[August 14, 2017] Somebody once said that one man’s scandal is another man’s creative performance. Whenever individuals are given the opportunity to break the rules, and a reward awaits, there will be someone who attempts to do so. It seems that there are always people willing to break the rules as well as those who love to hear the story of scandal.
“People love scandal; people love drama. They love stripping away the layers to see what’s really in there, and they’ll do anything – as well as make it up – to get it.” – Julia Roberts, American actress
This is a two-part series on avoiding scandal (I couldn’t take on the task in just a single short post). In the past I’ve written on scandal several times to lay some of the foundation for this post (see links here and here) and have looked at it from the perspective of the post-scandal individual and lessening its impact. In this series I will look at it from the viewpoint of a leader and key member of an organization prepared to avoid and prevent scandal.
For those that study scandals, the first thing to discover is that defining it can be problematic since it is broadly applied. This in itself makes learning to avoid it more difficult but not impossible. For our purposes here, scandal is an action or event regarded as morally, legally, or ethically wrong and causes public outrage.
In High School I never paid much attention to the stories of the Greeks and how they developed many of the institutions we take for granted today. Nor did I focus my reading effort on the Olympic Games; contests among Greek free men. What we know about the games is that cheating, bribery, and scandal did, however, seep into the games and scandal is as old as the games themselves. And while those antiquity scandals were the exception to the rule, they were also heavily punished.
Despite my personal unwillingness as a young teenager to care much about the Greeks (I especially disliked Greek tragedies), the stories from those times do add to our understanding of the problem that scandals create. The potential for scandal also creates opportunities for leaders to help set their own organizations on a clear path to avoid the indignity and disgrace that is sure to follow.
Tom Petri, American politician, once said that it isn’t the “original scandal that gets people in the most trouble – it’s the attempted cover-up.” I don’t agree and that is why my effort here will be avoiding scandal in the first place. Yes, the original scandal is the problem. Congressman Petri, like me in earlier comments, is putting emphasis on post-scandal efforts to help alleviate its negative impact.
Leaders must do better. They must create the environment where scandal is difficult to thrive and thus have processes in place that work against any scandal from occurring in the first place. Scandals are the problem. For example, the U.S. Veterans Administration scandal led directly to the deaths of several veterans. The cover-up was irrelevant.
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