The Mirror Test
Thursday, November 02, 2006
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I have always had a problem with lying. I can't seem to do it. Not the big lies like some politicians are apt to tell. Not even the little lies you need to function in everyday society. I get tongue tied. I freeze up. Even contemplating a lie makes it hard for me to look myself in the mirror in the morning. You don't know how difficult this shortcoming makes my life.
Take the political thing. Every time an election comes around, I think how much better I would be than half the people who run for office. But then I think about what it would take to get elected, and I realize I could never succeed. Each election, I am sure the political ads have set a record for nastiness which cannot be bettered. Until, of course, the next election.
The level of mudslinging in this year's campaign has, at least in my eyes, reached new lows. Following a now widely adopted practice, candidates look right into the camera at the end of television spots and firmly state that they, "approve this ad." But can they face themselves in the mirror in the morning?
And consider all the CEOs, compensation officers and lawyers who are now in hot water for backdating options. The idea behind the granting of stock options is to better tie the interests of employees with those of shareholders. But if you backdate the options, which mostly go to the top executives, the executives get an advantage the average shareholders don't have. Wouldn't you like to have a quarter's worth of closing stock prices at hand and the ability to pick the day on which you buy a stock? Many of these executives are arguing that this practice is not explicitly illegal. But this too fails the mirror test.
Wall Street Journal reporter Pui-Wing Tam recently wrote a first person account, "How H-P Kept Tabs on Me for A Year." Ms. Tan was told that the investigators working for H-P got access to her home phone, cell phone and office phone records. They also had a photograph and videotape of her, had conducted surveillance to see if she would meet any members of the HP board and may have inspected her trash.
I've written about this before, so I won't dwell on it now. But it seems unbelievable that executives of one of the world's leading corporations could do the things they admitted doing to Ms. Tam and still face themselves in the mirror in the morning.
Lawyers may argue that backdating options or the investigative techniques used by H-P are not illegal. But not being illegal does not make it right. Ethics and the law are two very different things. Which mirror are they looking in?
"Viral advertising" is the latest rage. This is an electronic version of word-of-mouth some marketers use to spread their message. It is not really that new. I remember when Microsoft employees, hiding their Microsoft ties, would spread negative comments about IBM's OS/2 product, which competed with Microsoft's Windows in the early 90's. Today, with Internet blogs and video sites drawing fast growing audiences, the practice has been formalized, and many ad agencies are making use of these channels. Nothing is wrong here, unless the source is purposely obscured or made to seem something it is not. Then it fails the mirror test.
The Edelman PR firm apparently did just that, creating an Internet blog containing positive information for client Wal-Mart, titled "Walmarting across America," which was made to look like a grass-roots project. CEO Richard Edelman has done a lot of public soul-searching about the incident and has pledged a new emphasis on teaching ethics to his staff. He only needs to buy a few more mirrors.
And now for the real reason I wrote this column. I have a wonderful wife who works very hard and sometimes pulls repeated all-nighters on behalf of one project or another. So what do I tell her when, after one of these sessions, she turns to me and says, "Sweetie, how do I look?"
If anyone has a response I can use and still look at myself in the mirror, please let me know.
