Review: My own experience with activists and watching a CEO potentially blow it...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 24, 2014
Back in the mid-1970s I was the virtually single parent of a very young child trying to recover from a divorce that left me not only penniless but "creditless" and transportation-less. Even though I had been the one who saw to it that all the bills got paid on time during the marriage and always pulled in my half of the financial support for our family, all of the places where we had joint accounts pulled my credit cards but left my ex with his intact. Not only that, my ex simply quit his job so he wouldn't have to pay the whole $81/month that the court ordered for child support...I had been working part-time for a couple of attorneys as a legal secretary (the career I'd gone to college to learn to do) but, without transportation (he kept the car) or money for bus fare, I had no way to get to them and so was quickly fired.Desperate, I applied for work as an entry-level secretary in the marketing and sales department of a large, local, high-tech manufacturer that was within walking distance simply to get some money coming in and for the health insurance they offered. This manufacturer produced many, highly technical products that were used as components in the photographic industry, pollution detection, the budding computer and solar power industries and, of course, aeronautics and military applications for the government.I'd been working there about six months when I ran into a group of vociferous, agitated protesters on the street-corner on the way to work one morning. From reading their protest signs, I could see they were objecting to the company's role in "making bombs". The group of about 50 or so were catcalling and verbally harassing each employee as they passed by so, of course, this was the main topic of conversation at work that week -- culminating in a question being asked by an employee to the president and founder of the company in the company newsletter to the effect of: "Do we really make bombs here?"My work in the sales and marketing department meant that I was very familiar with all of the products the company manufactured and so, when I read the president's answer -- which, in effect, was: "No, we absolutely do NOT make bombs!" -- I felt it more than a tad disingenuous. He carefully avoided mentioning that we supplied key parts of the guidance systems of bombs and missiles and were the only manufacturer at that time in the world who had the ability to make these parts.I remember thinking: "All anyone has to do is let slip a price quotation or a copy of a purchase order from any one of a dozen of the military's sub-contractors and our president is going to look like a great, big, HUGE liar!" (because, actually, "by omission", he pretty much was being one).Over the following few weeks, whenever you heard or saw the company president speak about the protesters, his face would turn red, his voice would tighten and his words speed up until, pretty soon, he'd be ranting about "the lazy hippies with nothing better to do than interfere in the normal flow of business".Fortunately for that company, I guess activism wasn't as far advanced as it is today and the protests sort of petered-out over time but, according to the author, our company president made two glaring errors in judgement in dealing with these activists: 1) He allowed himself to get emotionally agitated and let slip what could have been a string of damning "sound bites" that made him sound like a prejudiced, elitist jerk and, 2) He tried to hide the true nature of the problem the protesters had with the company behind a blatant lie.At the time, I knew that things were not being handled well by management but I really wasn't completely sure how they would be better handled and, besides, I was a corporate nobody...That CEO could have certainly used a copy of this book.If he'd had one, instead of dismissing the protesters as "lazy hippies", he would have deflated their aggression by saying something like:"Our company is very much concerned with the proliferation of deadly military weapons and I assure you that we are and have been doing everything we possibly can to try to contribute to programs that put a military solution last on the government's list of conflict resolution tools."He could have emphasized the company's R & D efforts in solar power and personal computers to foster more understanding between peoples and nations, etc., and taken virtually ALL the wind out of their sails to begin with. That CEO was lucky. It wouldn't happen that way these days.Keva Silversmith makes perfect sense and makes it in a way I think every, single person in a company can easily understand and practice. KUDOS for this more-than-timely book filled with advice that could save a entire company from ruin for a ridiculously reasonable price... It's a total "win-win-WIN"!