LESLIE N. POLLAND
ne organizational analyst observed, "Crisis need not strike a company [a church or individual] purely as a result of its own negligence or misadventure. Often, a situation is created which cannot be blamed on the company--but the company finds out pretty quickly that it takes a huge amount of blame if it fumbles the ball in its response."
In 1982 this stunning news made national headlines: "Tylenol capsules kill unsuspecting consumers." Journalist Melinda Beck reported, "When 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, awoke that dawn in 1982 with cold symptoms, her parents gave her one Extra Strength Tylenol and sent her back to bed. Little did they know that they would wake up at 7:00 a.m. to find their daughter dying on the bathroom floor."1
Investigators discovered that Extra Strength Tylenol capsules on supermarket shelves were contaminated with as much as 65 milligrams of cyanide, 10,000 times more poison than was necessary to kill a person.
Before the crisis Tylenol was the most successful over-the-counter product in the United States, with more than 100 million users. In 1983 Tylenol and its variants represented $460 million, and 8 percent of Johnson & Johnson's almost $6 billion in sales.
What would Tylenol's leadership team do? Would it engage in the all-too-common organizational gymnastics of dodging responsibility, passing the buck, and shifting the blame? Or would it handle the situation differently? Advice, both solicited and unsolicited, came to then president David R. Clare: "Don't admit anything." "kill the Tylenol brand." "Avoid a recall."
Here's what the Tylenol team did:
First, they revisited their credo (mission statement). "We believe that our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses, and patients, to mothers and all others who use our services. We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well." This action centered the leadership team during its crisis.
Second, the leadership team reached out to affected families. They attended victims' funerals, wrote letters of sympathy, and generally showed themselves to be compassionate, concerned, and conscientious.
Third, leadership recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol at a cost of more than $100 million and offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and capture of the culprit(s).
Fourth, the leadership practiced full and transparent disclosure. No avoidance of talking with families or the media, added to accessibility and openness, won the support of a normally skeptical press corps. An article by Jerry Knight said, "Johnson & Johnson has effectively demonstrated how a major business ought to handle a disaster. What Johnson & Johnson executives have done is communicate the message that the company is candid, contrite, and compassionate, committed to solving the murders and protecting the public."2
The outcome? A turnaround in public opinion, with a full and complete business recovery for the Tylenol brand.
Can we learn anything from a 20-year-old crisis?
One lesson is that not every crisis is self-created. Incidents occur in the sojourn of our church that are capricious and unforeseen. Yet in every such crisis lies an opportunity to recenter on our mission. Adherence to that mission will guide us through unexpected turbulence. Let us avoid the temptation to gauge our progress through favorable press clippings or popularity polls. Johnson & Johnson showed the nation that it is always right to do what is right.
There is a suffering that comes to us for which we are not responsible. These seasons of personal suffering or setback become the arenas in which God is glorified through the exercise of our faith. Trusting God during our unmerited sufferings reflects a love for God that is both impressive and contagious. When we "trust God where we cannot trace Him," others are strengthened and God is glorified.
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1 Melinda Beck, "The Tylenol Scare," Newsweek, Oct. 11, 1982, p. 32.
2 Jerry Knight, in Washington Post, Oct. 11, 1982.
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Leslie N. Pollard serves as vice president for diversity at Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center.
