When business writers use sports metaphors it’s usually to illustrate the value of such staples as teamwork, persistence, and steroids.
Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson’s indictment for child abuse doesn’t really lend itself to metaphor. Direct, useful guidance? That’s a different matter.
Some facets of the situation are directly relevant to business leaders no matter what their specific role. Here are some that occur to me … and I promise to do my best to avoid empty moralizing, as plenty of other commentators have already filled that niche:
- The past explains. It doesn’t justify. Peterson’s apologists, and I include Peterson himself in this category, point out that his father raised him the same way.
So what?
If you believe in the concept of progress, a logical consequence is that no matter what the subject, the world has learned more about it since your parents did their learning.
- Never use yourself as a positive example. Sean Hannity shows why (skip to 1:45). In explaining that he was raised the same way and that he came out okay, he appears to be anything but okay. Seriously disturbed seems to be a better description.
Even if he’d maintained his composure, it wouldn’t matter, because neither Sean Hannity, nor you, nor I are qualified to evaluate our own wonderfulness. That’s why we provide references instead of explaining to a prospective employer, “Trust me — I’ll make a marvelous executive.”
And besides, saying “I was raised this way and I came out fine” is semantically equivalent to a combat veteran who isn’t suffering from PTSD claiming his outcome as evidence that combat doesn’t cause PTSD.
- Don’t give credit for moral luck. After Peterson’s indictment, Nike, Target and Wheaties severed their ties to him. A principled stand? Well, it wasn’t an unprincipled stand, but that’s different. It isn’t principle unless it hurts, and what would have hurt these companies would have been continuing to associate themselves with him.
Radisson severed its sponsorship of the Vikings for their handling of the situation — arguably a more difficult call, but not by much. Some people will approve, some will disapprove, many won’t care, and Radisson’s marketing has plenty of other places to spend its budget. Not enough pain to be principle.
- Due process and all that. The Vikings first public response to this mess was that Peterson has a right to due process, and it would have been improper to punish him before he was found guilty in a court of law.
There’s something to be said for this point, even though as a society we’ve already rejected it in its entirety.
Rejected it? Yup. Many businesses avoid hiring ex-convicts, even though they’ve theoretically paid their debt to society. School districts … and private schools as well … discharge teachers who violate their codes of conduct, even when their code of conduct is more restrictive than what’s legally required of a citizen.
Military officers, along with quite a few CEOs who aren’t named Larry Ellison have been discharged for having affairs with subordinates.
No court of law was required in these cases. “Due process” is understood to include internal HR-led investigations. This is the flaw in the Vikings’ argument: Zygi Wilf and company had the option of launching an internal investigation so as to give Peterson the benefit of due process.
- Who’s running the show? Unlike Nike, Target and General Mills, Zygi Wilf was emphatically not the beneficiary of moral luck. I say Zygi Wilf because the Minnesota Vikings is a privately held corporation which he owns. As such, the team’s choices were expressions of his personal principles — it’s his show.
Unlike the Vikings, Nike, Target and General Mills, which owns the Wheaties brand are publicly held corporations.
That means everyone in management, up to and including the CEO, aren’t acting as or for themselves. In an important sense they aren’t running the show, merely acting as agents for the companies that employ them. Their operative moral metric is whether they’re acting in their employers’ best interests. Often, operating within the law is included in this framework.
One might argue that if General Mills was a “natural person” and really wanted to “do the right thing” — to make a principled rather than economic decision — it might replace Peterson with Kent Brantly or Nancy Writebol on its Wheaties boxes.
In case you don’t recognize their names, they’re the first two WHO doctors to contract Ebola while working in West Africa.
Associate Wheaties with real heroes, that is, not just sports heroes.
I was pushed to the brink by my Ex often. I never broke, but it was a near thing several times. The elevator tape shows GF in his face unnercyifly (sp?) Shuting her up must have been really hard to resist for a man used to violence, Not to condone does not mean not to have a little understanding!
Charley
Good column, but I disagree with you on several points.
1. Corporal punishment, in and of itself, can be, good, depending on how it is used. When it is used as an excuse to vent one’s anger on a child, as my grandmother did to my mother, my siblings and my self, it is wrong. But when it was done in a mindful way, as my mother did to me and I did to my younger siblings, it’s an irreplaceable, life saving tool in the parenting tool box.
My mom was whipped by her mother, often unjustly, but in part because of it, she became a valued member of society, and a great parent. Her younger brother was not whipped, grew up to be thug in a policeman’s uniform, beat his wife for 15 years, despite restraining orders, and beat up countless others, but was for years untouchable because he was a Chicago policeman.
Peterson was wrong because he beat his child when Peterson was in a rage. One needs to be mindful whenever punishing your child, not just acting out. When children are under puberty, their ability to understand rules, especially the concept of consequences, are not yet fully developed and they need the material reinforcement to help the conditioning take hold.
Besides, I’ve been in white middle class households when parents were verbal methods to discipline their kids. Many of the parents say will tell their kids the most demeaning, esteem, truly hateful, destroying things to control their kids behavior, things too malicious to say to my worst enemy.
I am clear that communicating a parent’s hate and contempt can does do more harm to a child than a single whipping out of control.
2. The San Francisco 49er’s were my favorite team, but they are wrong headed with respect to not putting Ray McDonald on paid leave. I don’t if McDonald is guilty or not, but I know that unlike the Aldon Smith problems which involve addiction issues and are very little threat to anyone else, spousal abuse is about intimidation and the safety of the victim has to be utmost. If McDonald is innocent, so long as he is paid, there is no punishment to him. The team may suffer, but he does not.
But suppose he is an abuser and there are no indications that the team is taking this seriously or cares about the safety of the victim? What would that say to this victim and the millions of women who have been abused, but no males too them seriously?
The fact is that the 49er’s are in no position to objectively evaluate this situation because, frankly, evaluating physical or sexual abuse situation is just not their field of expertise, plus the have a vested interest in believing in McDonald’s complete innocence, as his loss would probably fatally injures their run defense, and thus, their Super Bowl chances for this year. Yet, if Bill Walsh found a way to do the right thing and risk hiring black coaches, the 49er’s need to take a leadership position, by acknowledging that paid leave is the due process any accused abuser rightfully deserves.
A long-winded answer to emotionally charged topics, but thanks for writing this article.
Statistically, your uncle is an anomaly: Most abusive spouses and parents were abused as children, not disciplined too lightly.
Excellent column. Best thinking I’ve seen on this subject.
Bob,
Interesting article. I can see where organizations would want their employees to behave in a morally acceptable manor and would want to discipline them when they don’t.
I expect that the VA will soon be suspending indefinitely all of the people who maintained two sets of appointment books so that they could get paid bonuses. There is no question that action was morally reprehensible and by extension from how the NFL is now being expected to act, the VA should be suspending and releasing problem employees any day now, right?
Opinion: The VA should terminate the managers who required two sets of books. It should interview those who actually kept them to discover why the VA culture discouraged/intimidated them into not blowing the whistle.
Nuremberg notwithstanding, it’s tough to fire someone for doing something they were required to do by their manager.
Bob,
Agreed that it’s management malfeasance that was the big problem at the VA. Still waiting for the managers to be fired.
Maybe the VA should lose some of its sponsorships??
Couldn’t agree more. If NASCAR, Pepsi and Taco Bell all threatened to stop supporting the VA because of this …
Never thought Adrian Peterson and Hannity would ever appear in the same column. Politics aside, are you suggesting Hannity should be the next Vikings running back? Zygi could use the distraction.
Now there’s an idea!