Reaction to Team 4 Readings

Please "comment" on this post to organize the reactions to Team 4's assigned reading.

Reaction to Johnson & Johnson Credo

Wow what a concept. Take good care of the customers, employees, community and stockholders first and the business will be well served. Sounds like good basic business concepts and obviously they have worked well for Johnson & Johnson. A company that is now in its 77th year of business with a global presence has used this philosophy to maintain success.

The Credo wasn’t written until 1943 but eight years prior to that General Robert Wood Johnson believed in putting the customer first. This practice seems to be difficult to find in today’s fast paced world. Yet it is a practice that is still recognized when it does occur and still greatly appreciated by the customers on the receiving end. A happy customer will bring return business to those companies that provide good service. When business is good it is easier for a company to take care of their employees. In turn these same employees can reach out to the communities in which they live and provide support for projects that improve the world around them. In the end these employees bring kudos to Johnson & Johnson when they pitch in and lend a helping hand to the community.

A company with a good reputation, with happy customers and repeat business is a profitable company and then the stockholders are happy. Even in the early and mid 1980’s when the tainted Tylenol crisis threatened the company, Johnson & Johnson was able to hang on to their credibility and profitability.

The basic concepts and beliefs of the credo were followed by all employees and together they recovered from this disaster. Not only did they recover but they regained the lead in the analgesic market. This took a team of dedicated employees who also believed in the message of the credo in order to be successful.

Think like a sociopath, act like a saint by Mitroff

This article gave some good insights to what may have been the cause of some of the problems encountered by the Red Cross. It mentioned that the shear scope of a crisis can affect how the situation is handled and the success of the outcome. The Red Cross not only had their hands full with a disaster of never seen before magnitude but also with 5 times as many volunteers than were ever assembled for any one disaster. Over 200,000 volunteers are almost unmanageable in any given circumstance. Trying to respond to as many people as possible in a short amount of time added to the difficulty of screening volunteers. They were not prepared within their system to handle the shear size of the disaster and the numbers of people and volunteers affected. They also were not thinking of the ways people might be thinking of scamming them during this crisis.

Mitroff points out that it is difficult for normal people to think of threats and scams that can affect them and their organization. That they need help in think like an abnormal paranoid in order to see what emergencies and crisis could occur in their company, organization or community. Many companies have workshops to help train employees how to think abnormally and list crisis that could happen to them as well as how to safe guard against them and what to do if it were to happen, the recovery phase.
Being prepared for anything lessens the shock and the recovery phase can get started much sooner.

It is unfortunate that today’s world forces us to think of what horrendous acts can be committed against our companies, organizations, and society. The good news is that we are aware of this need and can use it as a tool that prepares us to put prevention plans in place and to react if the need ever arises.