In 1982, Johnson & Johnson set the bar very high on product recalls. When tampering of its Tylenol product first came to light, the company immediately recalled all Tylenol even though the tampering was likely limited to a small geographic area. Earlier this year, however, Johnson & Johnson stumbled badly in a similar situation.
For more than 20 months, consumers complained about a moldy smell in the bottles of some of Johnson & Johnson’s leading brands. Only after a stern warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration did the company implement a recall. The public relations damage was severe.
I had an opportunity to work with Johnson & Johnson in the late 1980s. My client at the time, Northern Telecom, published a company magazine and I was assigned to profile Johnson & Johnson’s application of the latest communications technology. During the course of interviews, I asked about the Tylenol recall and how the company was able to respond so quickly and so decisively. I was told that the decision was actually easy because Johnson & Johnson looked to its credo whenever it came to tough decisions. You can view the credo at: http://www.jnj.com/connect/about-jnj/jnj-credo/. Basically, the credo says that Johnson & Johnson always puts the people it serves first.
So why did Johnson & Johnson stumble recently? We can only speculate on the reasons. Perhaps they thought the problem was not that serious. No one had died as in the Tylenol situation that claimed seven lives. Maybe the company has gotten so large that decisions take much longer today than in 1982. The recession could be causing problems with the bottom line and the pressure is on to control costs.
My concern is that ethical standards are slipping badly virtually everywhere we look. The focus seems to be on repeating empty “key messages” rather than on simply doing the right thing. Rather than following a moral compass – such as the Johnson & Johnson credo – many organizations are focusing on damage control. They believe that if they launch a Web site and apologize following a crisis all is well.
Let’s all remember that the first principle of crisis management should be do the right thing. The meaning of the right thing is simple – place the people you serve first and foremost. Everything else will then likely fall into place.
"This reminds me of the part in the movie Fight Club where Edward Norton's character is talking about car recalls, and how they have this formula that ways the cost of settling out of court with the number of cars that would be affected versus the cost of a recall, and if the cost of the recall was greater then they would just ignore the danger."
July 10th, 2010 at 9:19 am