You are CEO Michael Capellas and for months you’ve been on your hands and knees with a scrub brush trying to cleanse the stain of WorldCom from your company so it can move beyond one of the most scandalous bankruptcies in history. … You’ve done all of this scrubbing, yet those letters still appear visible to the naked eye: W-O-R-L-D-C-O-M.
You are CEO Michael Capellas and for months you’ve been on your hands and knees with a scrub brush trying to cleanse the stain of WorldCom from your company so it can move beyond one of the most scandalous bankruptcies in history.
You’ve done the easy and symbolic stuff:
• Ditched the WorldCom moniker in favor of MCI and moved corporate headquarters from Clinton, Miss., to Ashburn, Va.
• Hired an “executive vice president of ethics and business conduct.”
• Mandated ethics training for 55,000 U.S. employees and contractors, all of whom will no doubt relish the notion of doing penance for the sins of long-gone WorldCom big shots.
• Asked 100 top MCI executives to write on the blackboard 100 times: “I will not do what Bernie Ebbers did.”
You’ve done all of this scrubbing, yet those letters still appear visible to the naked eye: W-O-R-L-D-C-O-M.
It’s clear you’re going to need more elbow grease. And knowing that ethical standards need to start at the top to instill public confidence, you decide to hire a “senior adviser for ethics and corporate governance” who will work with your own office and the company’s board of directors on matters of corporate hygiene. So you turn to Warren Rudman, a former member of the U.S. Senate – a governmental body not normally known as a bastion of ethical virtue.
Nothing against Rudman personally or politically. As politicians go, Rudman enjoys one of the better reputations; a straight shooter who’s willing to put aside partisanship; think “poor man’s John McCain.” (And you don’t need to be a cynic to suspect that Rudman just might sneak in a bit of congressional lobbying when he’s not advising Capellas and the board about how to keep their noses clean.)
Rudman’s not the point here.
The point is that there’s only so much Capellas can hope to accomplish with soap and a squad of gung-ho ethics cops. The substantive remaking of MCI can only come about through the passage of time – as in many, many years spent keeping customers happy and steering employees clear of trouble.
That truth was driven home recently in an unrelated e-mail from a reader who took umbrage at me quoting a Hotmail customer as saying Microsoft’s business conduct was “like the behavior of AT&T before divestiture.”
“AT&T is a different company in a much different world and has been for some time now,” he wrote. “Mentioning the company as you did replants the seed – how were they before divestiture? Are they still like that? It simply has nothing to do with today.”
It’s certainly true that “AT&T before divestiture” means Ronald Reagan’s first term. Yes, the fellow complaining does work for AT&T, but he’s just a grunt who’s been there five years and has grown tired of seeing his employer tarred with a 20-year-old brush.
Capellas has a lot of scrubbing ahead of him.
Orbitz and fleas
Lie down with dogs and you’ll wake up with an in-box full of spam.
Such is the lesson from news that Orbitz let customer e-mail addresses fall into the hands of spammers. The online travel company, whose name is synonymous with the detested pop-up ad, was founded by the country’s five largest airlines: American, United, Delta, Northwest and Continental, which apparently know enough not to conduct business in such an annoying manner under their own brands.
Orbitz makes no bones about caring little that its pop-ups irritate people, as any ill will is more than offset by the business those ads generate.
And those who patronize Orbitz – the company claims 18 million users – have clearly decided they prefer saving a few dollars to embracing any principle that not patronizing Orbitz might represent.
So some are getting spam they didn’t bargain on? . . . Pardon me while I wipe a tear.
You can trust me with yours. Here’s mine: buzz@nww.com.
