Bad Corporate Conduct - Don't Be Like This

 If you have a company, you have an obligation to NOT kill your customers. If your business model requires you to kill people, you are a horrible person who should NOT be in business.  And I can't believe this has to be said out loud!!!!!


I live in Florida and we have a LOT of crazy stuff that happens here. Recently, my part of FL had a company responsible for a multi-state listeria outbreak that killed one person and hospitalized 22 others. One woman lost her fetus as a result of the infection. The company? Big Olaf.  

Now, having a contamination problem is bad enough. If you aren't putting effort and money into making sure your manufacturing is clean, you can run into problems that can kill people. People running food businesses have a moral obligation to make sure they take precautions to make sure their food is indeed safe and doesn't kill people. Big Olaf failed here. So - part 1 is - something happened that shouldn't have. 

Part 2 is how you respond if a mistake is made. Clearly a mistake was made, people got sick and died. Big Olaf, upon learning that their ice cream had killed someone - and a fetus, responded so badly, I honestly think they should no longer be in business. They insisted for a couple of weeks - after the outbreak was traced to them, that, they were being unfairly targeted by the FDA. They were not. They were the source of the outbreak.  But because they refused to admit it, they refused a voluntary recall of the contaminated product. For over 2 weeks, they continued to sell product that they knew was making people sick and killing people. 2 frigging weeks!!!! It was only after the FDA got a legal order to issue the recall, that the recall occurred.

Most food companies, issue voluntary recalls when they find out there is a problem with their product that can cause injury or death. This is because MOST companies are run by reasonable people who actually care about their fellow humans. This is the hallmark of humanistic leadership and humanistic business management. You take care to do good and do no harm and if you err, you fix it quickly!  This is how trust is created. 

This is NOT what Big Olaf did. They stuck their heads in the sand, claimed they were the victim and continued to harm people. Some of their franchises are now refusing to do business with them because they no longer trust the company. Act in an egregiously untrustworthy way - that's the consequence. No one wants to do business with you. 

I don't give an F who you are. Our government agencies overseeing commerce for our safety and benefit are not the enemy. They are our allies. If they tell you, your restaurant isn't clean or your food service facility has a problem, clean it up!!!! Your first obligation is to do no harm to your customers.  If your ego is such that you are willing to risk the lives of your customers to make some money, you don't deserve to be in business! 

We all have the ability to choose our response. If your business makes a mistake, own it, fix it and move on. Don't continue to do harm and pretend it's ok or pretend that you are the victim. If you've killed a customer and killed a customer's baby - you have a problem. If you refuse to acknowledge that, you don't belong in business. 

Rant Over.

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