From time to time we hear the term “crisis management”. In 1982 a number of people in the Chicago area died from cyanide poisoning after taking Tylenol. Along with the police and FBI, Tylenol’s makers launched an immediate investigation and determined that their product was tampered with in several stores. The CEO immediately took to the airwaves notifying Americans of the problem, keeping them informed during the investigation and they pulled all Tylenol products from store shelves. An article in the Washington Post said, “Johnson & Johnson (the maker of Tylenol) has effectively demonstrated how a major business ought to handle a disaster.” In the end, Tylenol introduced new packaging and new safety measures before returning their product to the store shelves. This incident led to new regulations for the packaging of medicine and food products.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is BPs response in 2010 to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Their CEO took to the airwaves, misled the public, tried to downplay the seriousness of the accident, placed blame on others, and even went so far as to complain about the time that the crisis was taking him away from his planned vacation and weekend sailing. As a result of public response and pressure from BP, the CEO resigned. When reporting on the crisis and BP’s response, CNN reported that “Leadership is, among other things, about projecting an image of being cool under fire, acknowledging where the buck stops, being knowledgeable about the company’s business and being realistically reassuring about the future. People both inside the company and outside need to believe their leader is in charge and in control. This did not happen at BP.” In fact, it took high-level discussions between the US and British governments before BP finally changed their response.
Many Americans and most football fans are aware of a crisis that occurred involving the Pennsylvania State University in November 2011. That crisis involves accusations against a former assistant football coach (Jerry Sandusky) who retired from coaching 13 years earlier. The assistant coach is also the founder of a non-profit organization for troubled youth (The Second Mile). In fact, one of the reasons that head coach Joe Paterno asked the assistant coach to resign was due to the increasing time that Sandusky was committing to his nonprofit and the decreasing time that the assistant coach was committing to his coaching obligations. About four years after his retirement, Sandusky was heard or observed participating in an apparent inappropriate or illegal activity with a young boy in a building on the University campus. There are different versions of what was heard or observed by an assistant coach but it is agreed that the assistant coach waited until the end of the following day to notify his boss, head coach Joe Paterno about what he had heard.
In his testimony before a grand jury, the head coach stated that the accusation as reported to him by the assistant coach in 2002 was vague. On the morning after learning of the accusation, head coach Paterno met with the witness and his superiors, including the athletic director, the vice president in charge of the University Police Department, and the university president. The incident was subsequently reported by the university president to the Board of Trustees.
In November, 2011 as result of the investigation, Sandusky was arrested and charged with multiple counts of molestation of young boys. The retired assistant coach was a Penn State University graduate as well as a long time and nationally recognized assistant football coach. Although he was retired for 13 years, some of the alleged offenses occurred on the University campus and media focused on the University, the football program and the highly respected head coach.
Reports of crimes attract the public’s attention, particularly in this case when the alleged crimes involve children. This article is not about the alleged crime. The allegations are extremely offensive and if true, the retired assistant coach should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This article is about the two responses to the crisis: the response by Penn State University, and the response by Joe Paterno, the recently deceased former head coach.
The University’s Board of Trustees made a knee-jerk reaction in November 2011, a couple of days after Sandusky’s arrest was announced by the media. The University did not conduct an investigation and they did not even hire a crisis management advisor until months later. The crisis was not a football matter but it was a matter involving a former university employee who allegedly committed crimes against children with some of those crimes being alleged to have occurred on the University campus. The Grand Jury interviewed many people concerning the allegations. In their findings, the Grand Jury recommended that charges be brought against Sandusky. They also noted that there were many people who could have taken additional actions when they heard of the allegations including head coach Paterno, other assistant coaches, other university employees, the athletic director, the vice president in charge of the University Police Department, the university president, and others not affiliated with the University. In their panic, the university trustees chose to give-in to media pressure and they made it a football problem when they responded by firing head coach Paterno, a 61 year employee of the University. The University continued to experience intense media attention and waited a month before hiring a crisis management firm to advise the University on how to respond to the crisis.
The second response to the Penn State University crisis was a response by Joe Paterno. Paterno had a lifelong commitment to teaching his students to become honorable adults. For 61 years he was a coach of a major university sports program that did not have one accusation of improprieties by the NCAA. He not only set academic and behavioral standards that far exceeded those of the NCAA, but he recommended changes and served on committees that formulated rules and regulations. Phil Knight, the renowned and sometimes controversial CEO of Nike stated that he has always needed a mentor and hero in his life. Up until 12 years ago his mentor and hero was his University coach and the cofounder of Nike. When his hero passed away 12 years ago, he told (not asked) Joe Paterno that he was Knight’s new hero and mentor, a position that Paterno held until he passed away on January 22, 2012.
In a society that is often confused about the definition of accountability, Paterno was truly an accountable person. He took responsibility rather than placing blame. When the problem occurred, rather than asking who created the problem, he asked how it can be corrected and what can be done in the future to prevent that problem from ever occurring again. When Paterno was interviewed by the Grand Jury regarding the accusation against Sandusky, he concluded his remarks by stating that “in hindsight, I wish I had done more”. Those who do not understand accountability may look at those remarks as some sort of admission of guilt. Rather, it was a reflection by a person of integrity who was deeply hurt by knowing that any child was assaulted, regardless of whether the person who committed the crimes was a former university employee or not. Paterno made those same remarks a second time in a brief speech after being fired by the University. Again, his response was misunderstood as the media tried to interpret that statement as an indication that Paterno should take responsibility for Sandusky’s alleged crimes.
Although he was a longtime employee of the University, the winningest college football coach of all time, and the coach of national championship teams, Paterno was also the lowest paid major university coach of any national championship team. Paterno’s replacement has never been a head coach and the new coach’s pay is more than 250% of Paterno’s salary. Paterno told the University that he didn’t need a lot of money and they should give the additional money to students for scholarships. In fact, Paterno and his wife contributed more than $4 million to the University and their libraries and even in the months after being fired as a university employee, Paterno donated more than $200,000 to the University. Paterno was not part of the University management team, he was only an employee. He did what was required of him by advising his superior, the athletic director. In addition he notified the vice president in charge of the police department and the president of the University. During the Tylenol crisis, the middle manager who first became aware of the death of someone after they took Tylenol notified their manager who then notified the Tylenol executives. The executive team made the correct response by contacting the police who were already aware of the deaths. Perhaps Paterno should have checked back with senior management at the University to see what actions were being taken. Perhaps he should have notified the police of the accusation instead of notifying his superiors and their superiors. The three things that Paterno did correctly in response to the crisis were to first, state that in hindsight he wished that he would’ve done more; second, he asked the students to stop rioting, which some did in response to his firing; and third, Paterno asked the students, the administration and all of the Penn State alumni to pray for and support the victims.
Update: The chair and vice-chair of the Penn State Board of Trustees stepped down in January, 2012. The new chair stated that the matter involving the University reaction to the charges against Sandusky was mishandled and she pledged that the University will correct the matter with Joe Paterno. Paterno died from complications due to lung cancer, less than one week later. As a result of alumni pressure, item “H” was added to the agenda for the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees in January, 2012. A vote for item “H” would have been a vote of no confidence for the Board of Trustees. The vote failed; however, the Board promised to meet with administration and alumni to review the matter. Penn State University has the largest alumni association of any college or university in the United States.
Note: Kevin Miles met with Joe Paterno on several occasions. He is not an alumni or an employee of Penn State University. While this is my opinion, I acknowledge and respect that there are other opinions. It would be good for those with an opinion to withhold judgment until they read the full reports and the Grand Judy transcripts. While the media can sometimes blur the focus and alter public opinion, let’s not loose sight that retired assistant coach Sandusky is accused of having committed those crimes alone and without the knowledge of others. Please keep the victims in your thoughts and prayers.
