|
Stewart Parnell, the former CEO of the now-defunct Peanut Corporation of America, is going to jail for 28 years, which probably means the rest of his life as he is 61.
He's the guy who knowingly allowed his company to ship salmonella-tainted peanuts that killed nine people and sickened another seven hundred.
His brother, Michael, is going away for twenty years and the former Quality Assurance manager, Mary Wilkinson, for five.
Good riddance.
Martin Winterkorn resigned last week as CEO of Volkswagen. You see, his company sent out eleven million cars all over the world with software designed specifically to fool emissions tests.
Winterkorn insists he had no knowledge of the software subterfuge, which is laughable given Volkswagen's notoriously stern, top down, stranglehold-all-decisions-at-the-top culture.
Actually the claim makes him look really stupid-I mean, if nothing else it happened on your watch, dude. And if your people felt free and had the ability to do all that without your knowledge then you are an awful leader for a whole other set of reasons.
I'm guessing he knew.
What's interesting is, as of this writing, he still might be in line for a $67,000,000 golden parachute. Those parachutes sure do shine sometimes over the dullest of men.
On the other hand, it's also true that he too might end up in a court room. Criminal charges might be filed. We can hope.
But then these are the things that happen, ladies and gentlemen, when truth tellers are silenced.
Leader, your best friend in your organization is the one who tells you the truth as he or she sees it whether you like it or not.
Your job is to create a culture in which truth tellers thrive.
That is you have to want the truth, reward the truth and make it a painless experience for people to tell you the truth.
Good decisions can only be made with real facts. And your ego won't run off and destroy you if someone is there to remind you that you are fallible.
Small, insecure people don't want the truth. They can barely tolerate disagreement. They grow defensive and testy and can't admit their mistakes.
Truly confident people cannot only handle the truth, but they can admit when they're wrong because they're comfortable in their own skin.
At Peanut Corporation of America the three going to jail were not the only ones who knew of the salmonella-tainted peanuts. There were the testers who knew. Some line supervisors that knew. Some hourlies that knew. Had to.
So where were the truth tellers?
In some way silenced, no doubt. Marginalized at least. Either by direct threat, by being ignored or by an entrenched culture that made it clear that one doesn't question. Maybe they simply had been fired already.
Same thing at Volkswagen. There had to be lots of people who knew (including the CEO). Somebody designed the software. Someone installed it. Someone tested it.
And yet, as far as we know, nary a truth teller.
In either case, had there been leadership that enthusiastically and regularly cultivated truth, salmonella would not have killed, cars would not have polluted under the guise of cooperation, one business would not have been destroyed and another sullied.
I'm telling you leaders: Long live the truth tellers.
| 
