The Ethical Optimist

Well, my post about the trials and travails of 5W stirred up quite a hornets nest. In addition to some nastygrams from the head of 5W via email, I also received numerous calls and emails from colleagues in the business showing support for my focus on transparency.

This is an ongoing issue, and I don’t think we’re paying enough attention to it. During the past year, there were numerous scandals involving a lack of transparency involving WalMart, Microsoft and Whole Foods .

While 5W’s actions are reprehensible, they’re not uncommon. If you recall, Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey was caught using the screen name Rahodeb to post anonymous comments about his company and its competitors.

An investigation ensued, but the SEC concluded that no action was necessary. In his May 21 blog post (http://wholefoodsmarket.com/socialmedia/jmackey), Mackey wrote, “I do not think that the virtue of transparency is particularly applicable or relvant when it comes to online communities whose custom is to participate through screen names.”

There was a terrific op-ed on this in the June 2 edition of PR Week, which noted that “For those in the PR industry working toward more open communications, with an eye on authentic campaigns and corporate responsibility, that statement should both concern and cause excitement as an opportunity to educate.”

Yet, according to a recent survey by PR News, more than 57% of firms do not have a designated ethics officer. Moreover, a significant percentage of agencies do not have formal ethics training or reporting procedures in place.

MacKey noted some key learnings from his experience, blogging that “I’ve learned many things from these events. The primary lesson I’ve learned is that because of Whole Foods Market’s success, I have become a public figure. My personal and work lives are now closely connected—and impact one another. Anything I say or do is now at risk of showing up on the front page of a national daily newspaper and therefore, I need to be much more conscious about the implications of everything that I say or do in all situations.”

I would argue that as agency and corporate leaders we are also public figures, and each of us has a role to play in representing our industry in the best, most professional light. That said, more firms need to step up and begin discussing these issues in open forums and they need to integrate their findings into their everyday tactical executions.

We keep talking about transparency, and there are so many related issues in the news, I can hardly keep up. One that caught my eye was in regard to AstraZeneca last week.

A group of internal whistleblowers, dubbed the Group of 7, reached out to bloggers and reporters last week to alert them to irregularities in the promotion of the company’s cancer drug Arimidex.

They referenced an internal newsletter in which a former regional sales director likened doctor’s offices to a “big bucket of money.” He went on to say the product should be aggressively marketed against a competitor to increase marketshare. OUCH!

What I love about the story is that the whistleblowers were prompted to act by their own company’s internal code of conduct…which forbids selling its products in comparison to rival brands.

Now here’s where it starts to get really interesting. Not only does the company have its own internal code of conduct, it also signed a corporate integrity agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requiring all AZ employees to follow that code.

Yet, the “group of 7” as the whistleblowers are called, went to the media because their internal complaints to management were never addressed!

Every time I see one of these stories in the news, I’m left shaking my head. When are these folks going to wake up? Everyone on your team as access to the media, bloggers, and subsequently, the general public. You cannot encourage people to act ethically, and then ignore or punish them when they do. The company store is CLOSED!

Too many organizations are guilty of creating codes of conduct, but failing to put in place a process to report ethical violations and deal with them appropriately. They persist in believing that these codes are an effective “PR” patch to deal with past transgressions, rather than the actual modus operandi they should be!

Hence, these codes (as in the case with AstraZeneca) can come back to bite you if they are not part of your organization’s DNA.