Man I thought I would be able to leave the NFL alone for a few days. But here we are again with the revelation that Chris Carter made a speech to young players in a forum supported by the NFL.
During the speech he advised new players to “make sure you have a fall guy in your crew” to take the rap just in case you get caught doing something bad. Awesome.
More disturbing to me is the fact that a reporter attending the event seemed to have been told by an NFL rep to “not” report that part of the event. This seems to indicate that there was a feeling that what Carter said was inappropriate but the response was to hush it up. Wow, that’s awesome management.
At Zappos Tony Hsieh, in the pursuit of great culture, risked a lot when he gave his employees the ability to tweet freely about their day at Zappos. Sure he hoped they would respond favorably but it wasn’t guaranteed. He risked it because he felt that he had done a good job addressing culture and he wanted transparency.
As we are discovering, the NFL and other poorly run organizations will try and keep secrets and control information. The belief that they can control all information only goes to the arrogance of any firm that tries to do it.
It doesn’t say much for “smarts” either that in our social media framework that the information won’t eventually come out.
If you want a good company, promote transparency. It may mean you have to work a little harder to take care of the people in your organization, its actions and generally DO THE RIGHT THING, but it will pay off in the long run.
Oh, by the way, I read that Mr. Carter made his remarks while wearing his Football Hall of Fame jacket. Wow, you just can’t make this stuff up.