Rupert Murdoch pulled the plug on NEWS OF THE WORLD, Britain’s nearly 170-year-old tabloid journal, in the wake of its unethical and illegal phone hacking practices. As I heard that, I couldn’t help thinking of the analogy about “closing barn doors after the horses escaped.” Shocked and appalled as the Murdochs claim to be, it is hard to imagine that apparently years of such unethical practices went unnoticed and not corrected. But isn’t there a ring of familiarity here? Think back to the shock expressed, and efforts to distance themselves from accountability, by those involved in Wall Street’s meltdown, the BP spill, Japan’s nuclear disaster and church sex scandals. These are all instances where more attention to foundational principles, trueness to those principles and the discipline to craft “integrious” cultures would have avoided disastrous consequences.
The kind of integrity that insulates organizations from disasters like those wrought by NEWS OF THE WORLD, BP and Fukushimi Daiichi cannot be bolted on, managed as a PR initiative or separated from foundational business 
strategy. It must be built in to an organization’s DNA and reinforced daily. I would wager that had these four practices been followed by NEWS OF THE WORLD it could have prospered another century and more:
- Articulate a meaningful mission and core values. More than likely NEWS OF THE WORLD had something in writing stating its mission and values, as did BP, Fukushima and failed Wall Street banks. Also more then likely, however, those organizations did not communicate their mission and core values in as many ways and as many times as they could. For mission statements and core values to be memorable, they need to be articulated in the hiring process, in performance reviews, during training and as part of all internal and external communication.
- For mission statements and espoused values to be believable, hire, reward, train, measure, hold people accountable and in every other way behave in ways that reinforce them. I don’t know much about NEWS OF THE WORLD’s CEO Rebekah Brooks, but indications are that she doesn’t exactly epitomize the highest standards of professional, ethical journalism. Promoting her to editor and CEO, and protecting her as Rupert Murdoch did, communicates volumes about what really counted at NEWS OF THE WORLD. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “What you are doing speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying!”
- Nurture truth-telling cultures. No doubt there were some in the NEWS organization, as in BP, Fukushima and failed Wall Street institutions who questioned their organizations’ practices and ethics. More than likely any who did either left (voluntarily or not,) or valued their jobs more than speaking their truth. Real leaders need to invite, reward and build capabilities for constructive questioning and criticism, and take care not to discourage it – intentionally or unintentionally.
- Above all, as Stephen Covey put it: “Keep the main thing the main thing.” I say this knowing full well how incredibly difficult that is,
especially in markets and a world that are hyper-competitive and seemingly more short-sighted and focused on near-term rewards every day. “Keeping the main thing the main thing” is not what’s happening when the journalistic mission of a newspaper becomes about entertainment or sensationalism to drive sales – any sales. Nor is it what’s happening when school districts are distracted from their educational mission by a myopic focus on teaching to standard tests, or when a university’s mission gets hijacked by athletic recruiting improprieties to pump up ticket sales or opaque research contracts with drug companies.
The best-of-the-best organizations – the sustainable institutions that attract and keep the best talent and customers – are those with noble purposes and values that possess the discipline and moral imagination to stay true to those purposes and values amid all the distractions in an increasingly competitive, short-sighted world.
I suppose that NEWS OF THE WORLD had to go; as with old boats with rusted fittings that haven’t been cared for, sometimes the rot is so
extensive that restoration is impossible. I hope that instead of just a reactive measure to cut losses and distance themselves from bad publicity, however, that the end-of-the-world for NEWS OF THE WORLD is a wake-up call for the Murdochs to build up “integrious” cultures elsewhere in their publishing empire. Indeed I hope that it serves as a wake-up call for all organizations and their leaders to do the same.
How well is your organization:
- Articulating its core values and a mission with meaning?
- Hiring, rewarding, training, measuring and in every other way reinforcing its mission and core values?
- Nurturing truth-telling cultures?
- “Keeping the main thing the main thing?”
(If you really want t know, check out the Organizational Integrity Survey)
Winners see trials as opportunities to reinforce values, not abandon them.
Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
The lame person who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one.
Francis Bacon
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