stewardship: This value or principle can manifest in many ways within corporate settings. For example, good stewardship of a company is not being wasteful of money and resources. Good stewardship can also mean protecting a company’s brand, reputation and profitability. All of this suggests that stewardship has long-term rather than short-term aspects to it.
With profit as a priority and a championship (or at least reaching the play-offs) as one of the ways to achieve that profit, the Dallas Cowboys organization needed its star players, including Michael Irvin, to be fully participating. Already on legal probation for drug offenses, Irvin could not be involved in another criminal matter or investigation because that would jeopardize profits and the team’s chances of making the play-offs. Therefore, preserving profit and play-off opportunities were some of the objectives that drove the organization’s stewardship style – a style that involved stonewalling and a near total silence on the scissors incident.”
Stonewalling is a textbook taboo in PR, but in this case, it worked. However, it can also be argued that the organization’s stewardship was lacking because it did not take into account that the Cowboys were further tarnished by the incident, nor did it take into account the long-term effects of that.
Liberty and freedom: Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys organization and he is free to pursue profit, and in this context, freedom has a utilitarian aspect. Because the organization is a monopoly, Jones does not have any of the concerns that a business might encounter with a competitor giving better value to consumers. The organization is literally “the only game in town” of its kind, which gives Jones and the organization an enormous amount of freedom in how business is conducted.
However, the media and the fans have the right to expect a certain amount of freedom of information. And because the organization is associated with Dallas – it is the Dallas Cowboys, not the Jerry Jones Cowboys – the reputation of the organization and the reputation of the city and its citizens are inextricably tied together. Dallas and its citizens cannot escape having some of the negative perceptions of the Dallas Cowboys also being attributed to them by association.
There is also the issue of the victim’s freedoms, which in this particular case, do not seem to have been given much priority. Offensive lineman Everett McIver received a significant cut on his neck, and one can assume that he would have liked to discuss the circumstances surrounding the injury, but it appears that he was not free to make any comments.
Humaneness: Humaneness is an aspect of communitarianism – greatest good for all parties – and it can be argued that the organization was not acting in a humane manner but was only interested in preserving its profits. However, it can also be argued that Jones and the rest of Cowboy management were protecting Irvin and were attempting to give him a chance to straighten out his legal problems without additional ones. The organization also took care of McIver’s medical needs, which was the least that it could do, and he likely received monetary restitutions.
The organization may have been acting in its own self-interest to avoid a scandal, but it may also have been acting to protect all of the players from the discomfort and distraction of media frenzy. Additionally, it may have also been trying to protect McIver from the scorn and potential danger posed by some of the more zealous fans who might have blamed McIver had a police report been filed and Irvin had been arrested, resulting in the loss of Irvin’s performance on the field and the team’s success.
From the information available though, it appears that real humaneness – applied across the broad to all parties – was lacking in this case.
Justice: Justice is also more an aspect of communitarianism, and it, too, appears to have been lacking in this case. Although the complete information is not available, it does not appear that McIver received very much justice. Irvin had greater standing and more clout in the ball club, and McIver did not have as much power. It appears a deliberate assault was committed and went unpunished, which is certainly unjust and also sends a bad message to young fans.
This case is also another example of many that a different set of standards and rules are applied to athletes than are applied to the average citizen who breaks the law or demonstrates anti-social behavior. All employees should be able to expect that they are going to work in a safe environment and that management is going to take reasonable steps to protect them. If McIver had been an employee in almost any other type of business or corporation and had been assaulted by a fellow employee, that dangerous employee would have been fired and probably arrested.
Truth: Truth is another principle that was lacking in this particular case. It appears that everyone within the organization was instructed to not speak the truth about what really happened, and what seems to have been an assault was referred to as “horseplay” and a “scuffle” and what would have been a police matter in most cases was referred to in this one as a “family” matter. Instead of openness and transparency there was silence and obstruction. The organization, which has enjoyed presenting itself to the public as America’s team and makes much of doing charitable and other types of work for the community allowed thuggish behavior to go unpunished. It can’t have it both ways.
It appears that this case was handled in a utilitarian manner that did not serve the greatest good of all members of the community. The organization had an opportunity to demonstrate that its reputation is more important than profit and that it expects its players to conduct themselves in a manner that brings credit to the team and to the community.
How Does Appiah's Cosmopolitanism Fit Into the Workplace?
How Does Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism Fit Into the Workplace?
Of the two PR models, Kwane Anthony Appiah’s view of cosmopolitanism fits more into the model of communitarianism rather than utilitarianism. Doing the greatest good for the greatest numbers of all people within the community is more of the long-term vision and ideal that PR practitioners should strive for in representing their clients.
Appiah sees cosmopolitanism as an informed cultural understanding, not just a shallow perspective of other’s views and cultures. One of Appiah’s messages in Cosmopolitanism is that there are many different value systems and worldviews to consider and that we can we less hard core in our own view – that “saving truth” in which we tend to discount all others.
Another important message is that we have an obligation to strangers. We should help when we are confronted with need. Perhaps we cannot help everyone, but we should try to help those that we can. This translates to the consumers and audiences of the clients we represent as PR practitioners. We may be confronted with a need those consumers and audiences have that are clients are not considering or meeting and we have to address that.
Sometimes we cannot find ways to meet all of the needs of all of our audiences in a manner that is satisfactory to them. Sometimes there has to be a loser, but Appiah’s message is to keep talking to those strangers or those audiences and consumers and let them know that you hear them until they don’t feel like such losers. We may not be able to agree on values or truth when dealing with our audiences, but Appiah urges us to find a way to at least agree on conversation and respect.
Organizations can damage their reputations by not demonstrating respect or a willingness to continue to talk. They can be perceived as being coercive rather than persuasive. The message should not be one that sounds like “We win and you lose,” but rather, “This is what we want to do, and we’re listening to you and we’re trying to do the right thing.”
In being representative and advocates for the organization that pays us, we have to also be objective. We cannot simply be a “yes man.” Effective PR professionals have to be strong reputation managers, which mean that, at times, we have to go to the executives and policy makers of that company and tell them when they are not doing the right thing, when they are so caught up in their truth or agenda that they don’t consider others. (Enron is a good example of this.) Sometimes we, as individual PR practitioners don’t win when we do that, but we have to keep talking with those executives and policy makers too, as much as we have to keep talking with the public.
Of the two PR models, Kwane Anthony Appiah’s view of cosmopolitanism fits more into the model of communitarianism rather than utilitarianism. Doing the greatest good for the greatest numbers of all people within the community is more of the long-term vision and ideal that PR practitioners should strive for in representing their clients.
Appiah sees cosmopolitanism as an informed cultural understanding, not just a shallow perspective of other’s views and cultures. One of Appiah’s messages in Cosmopolitanism is that there are many different value systems and worldviews to consider and that we can we less hard core in our own view – that “saving truth” in which we tend to discount all others.
Another important message is that we have an obligation to strangers. We should help when we are confronted with need. Perhaps we cannot help everyone, but we should try to help those that we can. This translates to the consumers and audiences of the clients we represent as PR practitioners. We may be confronted with a need those consumers and audiences have that are clients are not considering or meeting and we have to address that.
Sometimes we cannot find ways to meet all of the needs of all of our audiences in a manner that is satisfactory to them. Sometimes there has to be a loser, but Appiah’s message is to keep talking to those strangers or those audiences and consumers and let them know that you hear them until they don’t feel like such losers. We may not be able to agree on values or truth when dealing with our audiences, but Appiah urges us to find a way to at least agree on conversation and respect.
Organizations can damage their reputations by not demonstrating respect or a willingness to continue to talk. They can be perceived as being coercive rather than persuasive. The message should not be one that sounds like “We win and you lose,” but rather, “This is what we want to do, and we’re listening to you and we’re trying to do the right thing.”
In being representative and advocates for the organization that pays us, we have to also be objective. We cannot simply be a “yes man.” Effective PR professionals have to be strong reputation managers, which mean that, at times, we have to go to the executives and policy makers of that company and tell them when they are not doing the right thing, when they are so caught up in their truth or agenda that they don’t consider others. (Enron is a good example of this.) Sometimes we, as individual PR practitioners don’t win when we do that, but we have to keep talking with those executives and policy makers too, as much as we have to keep talking with the public.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Appiah, Angels and Applications
Question: How does Appiah’s model fit the work of public relations?
One of the continuing themes in Appiah’s book, Cosmopolitanism, is that of cultural differences, which again makes me think of my relationship with my old teacher, Swiftdeer. We could not have been more different, and yet we always found common ground in our respective customs. One time, I had the good fortune of witnessing and being in a naming ceremony. It was a great honor and I kept some special mementoes from that extraordinary experience.
Flash forward several years. My new husband and I were moving into our first home together, and he noticed these small, unusual looking items. My husband, who had been raised by rather strict Catholic parents, always laughingly referred to himself as a “smorgasbord Catholic.” As one would choose the most palatable food from a buffet or smorgasbord, he chose those practices of Catholicism that sustained and strengthened him and passed by those that did not. Nevertheless, he was a somewhat conservative guy in his spiritual views, and he looked at these wildish looking little mementoes with an expression much like one would have for a cobra that was loose in one’s living room.
I explained to him what they were and that they were as benign and no less meaningful as the small gold saints medals that he had received as a youth from his favorite uncle and now had tucked in some boxes. His expression remained unchanged, so I continued. I told him that, as I saw it, there are many paths to God, and the paths may be different, but in the end, they all lead to the same place, and regardless of whether one refers to it as “God,” “a creative life force,” “Allah,” “Buddha,” “Great Spirit” or whatever, it doesn’t really matter because it’s all God. Yes, he said, but he still wasn’t sure if he was comfortable having these things in our house.
I then further explained to my husband that perhaps he may have always envisioned angels as having wings, golden hair and long white flowing robes, but that some people like Swiftdeer envisioned angels as sometimes having fur and bushy tails but they were no less benevolent guiding forces than the ones with halos and harps. My husband paused, considering this, and then said, “Oh. That makes sense. I guess I just never thought of it like that.”
Appiah states that “the great lesson of anthropology is that when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree, but if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end.”
This “making sense of each other” is essential in public relations, and when dealing with the various parties or audiences, sometimes we have to begin at the most basic level – learning each other’s language and discovering and understanding the meaning and value we attach to certain words in that language, as exemplified above with the word “angel.”
When I had begun speaking with him about their different perceptions of angels, I did not expect my husband to agree with or adopt Swiftdeer’s beliefs and practices. As Appiah states in one of his most important ideas on cosmopolitanism, “Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values. It’s enough that it helps people get use to one another.”
In public relations, we have to strive to reach that ideal win-win for all parties involved. And sometimes things may not go our way, but we can at least learn something from each other. If we discount the perceptions of others and lose sight of their interests and values and always apply what Appiah calls “cultural patrimony” and “property fundamentalism” in our representation of our clients, then we, as public relations professionals, risk being coercive rather than persuasive.
In my conversation with him about angels, my husband’s worldview shifted. He realized that he did not necessarily own the “right” view. And in further discussing ownership, Appiah states that “we have been poorly served by intellectual property law when it comes to contemporary culture: software, stories, songs. All too often, laws have focused tightly on the interests of owners, often corporate owners, while the interests of consumers – of audiences, readers, viewers and listeners – drop from sight.”
This business of cultural entitlement and corporate ownership can cut both ways – all kinds of ways. An interesting example of this is the news story, “Nepal Airline Sacrifices Two Goats to Sky God in Face of Aircraft Problems.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295857,00.html
The goat sacrifice is a great PR move by the airlines corporation. It serves the interests of the corporation’s Nepalese customers, who are entitled to their cultural beliefs and practices just as the corporation is entitled to address its operational problems. And I’m perfectly happy for both parties to have as many goats sacrificed as they see fit. However, before I set foot on that Boeing 757, I want my interests served too – I want to know that, in addition to the goats being sacrificed, a qualified technician has fixed the mechanical problem.
One of the continuing themes in Appiah’s book, Cosmopolitanism, is that of cultural differences, which again makes me think of my relationship with my old teacher, Swiftdeer. We could not have been more different, and yet we always found common ground in our respective customs. One time, I had the good fortune of witnessing and being in a naming ceremony. It was a great honor and I kept some special mementoes from that extraordinary experience.
Flash forward several years. My new husband and I were moving into our first home together, and he noticed these small, unusual looking items. My husband, who had been raised by rather strict Catholic parents, always laughingly referred to himself as a “smorgasbord Catholic.” As one would choose the most palatable food from a buffet or smorgasbord, he chose those practices of Catholicism that sustained and strengthened him and passed by those that did not. Nevertheless, he was a somewhat conservative guy in his spiritual views, and he looked at these wildish looking little mementoes with an expression much like one would have for a cobra that was loose in one’s living room.
I explained to him what they were and that they were as benign and no less meaningful as the small gold saints medals that he had received as a youth from his favorite uncle and now had tucked in some boxes. His expression remained unchanged, so I continued. I told him that, as I saw it, there are many paths to God, and the paths may be different, but in the end, they all lead to the same place, and regardless of whether one refers to it as “God,” “a creative life force,” “Allah,” “Buddha,” “Great Spirit” or whatever, it doesn’t really matter because it’s all God. Yes, he said, but he still wasn’t sure if he was comfortable having these things in our house.
I then further explained to my husband that perhaps he may have always envisioned angels as having wings, golden hair and long white flowing robes, but that some people like Swiftdeer envisioned angels as sometimes having fur and bushy tails but they were no less benevolent guiding forces than the ones with halos and harps. My husband paused, considering this, and then said, “Oh. That makes sense. I guess I just never thought of it like that.”
Appiah states that “the great lesson of anthropology is that when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree, but if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end.”
This “making sense of each other” is essential in public relations, and when dealing with the various parties or audiences, sometimes we have to begin at the most basic level – learning each other’s language and discovering and understanding the meaning and value we attach to certain words in that language, as exemplified above with the word “angel.”
When I had begun speaking with him about their different perceptions of angels, I did not expect my husband to agree with or adopt Swiftdeer’s beliefs and practices. As Appiah states in one of his most important ideas on cosmopolitanism, “Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values. It’s enough that it helps people get use to one another.”
In public relations, we have to strive to reach that ideal win-win for all parties involved. And sometimes things may not go our way, but we can at least learn something from each other. If we discount the perceptions of others and lose sight of their interests and values and always apply what Appiah calls “cultural patrimony” and “property fundamentalism” in our representation of our clients, then we, as public relations professionals, risk being coercive rather than persuasive.
In my conversation with him about angels, my husband’s worldview shifted. He realized that he did not necessarily own the “right” view. And in further discussing ownership, Appiah states that “we have been poorly served by intellectual property law when it comes to contemporary culture: software, stories, songs. All too often, laws have focused tightly on the interests of owners, often corporate owners, while the interests of consumers – of audiences, readers, viewers and listeners – drop from sight.”
This business of cultural entitlement and corporate ownership can cut both ways – all kinds of ways. An interesting example of this is the news story, “Nepal Airline Sacrifices Two Goats to Sky God in Face of Aircraft Problems.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295857,00.html
The goat sacrifice is a great PR move by the airlines corporation. It serves the interests of the corporation’s Nepalese customers, who are entitled to their cultural beliefs and practices just as the corporation is entitled to address its operational problems. And I’m perfectly happy for both parties to have as many goats sacrificed as they see fit. However, before I set foot on that Boeing 757, I want my interests served too – I want to know that, in addition to the goats being sacrificed, a qualified technician has fixed the mechanical problem.
Leaving Only Moccasin Prints
As they pertain to author Kwane Anthony Appiah’s work, Cosmopolitanism, two questions have been posed to us for our first blog entry: Does everybody matter? What about people within corporate America’s supply chain?
Appiah defines cosmopolitanism, in part, not as worldliness or the opposite of provincialism, but a respect for various cultural perspectives. Cosmopolitanism is in contrast to positivism, which is grounded in the age of science that became prevalent in the West. The positivist’s view is from the angle of privilege and superiority, one in which scientific certainty is a dominant and important value. From a positivist’s view, the cultures that place the most value on scientific certainty are right and better than other cultures.
Another key element in Appiah’s definition of cosmopolitanism is that we are all citizens of the planet and part of a global tribe. Though this concept might strike many Westerners as unusual and new, it shares similarities with an old American one, which I heard some twenty years ago from one of my most influential teachers, Harley Swiftdeer, who taught me an expression that closely parallels Appiah’s view and takes it even further: “Mitakye oyosin,” which loosely translated means, “We are all related” or “All are my relations.”
Swiftdeer, who was a “metis” or mixed-blood Cherokee and was considered to be a holy man by the people in his community, was also one of the few people I ever knew who tried to live that relatedness consciously everyday. Most of us do not. However, few of us, if asked, would disagree with the notion that everybody matters. Swiftdeer saw himself not only as part of his immediate community’s circle, but also as part of the greater world circle – a great “Medicine Wheel,” on which each part was equally important, and therefore, mattered, and no one part was superior to another.
Appiah discusses the definitions of and the distinctions between facts, beliefs, values and desires, and describes desire, in part, as being how we would like the world to be. Swiftdeer’s experience with relatedness was not simply a desire or merely a component of a cultural belief system that was handed down to him. It also was observable to him and was based on the science that we “two-leggeds”, as he called us humans, all carry the same human DNA and a genetic blueprint, which the latest scientific theory traces all of us back to an early ancestral migration out of Africa.
So, yes, as we are all related, we all matter. Regardless of whether that view of relatedness is from a science-based or cosmopolitan perspective, we all matter – but to what degree we matter and in comparison to what are arguable points from individual to individual. And this is where we are confronted with our values. We might agree that we all matter, but we might attach more value to someone or something that matters more to us.
For example, as members of a consumer society, we might place more value on acquiring that trendy pair of Nike shoes from Wal-Mart at a cheap price than we value the person who assembled them at the factory under conditions of which we are not even aware. However, as Nike executives discovered a few years ago, many of us do not value shoes above a human being. Many of us are willing – or we say we are willing – to pay more money for that product or seek it elsewhere if doing so will alleviate substandard working conditions.
Raised in the old traditional ways that imbued him with rich metaphors, Swiftdeer, who did not hear English spoken until he went to elementary school, use to say, “Our task is to leave only moccasin prints when we walk this earth. And that’s a hard thing to do.”
By that, Swiftdeer meant that we must do no harm. It is indeed a hard thing to do. Our smallest actions can impact the lives of others in far-reaching and profound ways. Swiftdeer’s view of the earth as sacred mother and its human inhabitants as relatives contrasts sharply with some (fortunately not all) corporate views of the earth as a receptacle of resources and most of its human inhabitants as cheap, disposable labor.
When I contemplate the moccasin metaphor as an indicator of our actions, values and consciousness, I am aware that I occupy that borderland of being part of the problem and part of the solution. The fact that I own a pair of shoes makes me a wealthy woman compared to most of the inhabitants of third world countries. Yes, my consumption creates jobs. Somewhere in the world someone bought a loaf of bread or a bag of rice because I bought that pair of shoes. However, I don’t always know if the exchange was fair or if I contributed to the abysmal conditions in a sweatshop. I don’t know if I left something more damaging than moccasin prints in the life of that person – a person who is not an “other” but is someone to whom I am related.
Though their words are different, Appiah and Swiftdeer speak of the same concept – an awareness and acknowledgment of a greater community and a respect for that community, in which we are all interconnected and related and all matter. Our moccasin prints and our actions as PR practitioners must be not only as advocates of our corporate clients but also as guardians of their integrity and protectors of the human dignity of those who work for them – all of which is also related.
Appiah defines cosmopolitanism, in part, not as worldliness or the opposite of provincialism, but a respect for various cultural perspectives. Cosmopolitanism is in contrast to positivism, which is grounded in the age of science that became prevalent in the West. The positivist’s view is from the angle of privilege and superiority, one in which scientific certainty is a dominant and important value. From a positivist’s view, the cultures that place the most value on scientific certainty are right and better than other cultures.
Another key element in Appiah’s definition of cosmopolitanism is that we are all citizens of the planet and part of a global tribe. Though this concept might strike many Westerners as unusual and new, it shares similarities with an old American one, which I heard some twenty years ago from one of my most influential teachers, Harley Swiftdeer, who taught me an expression that closely parallels Appiah’s view and takes it even further: “Mitakye oyosin,” which loosely translated means, “We are all related” or “All are my relations.”
Swiftdeer, who was a “metis” or mixed-blood Cherokee and was considered to be a holy man by the people in his community, was also one of the few people I ever knew who tried to live that relatedness consciously everyday. Most of us do not. However, few of us, if asked, would disagree with the notion that everybody matters. Swiftdeer saw himself not only as part of his immediate community’s circle, but also as part of the greater world circle – a great “Medicine Wheel,” on which each part was equally important, and therefore, mattered, and no one part was superior to another.
Appiah discusses the definitions of and the distinctions between facts, beliefs, values and desires, and describes desire, in part, as being how we would like the world to be. Swiftdeer’s experience with relatedness was not simply a desire or merely a component of a cultural belief system that was handed down to him. It also was observable to him and was based on the science that we “two-leggeds”, as he called us humans, all carry the same human DNA and a genetic blueprint, which the latest scientific theory traces all of us back to an early ancestral migration out of Africa.
So, yes, as we are all related, we all matter. Regardless of whether that view of relatedness is from a science-based or cosmopolitan perspective, we all matter – but to what degree we matter and in comparison to what are arguable points from individual to individual. And this is where we are confronted with our values. We might agree that we all matter, but we might attach more value to someone or something that matters more to us.
For example, as members of a consumer society, we might place more value on acquiring that trendy pair of Nike shoes from Wal-Mart at a cheap price than we value the person who assembled them at the factory under conditions of which we are not even aware. However, as Nike executives discovered a few years ago, many of us do not value shoes above a human being. Many of us are willing – or we say we are willing – to pay more money for that product or seek it elsewhere if doing so will alleviate substandard working conditions.
Raised in the old traditional ways that imbued him with rich metaphors, Swiftdeer, who did not hear English spoken until he went to elementary school, use to say, “Our task is to leave only moccasin prints when we walk this earth. And that’s a hard thing to do.”
By that, Swiftdeer meant that we must do no harm. It is indeed a hard thing to do. Our smallest actions can impact the lives of others in far-reaching and profound ways. Swiftdeer’s view of the earth as sacred mother and its human inhabitants as relatives contrasts sharply with some (fortunately not all) corporate views of the earth as a receptacle of resources and most of its human inhabitants as cheap, disposable labor.
When I contemplate the moccasin metaphor as an indicator of our actions, values and consciousness, I am aware that I occupy that borderland of being part of the problem and part of the solution. The fact that I own a pair of shoes makes me a wealthy woman compared to most of the inhabitants of third world countries. Yes, my consumption creates jobs. Somewhere in the world someone bought a loaf of bread or a bag of rice because I bought that pair of shoes. However, I don’t always know if the exchange was fair or if I contributed to the abysmal conditions in a sweatshop. I don’t know if I left something more damaging than moccasin prints in the life of that person – a person who is not an “other” but is someone to whom I am related.
Though their words are different, Appiah and Swiftdeer speak of the same concept – an awareness and acknowledgment of a greater community and a respect for that community, in which we are all interconnected and related and all matter. Our moccasin prints and our actions as PR practitioners must be not only as advocates of our corporate clients but also as guardians of their integrity and protectors of the human dignity of those who work for them – all of which is also related.
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