Overview

Participants receive newspapers and pull from them articles illustrating why the public may be losing confidence in public institutions, corporate bodies, and government agencies. Using those same reasons, participants undertake a Janusian approach to persuade buyers to purchase their product or service.

Purpose

To encourage thinking about what does and what does not constitute the organization’s values.

Group Size

Any number of individuals can participate. The group should be divided into subgroups of four or five.

Room Arrangement

Arrange table groups for four or five participants each.

Materials

Copies of newspapers—they need not be from that day—so that each person has at least one section (preferably business or current events).

Method

1.Begin the exercise by asking if anyone has read about or seen a report such as the “fleecing of America” on the evening news—a report of a shoddy product or a manufacturing recall or an outright transgression of consumers’ faith in a given industry or commodity or institution. If not, have a few of your own ready. (On any given day, you are likely to find headlines like the following: “Pentagon disclosures point to misconduct by top military officials in 13 states”; “$10M largest civil penalty against public company over financial reporting”; “Agent: FAA buried lapses”; “Company guilty in Alabama pollution case.”

2.Distribute newspaper sections—one for each participant. Allow at least 10 minutes for table groups to list headlines that deal with wrongdoing.

3.Next, ask the table groups to think in reverse terms: how can a negative become a positive? A story about discrimination, for example, could inspire a given organization to ensure its own practices are not discriminatory. Participants will take some of these negative ones and create opposite ones to assure their consumers that the products or services they provide have quality and value.

4.The next step asks them to think about ways to assure their clients that the misdeeds participants have read about would not be tolerated in participants’ own organizations. (If the groups are composed of individuals representing several different organizations, they can select one to serve as the exemplar.) Based on one news report that showed an organization violating some ethical code, the group will explain how they converted a negative into a positive selling point for their own product or service.

5.Ask each group to make a brief presentation.

Variation

The concept of Janusian thinking dates back thousands of years to the ancient Romans, who featured the god Janus’s head with two profiles on their coins. One profile looked back to the year just ended. The other looked forward to the year about to begin. (The month of January is named after Janus.) The idea of viewing a given situation from opposite perspectives can be applied to courses dealing with Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving, Strategic Planning, and Creativity.

Discussion

How can an individual or organization that engaged in unethical acts recapture the public’s confidence?

What examples can you recall, from your own private or professional experience, of an organization that acted admirably to make amends for an egregious error?

What executive-level transgression or decision would cause you to resign from your own organization?

Quotation

“There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.”

—Buddha

Points of Interest

In its second annual listing of the “101 Dumbest Moments in Business,” Business 2.0 awards its dubious distinction first of all to Enron for assuming its aggressive accounting cover-ups would never be noticed. Also cited is overseer Arthur Andersen, whose auditors apparently failed to discover the erroneous addition of $1 billion to Enron’s assets. Apart from this mega-scandal, what other nominations would you make to next year’s list of dumbest business moments?