Is Honesty the Best?
I have always said that it is better to avoid a black eye than to clear it up afterwards. What I mean by this is that it is best to think out all the negative consequences to a decision so the impact of the decision can be clearly seen. I am amazed is how often businesses, and people, do not clearly think about what is said before it is said.
On October 28, 2020 Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, appeared before a Senate Commerce Committee. When he was asked by Sen. Ted Cruz if Twitter has the ability to influence the election, Mr. Dorsey gave a simple one-word answer: “No”. At that moment I thought how could this business leader even think for a second that people would just agree with that answer. This answer goes against all common sense and evidence. If social media cannot influence people then what was the reason for The Consumer Review Fairness Act? This act was created and passed for the simple reason that people should be able to post their reviews on line about a business without a fear of punishment. Businesses were acting against people who posted negative reviews about their business because these reviews were hurting the business. These actions alone prove the influence of social media. Yet Mr. Dorsey answer does not align with the events we have seen in action.
We have had a similar experience in our lives. Cardinal Health produces a feeding pump call the Joey pump for people who cannot take in enough food my mouth. We use this pump for our son and have for many years. In mid-2019, we started having problem getting feeding bags for this pump. At the beginning of 2020 it was announced that we would not be getting bags because of the Covid-19 outbreak and the strain that it was putting on the supply chain. We were told that is due to the bags being sent to the hospitals first rather than home users. When this statement was made there was an obvious fact that was left out. The supply chain issues of these bags started long before the Covid-19 outbreak. This announcement also seemed like a business wanted people just to go along with what was stated without any thought to common sense and intelligence.
One of the most important characteristics a business, or person, has is integrity. When statements are made that assume, or make some one feel like, they are stupid there is a lost of integrity. When there is a lost of integrity it will take more than a single action to rebuilt what was lost. An article from entrepreneur.com put it very clear: “Integrity means telling the truth even if the truth is ugly. Better to be honest than to delude others, because then you are probably deluding yourself, too.” (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/282957) I very much agree with this, but I also know that all decisions have consequences good and bad. It is these consequences that need to be considered as well. When a decision, that has been made, appears to be a bad decision there may be some liability issues that come with that decision. This is why not all aspects of a decision need to be stated. In the movie Clear and Present Danger, and I believe it was in the book as well, Jack Ryan advises the President that when asked if they were acquaintance he should say they are good friends. If the President is asked if they are friends he should say they are life long friends. Jack Ryan’s reasoning was to give the news no where to go. This is a lot to this thought process. It may be wise just to give an answer that closes down the conversation.
Going back to Jack Dorsey and the Senate committee, what if Jack Dorsey’s answer to Sen. Cruz was “it’s possible”? Would the senator been able to continue to ridicule Mr. Dorsey and Twitter for their behavior like he did? What if Cardinal Health just stated they were aware of the supply chain issues and they were working to resolve them as fast as they could. Would these approaches change the perceptions of the events? I tend to think they would. They would close down some of the issues that were being raised without opening more questions. They would make people feel more like the issues were being addressed rather than being given a line of crap.
Just to be clear, this approach is not an easy path. To be able to defuse issues the starting point has to be: we are humans and we make mistakes; but we will accept our mistakes not as failures, but as learning lessons to do better next time. We know what our intensions are and want everyone to use that as the guideline, but we forget that we can only be judged by our behaviors.