fwadmin_chron, Author at Chronicles from a Caribbean Cubicle

April 4, 2006

An Excerpt from Tantie

“Tantie” is a Trini word meaning Auntie, that in Jamaica means “Teh-Teh” or “older female relative, usually an aunt, who can really talk”.

This excerpt is from a weekly online newsletter called Tantie which is sent out in Trinidad. One section, “Backchat”, is an opportunity to folks to send back their impressions, and this Trini’s response caught my attention.

* T R I N I D I A R Y http://www.trinidiary.com *
* your source for events in Trinidad and Tobago *
* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *
* *
TUESDAY 4th APRIL 2006 VOL:7 ISSUE:014

BACKCHAT: Issue 013

So wearing black as a sign of mourning I can live with.

But driving with car lights on to protest crime??? Walking against crime? Signing a petition to be delivered to our “figurehead” president? WHAT exactly do, or will, these actions EVER accomplish? To whom are we protesting? Neither the criminals nor the politicians care!

Volunteer your time and expertise to a civil society organisation working to alleviate our myriad social problems….and THEN talk to me about crime solving.

Donate a part of your paycheck to one of these same organisations, or to a family that can barely pay its rent and eat when the month comes, and THEN talk to me about crime solving.

STOP driving on shoulders, putting on your seatbelt only when you see a police officer, and breaking rules whenever you have the chance….and THEN talk to me about crime solving.

Sensitise your children to be compassionate for their fellow humans, to love everyone as they come, and to be generous with the gifts that the universe so bountifully bestows….AND THEN TALK TO ME ABOUT CRIME SOLVING!!!

Leave your comfort zones behind. Judge not, lest you be judged. Love thy neighbour as thyself. Increase the talents given to you by the universe, and use them for the good of your downtrodden fellow people. //Trinidad

April 3, 2006

Doing What is Loved

A friend of mine from overseas was working in a client bank in Jamaica as a consultant on a major project. He needed to open a local account to do some transactions, and decided to open an account at the local branch of the bank.

He found a branch and tried to open the account, but ran into such poor service that he had to return several times, after which he just gave up in frustration.

He mentioned his experience as a matter of urgency to one of his colleagues in the bank, a vice president.

Her response was: “You mad or what? Why you never come to me first? I would never go into one of our branches to do any of my banking! And deal wid dem people deh? No sah, I only go to the branch manager. Here, next time come to me and I will take care of it for you.”

On a quite different occasion, I was eating my lunch while reading the Jamaica Overseas Gleaner, while living in New Jersey. As I turned the pages, I came upon a picture of a mad-man with his head full of live maggots eating his scalp alive.

That was the end of lunch.

I was so disgusted that I felt compelled to call the editor, who I happened to know because I had placed several business ads in the past. The editor was not in, but I did reach the Advertising Manager, who I also knew. Let’s say her name was Mary. She was second in command.

I made my complaint, including the part about the effect the picture had on my lunch. Mary said “Let me tell you something – when I went to pick up this week’s edition from the printer, one of the guys drew me aside and asked me how we could print this. I looked at it for the first time, and that was when I knew that this week’s Gleaner was not going to reach me!!” (In other words, she would not be reading it).

I was flabbergasted… and momentarily speechless and could only recover to ask her, quite weakly, to pass the message on to the editor.

The stories might be different, but the underlying theme is one that I find in too many companies in the Caribbean — too many people doing work they either do not believe in, or do not even like. At times, it seems to me as if all the people who love to serve customers were somehow secretly switched with workers in factories, and on farms, far away from people — while the ones who hate people are stuck in front-line service jobs.

Many Caribbean workers seem to be in jobs they either vehemently or passively dislike. Converely, very few seem to be enjoying what they are doing for a living.

And, we are not very skillful at hiding this fact from each other.

I don’t know yet what the cause of it is yet, but there is at least some lack of care that takes place when people are hired — managers and executives do not seem to be smart about hiring people who even care to use the products and services that the company offers.

In a sports store the workers don’t play the sports. In a shoe store, they don’t wear the shoes. In a health-food store, no-one knows the products because they don’t consume them. In a bank, no-one actually uses the branches if they can help it.

This is just bad for business, and worse for both the employee and the customer, who must now suffer in each other’s presence, while trying to get work done.

I do know that in a tight economy people are just plain afraid to pursue what their heart tells them to pursue. Some use the opportunity to migrate to finally free themselves of these mental chains, but sadly, many are not able to undergo the transformation required. It takes courage to believe in one’s ability, in the face of the culture that is screaming out the stupidity of doing so.

Yet, those who do are the ones who can make up the new Creative Class across our region.

If there is any fault, it lies in our education system, which asks a 16 year old to restrict his or her education to at most 4 subjects for A-levels/CAPE. I will never forget my own junior semester at Cornell in which I did Photography, the History of Art, Government and Philosophy — for full credit — even as I majored in Engineering. Doing these courses (which stand out in my mind as critical to my personal development) sounds bizarre to the Caribbean-trained professional, for whom education has been reduced to a mere instrument — starting at age 16.

This instrumentalism is a travesty, and as I type this I think that there is a certain sadness to see that a decision to pursue training in a career, will end up keeping someone locked in a job for which they have no passion.

One of my favourite authors, Kahlil Gibran says it quite well:

Work:

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

—————————————————————————
Brilliant.

Maybe the new freedom for our people, hopefully including our Creative Class, will be about a personal courage that transcends the culture’s rules.

April 2, 2006

Beating Our Backs to Stop the New Plague

A few days ago I was reading the Trinidad Guardian online, and noticed that, in response to the recent rise in murders in 2006 (+37%) someone had called for a day for everyone to protest by wearing black, and putting headlights on for the entire day.

This follows a recent day of mourning where everyone wore white, and performed a symbolic act that involved lying in the streets of Port of Spain.

And there have been countless calls for prayers, fasting, a greater role for church leaders, condemnation for criminals, protests, etc.

I can tell the Trinis from experience: these things don’t work.

We in Jamaica have an abundance of evidence that they make no measurable difference. Our murder rate almost tripled in the past few years, and we are doing as many of these kinds of things as we can think of, including mass rallies of all kinds. I happen to live beside a church that insists on sharing the Sunday services with the neighbourhood through its loudspeakers that face out from the church. Every week, (and on many weekdays) there are loud calls for God’s redemption from the crime that has turned us into the Murder Capital of the world.

I cannot see that these tactics are working, and I doubt that they will work any differently in Trinidad.

On the History channel this afternoon, I happened to see a programme on the Black or Bubonic Plague in Europe, that wiped out half the population of the continent. Like us, people in the 1300’s sought to find religious solutions to the horror of the illness, which killed people within days after causing high fevers, chills, vomited blood and black boils. They sought refuge in the Catholic Church, and from the Pope, who of course was powerless to stop the carnage. There was one very moving picture depicted of a statue of the Virgin Mother being taken miles from one place to the other to help ward off the evil — to no avail.

At some point, a few in Germany decided that the priests were not being godly enough, and started a group they called the Flagellants. Membership in this group was restricted to those who were willing to spend days marching through the streets beating themselves (and each other for good measure) until their backs were rendered a bloody mess.

They eventually took to beating first Jews and then priests, at which point the Pope decided he’d had enough and brought out the troops to stop their fun.

From our point of view it is a curious sight — men beating themselves on the back with whips in order to… stop the Bubonic Plague. Given that the Plague was spread by a bacterium from person to person through bodily contact, it must seem to us to be a pretty bad choice of cures.

Which brings me to Trinidad. I think we Jamaicans can teach them a thing or two about some of the things that we have tried that just do not make any difference. In fact, it strikes me that reinforcing some religious beliefs can not only deepen crime and violence, but also further divide our societies.

How so?

There are lots of Bible verses, for example, that people use to sanction violent acts like beating children, discriminating against gays and promoting the death penalty. Recently, a group of Christian lawyers in Jamaica appeared to be protesting against the new Charter of Rights because it did not discriminate against gays sufficiently.

The book “The Sins of Scripture” by an Episcopalian bishop is a eye-opening excursion into church history that outlines many of these ways in which the claimed “inerrancy” of the Bible is used to justify all sorts of historical and present-day evil, in the name of God.

Furthermore, using religion is the quickest way to divide our people within the countries that make up the region.

For example, our new Prime Minister made a call yesterday at a Seventh Day Adventist church that pastors will be appointed to boards of government institutions across the country. In principle, having a spiritual viewpoint in positions of power is an excellent idea.

However, the truth is that we all have our favourite religions, including our new Prime Minister, and we would want our favourite pastors to be appointed to the more important positions.

Furthermore, we also have those religions that we either fear or despise. The great thing about the “Church of Satan” in the USA is that its very existence stops the government from going too far in the direction of mixing church and state.

While I doubt that there is a chapter in Jamaica, there are enough denominations and religions that exist that most of us don’t want to place anywhere near the levers of power. These include the old chestnuts such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, Catholics, Rastafarians and the permanently crusading clap-hand tent church around the corner. To hear that the pastor who recently prophesied that Portia would win the race to become the next Prime Minister has been appointed to the board of the Electoral Office of Jamaica would probably worry everyone who does not belong to his church.

Perhaps Portia will come up with a short list of approved churches and pastors, to prevent the boards from making errors. Then, we could all know which religious leaders have received the stamp of approval.

But, that would probably put us all in even more trouble. I could imagine that fracas that would break out, as power is given to some and not others, and placed in the hands of some holy men and women, but not others.

Having said that, I do have a few ideas to share with the readers of this website from a prior blog: “The Source of Crime in Jamaica“.

Delivering a Custom Experience

I’m staying at my favourite hotel in Barbados, the Accra Beach Hotel. What makes it my solid first choice is the very warm welcome I receive after 30 visits, and the high level of service delivered relative to other Bajan hotels. The service is on par with a Jamaican hotel such as the Pegasus and a Trinidadian hotel like The Kapok.

On the other hand, it comes on the heels of my visit to the Marriott in Miami’s Dadeland area (my third or fourth overall).

There is just no comparison between the standards of the two hotels – the Marriot operates at a level that is clearly higher.

For example, I am sitting at my computer in my room at the Accra, and as I scan the room I can enumerate the service defects in my line of sight:

the balcony door has putty spots on it
there is a black mark on the wall
the light fixture needs to be painted
the light is blown
I had to move my desk to the other side of the room, where the hi-speed access Ethernet port is located
the baseboard is dirty
there are marks on the ceiling

The overall furnishings are clearly of much lesser quality than the Marriott (or even the Hilton here in Barbados for that matter).

But that is not what got my attention initially. As a runner, I often enter a hotel after a morning run by walking through the lobby, looking like someone who just ran 6 miles or so in 80 degree weather. As I entered the Marriott’s lobby yesterday, the bellman literally ran to his desk, and pulled out a bottle of water for me to drink. This is perhaps the third time he has done so.

In my 5 or so years of staying at the Accra Beach Hotel, that has never happened; nor has anything close to it happened.

I use this example to illustrate the example of a bellman who operates to extremely high standards, although his actions are typical of the staff at the hotel.

The question I have been asking myself is, “What would it take for the staff at The Accra to meet that kind of standard?”

Incidentally, I ask myself the same question. In my career, I have had the fortune to work with and for McKinsey & Co., which is seen by many as the premier management consulting firm in the world. Working alongside some of the brightest people in the world hired from the best schools in the world was an eye-opener.

What remains is a personal goal to operate my company at the standard I witnessed at that firm. This has proven to be challenging!

It seems that the first obstacle that The Accra would have to face is how to very quickly create the standard in the first place. The average Caribbean employee in the service industry is not surrounded by the high standards of service that their colleagues in the First World are privy to. There is no mass-market company in the region that is known for excellent, world-class service (except, perhaps, in their own minds). By mass-market, I mean companies that serve the general public, therefore excluding hotels like the Ritz Carlton or Sandy Lane.

Therefore, it is impossible to tell an employee of The Accra that the service they deliver should be “world-class” like Sandy Lane’s. The truth is that the average employee would have no idea what that experience is like.

Instead, The Accra would have to start by defining the precise experience they wanted customers to have, and allow employees to create it for themselves for the customers. In other words, instead of delivering “world-class service” they would have to deliver an experience equivalent to that delivered to “my best friend” or “my favourite teacher” or “my team-mate.”

Once the desired experience is defined, then the hotel could move on to defining standards of new behaviour that match the experience.

However, there is a limit to what standards can do. The bellman who runs to give me water after a long run is obviously not following a written standard.

Instead, it strikes me that there are two requirements for service to be delivered at this level.

The first requirement is that there must be an inner motivation to deliver the experience. The easiest way to ensure that the right staff is in place is to hire people with a predisposition to serve from the very beginning. For the majority of existing and operational hotels, this is not an option as the staff would be very difficult to change wholesale.

The Accra would have to find a way to directly address and transform the culture of the existing organization.

The second requirement is that the staff would have to be trained to recognize the customer’s experience, and how to produce the desired experience at will. These are tall orders, but they are required capacities that may take a significant investment to perfect.

Interventions to produce these capacities must be developed with an understanding of the region’s peculiar realities, both historical and sociological.

With these ingredients, The Accra could improve its standards, and maybe even deliver a distinct experience that the Marriott could not duplicate.

March 11, 2006

Why EVERY Serious Business Should Blog

Now this is just an excellent article written by Robert Scoble on Tom Peter’s website that I think every business owner should read.

The only objection I can think of that a Caribbean executive might have to blogging is that relatively few people in our region are computer-literate. My response is, “if you build it, one day they will come.” In other words, it is only a matter of time until people become computer-literate, and start reading blogs, and by the time a company decides to jump in, the space will be too crowded to be heard.

Also, it is a good idea to create an online dialogue about your company, before someone who could very well be disgruntled, creates one about you… As the article explains, what blogging is doing is taking underground conversations and making them visible. It is a good idea to assume that whatever people are whispering about you behind closed doors, will one day turn up as part of an online conversation (better give up that mistress now!).

Plus, there is a tremendous learning curve to blogging. Only a year ago, I was still puzzled at what the term really meant. Beating the learning curve is just a good idea!

Let me know if you find the article useful, and if you are thinking of blogging also.

March 9, 2006

Waiting and the Customer Experience

One of our recent clients is a financial institution serving Caribbean customers. Their interest is in boosting customer service levels, and hopefully gaining a competitive advantage that will result in greater market-share, margins and profits.

This shouldn’t be too hard.

The service rendered by the financial houses in the region is seen by most as mediocre at best, and no company stands out in either the research or in anecdotes in the level of service provided. Our job is to find clues that will assist the client in gaining all that it can to break out of the pack.

One clue that we have found has to do with waiting.

Waiting times, according to the research conducted by De Man, Vandaele and Gemmel of the University of Gent, can be seen to be made up of two parts that seem to be approximately equal in weight: the actual wait, as measured in minutes and hours, and the perceived wait as determined by the experience of the customer. It is becoming clear from the research that if a company is committed to providing better service in this area, then it must become skillful in reducing both kinds of waiting time simultaneously.

To put it simply, at the end of the day it is the customer’s experience that counts, and little else, in defining the level of service delivered.

As a formally trained Operations Researcher, I learned a multiplicity of of tools that can be used to tackle the problem of reducing measured waiting times, ranging from queuing theory to digital simulation, to stochastic modeling. Fortunately for me, I have completely forgotten how to use them!

These tools are helpful, but when used in isolation they are less than useful. Millions of dollars can be spent on process changes that end up making no difference to the customer’s perception.

On the other hand, a company that systematically addresses not just measured times but psychological waiting time is marching more in time to Einstein’s tune, in which time (and space) are relative phenomena. His theories were proven decades after he developed them when empirical evidence was gathered that showed that he was correct in his thinking.

The University of Gent researchers conducted the first empirical study to prove what many researcher have been saying since the early 1990’s — there are specific techniques that can be used to improve customer satisfaction. Some of the techniques include:

telling the customer how long a wait is likely to be
explaining why the wait will be as long as it will be
advising and updating the customer on the progress of the activities on which they are waiting
providing effective distractions for the customer that occupy their attention during the wait

Each of these techniques has been found to be useful in changing the customer’s perception of the length of the wait, and their overall perception of the quality of service being received.

Here in the Caribbean, banking is seen as one of those exceedingly time-wasting activities, moreso than many other activities that take less measured time. People carry books, radios and family members to their lines at financial institutions — anything to alter what for many is often a mind-numbing experience.

Most banks provide little more than an extremely sterile and secure environment, free of amenities such as bathrooms, and distractions of any kind. Many are quite proud of this fact. Some are even intent on making it hard for customers to stay in the establishment for too long a time, and are quick to usher them out the door, or encourage them to go elsewhere.

The first financial insitution in the region that is able to change this important aspect of the customer’s experience would win my business, and probably that of many others.

February 27, 2006

He Who Writes, Defines

I just mentioned to my wife who is trying to catch up on some Carnival Monday night sleep how much someone like a blogger is able to define memories.

As I was writing a short blog about Carnival Monday in Tribe, struck me that if no-one on the planet chooses to write a public account of the event, then I will have, for all intents and purposes, defined it by blogging about it.

Whoaaaa.

It makes my blogging (which I’m convinced I’m mad to do, as hardly any comments are made to it) take on an additional dimension.

Also, ongoing blogging allows me to define myself (for better or worse) in the minds of whoever spends time reading this, and I’m becoming more and more aware of that, after being quite embarrassed to meet someone who has read what I’ve written. The fact that I met my wife on match.com has come up a few times, for example, to my …. amazement(?) I don’t think about it, and I think I mentioned it in passing.

So, it’s a little strange that for some people I am the “match.com guy” when that is something I hardly intended.

February 25, 2006

CAP: Having a Powerful Dialogue

One of the results from the study that was not so surprising was data that we collected that showed that of the different elements of the acquisition communication plans, the most fruitful was the 2-way dialogue with employees. Interestingly, a similar international study done in mostly first world countries showed that this dialogue was much less important (some 25% less agreement as to its usefulness.)

In the absence of trusted information in these acquisitions, we observed that employees had a tremendous capacity to manufacture rumours that quickly became ““fact”” in the minds of a critical number of workers. The effectiveness of 2-way dialogues to correct rumours and address anxieties cannot be under-estimated, and at the same the risks are considerable.

The CEO of one of one firm’’s clients invited several small groups of employees to attend informal breakfasts, at which he invited them to “say anything”. People began to open up over time, until his irritation at their complaints began to grow, until one morning he retorted “Don’t you ever have anything good to say?” in response to one woman’s poignant observation. That was the final informal breakfast he conducted.

The risks of an authentic dialogue are considerable, which is why CEOs and other executives are notably reluctant to conduct them. They can get messy, and in an acquisition situation there is often considerable anxiety. This can get translated into feelings of anger and upset, and most CEO’’s are not well trained to deal with groups of people under these circumstances. This is especially true in acquisitions, when the acquiring executives are usually elated at their financial success in landing the deal, while the employees in the target company could not feel differently.

In the Caribbean, our observation has been that more often than not in public dialogues, CEOs devolve into a kind of parental role, while their employees display varying degrees of child-like behaviour. Dialogues can then become unproductive, looking more like monologues, as the CEO plays the role of someone who can remove the anxiety, when in fact he cannot –– it is inherent in the circumstances and in her people’’s reactions to it.

However, CEOs can be trained to conduct these dialogues effectively, through a combination of personal development (many have ego-issues that only become amplified in public settings) and video-based feedback.

At that point, the dialogues become transformational, and employees and CEOs become more connected than anyone thought possible. This can occur even when the CEO has no hard information to share, but is just able to face his/her employees concerns directly, listening carefully to what is being said and leaving his/her employees with an experience of “we’ve been heard.”

While these sessions can be conducted as Q&A’s, at some point a CEO can develop his skill to go further than just answer questions, which is the most basic level of public dialogue. He can actually take the role of leading difficult conversations that distinguish new principles that can be used to run the company at higher level. While there are very few CEOs that are this well trained, the few that I have worked with who are, consistently generate considerable loyalty and motivation by engaging openly and publicly with his/her employees.

In acquisitions, this skill is invaluable.

February 20, 2006

CAP: Planning for a Culture

While it is clear that the Human Resource (HR) function was not used to help plan the acquisitions included in the study, the question still remains: what are some of the things HR would do, if asked?

One key action would be to lead the development of an “Acquisition Philosophy” by the deal team.

There are many approaches that can be taken to undertaking an acquisition. Usually, the company being taken over is at least an average performer, although the majority of the companies included in the study were either failing or had already failed.

Obviously, the acquiring company is making the investment or purchase with the belief that their ownership will make the critical difference in the performance of the company. If this belief were not true, then it is reasonable to assume that the acquisition would not take place. After all, even a successful company would not allow its shares to be taken over in an acquisition unless there was some premium paid. Acquisitions involve significant costs and risks, and no stock-holder in his right mind would undertake either unless he were being duly compensated.

Turning a mere stock-purchase into a successful acquisition, however, has much more to do with the way in which the culture of the acquisition is integrated than the price paid. Our research showed that within the companies we researched, there were widely differing views on the Acquisition Philosophy to be used.

The Acquisition Philosophy has to do with a decision as to what precise combination of vision, mission, values and leadership to bring to the new company to turn it into a financial success in the mid to long term. The Philosophy created has everything to do with a sound understanding of the culture that prevails in the target company, and what interventions need to be created to make it successful.

Different scenarios call for very different Philosophies.

For example:

Example 1: A company being acquired was a combination of entities that had formerly competed, and had all failed financially. The parent company decided to create a culture in the acquired company that was a modified version of the culture found in the parent’s company. The new firm was formed around the same values, vision and mission of the parent, with small changes to account for differences in national culture. The leadership came from the parent company.

Example 2: A very successful company was taken over to help expand the market share of the acquiring company. The Philosophy created was to keep the company intact, and to keep the ownership in the background as much as possible, hoping that the success would continue.

Example 3: A company did not know to create an Acquisition Philosophy, and did not address the new culture of the company and how it would effect integration, except to mention it in passing comments. The company fought fires as they came up in the form of strikes, poor results and a rotating door of successive of leaders, none of whom were groomed for the job.

In our research done in 2001-2, the companies studied came closer to Example 3 than any other. The lack of a coherent Philosophy left them vulnerable and without adequate plans for the many surprises that came once the acquisitions were completed. A complete Acquisition Philosophy may have included the following decisions:

Does the acquired company require a new culture, replete with new values, vision and mission that is new and distinct?

Or, should the new culture just be the same as the parent company?

Is there an intention to have local executive leadership? What will be done to develop it?

If a culture change is required, how will it be affected?

Will the new company be run by a local board or by the parent company? What are the lines of accountability?

Will profits be repatriated to the parent company / country?

Is the parent company willing to learn from the acquired company and change its culture accordingly?

What will be done (or not done) to send a message to the employees that the change is a positive one, and what is the plan for motivating them and communicating in a way that reduces rumour-driven anxiety?

What will be done to help the people in the acquired company bring closure to their past successes and failures?

While the above list may appear formidable, our experience in assisting companies in transforming their cultures tells us that it is more important that the company’s executives come to agreement. It is a fact that there will be surprises and unforeseen events that the executive team will need to react to, and their Acquisition Philosophy can be used to guide them in making the joint decisions that are required.

Doing a perfect job on all the above points is much less important, and cannot be done by anyone other than the players accountable for the acquisition being a success.

A set of Acquisition Values can be developed in conjunction with the deal team, and the implementation team to guide the way in which they acquisition activities are executed. For example, at one company the directors steadfastly denied rumours that an acquisition was being considered.

A week later, they announced that there was in fact an acquisition underway. Instantly, everyone knew that they had lied, yet the fact was never addressed openly. Of course, it was talked about quietly for years after the fact and used as evidence as to why the company’s leadership could not be trusted. A serious commitment to an Acquisition Value such as “transparency” may have guided the team to a different set of behaviours, or to at least a dialogue to resolve the public discrepancy.