Sept. 7, 2008
COMMENTARY: Why Can't Corporate America Tell the Truth?
By Rene A. Henry
Seattle, WA (Special to HNN) -- In the past decade, Corporate America has had far too many crises and scandals. As a result, thousands of employees, shareholders, customers, vendors and others were impacted and a number of former CEOs and senior executives are spending their time in prisons instead of board rooms. One would think that today companies would be open and transparent and not lie, yet many do.
During my career, I’ve reported directly to presidents and CEOs in several jobs and worked in the office of the president. So, when I got a telephone call from someone who said, “Hello, Mr. Henry, I’m John and I work in the office of the president,” I naturally assumed he was physically located a few steps away from the head of the company. How wrong I was!
What started out to be simple requests ended up being directed to individuals at two companies who identified themselves as being in the office of the president. In one case I sought the head of customer service, and the other was an e-mail question to investor relations. Since I never contacted the president, why did someone call me back saying they worked in his or her office?
I get some of my best material for future books and commentaries from personal experience and was both surprised and disappointed when callers from AT&T and Directv told me they worked in the office of the president. More than just misrepresentation, I found their statements to be misleading, deceiving, and not true.
John, who called me from DirecTV, has not met and probably will never meet Chase Carey, the president. Nor will Jane ever meet the president of her company. In fact, John and Jane work in offices several hundred miles from corporate headquarters. AT&T has at least five such offices spread across the U.S. with employees all saying “I work in the office of the president.”
Repeated e-mails with specific questions and asking for an explanation were sent to Vaughn Carter, a public relations coordinator for Directv, and were ignored. On the other hand, a very professional public relations department responded for AT&T.
AT&T did not create the “office of the president” but inherited it when the company acquired Cingular Wireless. “The office of the president is the name we have given to the top echelon of the customer service team in our Mobility group,” responded Seth Bloom, spokesperson for AT&T, Inc. “The title of the group speaks to the prime importance we place on customer service. The team’s charter is to handle issues that come to the attention of the company’s top executive, including the president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and the president, sales and marketing, and four regional Mobility vice presidents. The team reports into the president, sales and marketing, AT&T Mobility.
“The office of the president is staffed by decision makers who are empowered by top executives to handle issues and are accountable to those executives. No matter where these individuals sit (and, like many of our employees, they are based around the country as well as at our headquarters locations), they are accountable to top executives,” Bloom added. “Perhaps more important than the name is the quality of service that this team provides our customers. This is a team of senior customer service specialists who get problems solved.”
Personally, as both an AT&T customer and stockholder, I would prefer the company to drop the misleading office of the president title and simply and truthfully call it what it is -- customer service.
“At a time when customers are looking for transparency in all their dealings with companies, this practice is far from it and undermines trust,” says Cari Dominguez, former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and former assistant secretary of labor. “Companies are better served by saying it the way it is, not the way they want us to believe it is.”
“Given the level of confidence the public has lost in large companies due to all of the scandals, one would think CEOs would not isolate themselves from reality,” says John Vondras, a former CEO and managing director of international telecoms in Asia, Central America and Europe. “Many people who say they are in the office of the president are low level managers. The lie comes in to play when CEOs build walls around themselves with these low level managers,” Vondras adds. “Doing so will eventually result in negative financial conditions for the company with a loss of business.”
Company presidents who follow this practice would have been big winners on the old television comedy game show, “Liar’s Club,” which was hosted by Rod Serling in 1969 and Allen Ludden in the late 1970s.
They also might even be members of the prestigious Alibi Club in Washington, D.C. Established in 1884, the National Register of Historic Places describes the club’s function as “providing its members with an alibi when their whereabouts was questioned by wives and family.” Members have included some of the most prominent people in government. Word is that today if you call and ask if a member is there you will be told “yes” even if the member is not. You may leave a message but will not be connected.
Jim Carey and Al Franken would be proud of AT&T and DirecTV. And, if Franken wins his Senate race in Minnesota in November, the presidents of both companies, whose stock is publicly traded, could be called to Washington to explain whether or not their actions violate the truthfulness and transparency mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley.
Dr. Lawrence Pulley, dean of the Mason School of Business at The College of William & Mary, compares this new corporate problem to the deceiving and misleading practice of a tele-sales person trying to get a foot in the door. “The people I know personally who lead or have led companies, many of them William & Mary alumni, stress honesty and integrity in every interaction at every level,” he said.
The Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester offers a course on leadership each year during orientation for students as well as faculty, staff and alumni. “The first principle of the course is integrity,” says Dr. Mark Zupan, dean of the school. “Integrity is the bedrock of effective leadership – in corporate as well as personal settings. Without integrity, nothing works.”
Corporate America telling lies is one thing, but the public has become accustomed now to having politicians who don’t always tell the truth. In 2007, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington even made it legal for politicians to lie. In a 5-4 decision, five justices ruled that the First Amendment protects political campaign lies and declared unconstitutional a law the legislature passed that barred candidates from deliberately making false and even malicious statements about their opponents. Charles W. Johnson, associate chief justice who was one of the five in the majority, is running for re-election this year. How can any voter be sure everything he says is true?
It is time now for companies to eliminate all misleading and deceptive practices and always tell the truth. No company has anything to gain by having an employee say “I work in the office of the president,” when in reality, the employee does not. Ethics. Honesty. Integrity. Truth. Corporate America CEOs need to get back to the basics.
Rene A. Henry, a native of Charleston, WV, lives in Seattle and is a writer and author of a new book, "Communicating In A Crisis." Many of his commentaries and information on his books are posted on his website at www.renehenry.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
COMMENTARY: Why Can't Corporate America Tell the Truth?
By Rene A. Henry
Seattle, WA (Special to HNN) -- In the past decade, Corporate America has had far too many crises and scandals. As a result, thousands of employees, shareholders, customers, vendors and others were impacted and a number of former CEOs and senior executives are spending their time in prisons instead of board rooms. One would think that today companies would be open and transparent and not lie, yet many do.
During my career, I’ve reported directly to presidents and CEOs in several jobs and worked in the office of the president. So, when I got a telephone call from someone who said, “Hello, Mr. Henry, I’m John and I work in the office of the president,” I naturally assumed he was physically located a few steps away from the head of the company. How wrong I was!
What started out to be simple requests ended up being directed to individuals at two companies who identified themselves as being in the office of the president. In one case I sought the head of customer service, and the other was an e-mail question to investor relations. Since I never contacted the president, why did someone call me back saying they worked in his or her office?
I get some of my best material for future books and commentaries from personal experience and was both surprised and disappointed when callers from AT&T and Directv told me they worked in the office of the president. More than just misrepresentation, I found their statements to be misleading, deceiving, and not true.
John, who called me from DirecTV, has not met and probably will never meet Chase Carey, the president. Nor will Jane ever meet the president of her company. In fact, John and Jane work in offices several hundred miles from corporate headquarters. AT&T has at least five such offices spread across the U.S. with employees all saying “I work in the office of the president.”
Repeated e-mails with specific questions and asking for an explanation were sent to Vaughn Carter, a public relations coordinator for Directv, and were ignored. On the other hand, a very professional public relations department responded for AT&T.
AT&T did not create the “office of the president” but inherited it when the company acquired Cingular Wireless. “The office of the president is the name we have given to the top echelon of the customer service team in our Mobility group,” responded Seth Bloom, spokesperson for AT&T, Inc. “The title of the group speaks to the prime importance we place on customer service. The team’s charter is to handle issues that come to the attention of the company’s top executive, including the president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and the president, sales and marketing, and four regional Mobility vice presidents. The team reports into the president, sales and marketing, AT&T Mobility.
“The office of the president is staffed by decision makers who are empowered by top executives to handle issues and are accountable to those executives. No matter where these individuals sit (and, like many of our employees, they are based around the country as well as at our headquarters locations), they are accountable to top executives,” Bloom added. “Perhaps more important than the name is the quality of service that this team provides our customers. This is a team of senior customer service specialists who get problems solved.”
Personally, as both an AT&T customer and stockholder, I would prefer the company to drop the misleading office of the president title and simply and truthfully call it what it is -- customer service.
“At a time when customers are looking for transparency in all their dealings with companies, this practice is far from it and undermines trust,” says Cari Dominguez, former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and former assistant secretary of labor. “Companies are better served by saying it the way it is, not the way they want us to believe it is.”
“Given the level of confidence the public has lost in large companies due to all of the scandals, one would think CEOs would not isolate themselves from reality,” says John Vondras, a former CEO and managing director of international telecoms in Asia, Central America and Europe. “Many people who say they are in the office of the president are low level managers. The lie comes in to play when CEOs build walls around themselves with these low level managers,” Vondras adds. “Doing so will eventually result in negative financial conditions for the company with a loss of business.”
Company presidents who follow this practice would have been big winners on the old television comedy game show, “Liar’s Club,” which was hosted by Rod Serling in 1969 and Allen Ludden in the late 1970s.
They also might even be members of the prestigious Alibi Club in Washington, D.C. Established in 1884, the National Register of Historic Places describes the club’s function as “providing its members with an alibi when their whereabouts was questioned by wives and family.” Members have included some of the most prominent people in government. Word is that today if you call and ask if a member is there you will be told “yes” even if the member is not. You may leave a message but will not be connected.
Jim Carey and Al Franken would be proud of AT&T and DirecTV. And, if Franken wins his Senate race in Minnesota in November, the presidents of both companies, whose stock is publicly traded, could be called to Washington to explain whether or not their actions violate the truthfulness and transparency mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley.
Dr. Lawrence Pulley, dean of the Mason School of Business at The College of William & Mary, compares this new corporate problem to the deceiving and misleading practice of a tele-sales person trying to get a foot in the door. “The people I know personally who lead or have led companies, many of them William & Mary alumni, stress honesty and integrity in every interaction at every level,” he said.
The Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester offers a course on leadership each year during orientation for students as well as faculty, staff and alumni. “The first principle of the course is integrity,” says Dr. Mark Zupan, dean of the school. “Integrity is the bedrock of effective leadership – in corporate as well as personal settings. Without integrity, nothing works.”
Corporate America telling lies is one thing, but the public has become accustomed now to having politicians who don’t always tell the truth. In 2007, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington even made it legal for politicians to lie. In a 5-4 decision, five justices ruled that the First Amendment protects political campaign lies and declared unconstitutional a law the legislature passed that barred candidates from deliberately making false and even malicious statements about their opponents. Charles W. Johnson, associate chief justice who was one of the five in the majority, is running for re-election this year. How can any voter be sure everything he says is true?
It is time now for companies to eliminate all misleading and deceptive practices and always tell the truth. No company has anything to gain by having an employee say “I work in the office of the president,” when in reality, the employee does not. Ethics. Honesty. Integrity. Truth. Corporate America CEOs need to get back to the basics.
Rene A. Henry, a native of Charleston, WV, lives in Seattle and is a writer and author of a new book, "Communicating In A Crisis." Many of his commentaries and information on his books are posted on his website at www.renehenry.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
