Imagine, just for a moment, you are Brian Cullinan, chairman of PwC’s US Board and Managing Partner of PwC’s Southern California, Arizona and Nevada Market.  You’ve played a part in a really successful evening; a slight blip when the production team included a picture of a still-living producer in its ‘in-memoriam’ segment but, aside from this, everything has flowed and gone to plan, just as in rehearsals.  You are beginning to relax.  Fourth year in, you recognise the climactic moments of the show are beginning to unfold.  Its 21.03 PT and Warren Beatty strolls to the podium, opens the envelope you’ve just given him, looks confused, shows his consort and gives a half laugh.  Faye Dunaway’s response is to blurt out a complete fabrication, information which is not written on the card that Beatty is holding.

Credit: Phil McCarten/AMPAS

Beatty looks dumbfounded.   Neither of them have asked for clarification, they are both in full acting mode  This is not what the card says.  He knows it, you know it, Faye Dunaway knows it and your colleague, Martha Ruiz knows it.  For 30 seconds you are the only people in a  live, world-wide, televised show who know the information just shared is wrong.  Time stands still.   Your blood pressure is rising, your heart rate has increased, the palms of your hands are suddenly sweaty, you’re feeling sick, your mouth is dry, your back and shoulder muscles are tense,  you’re beginning to tremble, you want to run to the bathroom.  Your fight, flight or freeze responses have all gone into hyper-drive.  This is stress.  This is anxiety.  The wrong people are showing up on stage, yes you did hear it right.  Years of  studying, training, hard graft, years of audit, M&A and leadership experience are thrown up in the air.  You look at the envelope in your hand and the envelope in Beatty’s hand and slowly your pre-frontal cortex starts to kick in; you’ve passed on the wrong information. You’ve given Beatty the wrong envelope.  And the western world is watching the resulting chaos in real-time.

10 hours later, you haven’t really slept.  You’ve helped craft the company statement, taken full responsibility, talked it over and over and over again.  In fact, you’ve re-lived and continue to re-live the process.  You are keenly aware that protocols were not followed fast enough, corrections not made quickly enough.  Beatty is talking to the press a-plenty; Dunaway has run-away  and does not seem to be taking any responsibility.   Your personal credibility and the company reputation is on the line.  Pictures of you tweeting back stage are all over the web.  You know, more than anyone, just how serious this is from a brand and reputation perspective.   The company is still standing by you and then,  the client, the AMPAS president, Cheryl Boone Issacs, tells the Associated Press  that you and  Ruiz have been fired and will not participate in future shows. You are shattered.

Just how does this statement and action affect the perception of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?   I look up the Glass door reviews for AMPAS for some insight and based on the employee ratings and comments, this action is consistent with the current leadership culture.  Reading these unedited employee comments, it comes as no surprise that the President is now reviewing the entire relationship with PwC.   A much more powerful leadership stance could have been created by a statement along the lines of:

We accept PwCs apology for the grave error that was made during Sunday’s show and are working with them to learn from this and ensure this will not be repeated.  We respect our 83-year long relationship and look forward to working together to continuously improve the processes and procedures which make the OSCARS the annual best award celebration in our industry.

Just imagine what potential employees would think if they saw such a statement; how great talent would be attracted to a career in AMPAS, people who could see they could contribute and enhance the organisation.  Imagine how existing employees would feel to read this, how many more ideas and innovations and contributions would be put forward.   Instead, the opportunity is missed, the opinions of the existing employees are reinforced and the current culture is laid bare for the world to see.    Because, when you boil it down, no one died or was hurt in the process, perhaps with the exception of pride and ego.  And perhaps the person who is most diminished by this situation is AMPAS President, Cheryl Boone-Isaacs.

By shooting those who make the mistakes, the learnings are lost and the opportunity to build loyalty and respect are gone.   Trust is built in such moments.  Moments like these are where magic happens, where people move forward and perform at their best because they know they have support  and encouragement to learn and grow.

Satya  Nadella, Microsoft CEO, knows about building these moments,  of leading and engaging teams who are trying their very best.

A year ago Microsoft developed an AI Twitter bot by the name of Tay (officially, Tay.ai).  to communicate and learn from the millennial generation.  Very quickly this turned into a disastrous attempt to advance how artificial intelligence communicates with humans in real-time.  Hackers and others were able to transform Tay into a racist, profane-spewing cyber-bot and the results took Twitter by storm.  This had great potential to damage the Microsoft brand reputation.  But they acted quickly and in less than a day the programme was removed and an official apology was issued by Peter Lee – Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Research .  This was a great apology.  Perhaps a little over long but it clearly explained this was cutting edge, innovative work and they were going to take their experiences and build on their lessons learned.

So now imagine you are one of the Tay team, you’ve worked years on this, giving up evenings and weekends with loved ones because this is a genuinely exciting, cutting edge project.  You really believed in the opportunity, you know that a similar programme in China,  the XiaoIce chatbot is being  enjoyed by some 40 million people so you are devastated when Tay is hacked and her potential is destroyed. And you’re really upset that she has not worked the way you hoped and may have caused some people great distress.   Then you get an email from your CEO and it says ,

“Keep pushing, and know that I am with you … (The) key is to keep learning and improving.”

Wow!  How amazing!  So what are you going to do next?  How can you take what you’ve learned from working on Tay, and what subsequently happened to her  and create something better, even more exciting and more life changing?

Perhaps if we purposefully choose to not operate in a culture of fear, blame and litigation, and chose instead to work with companies   where we  acknowledge and learn from mistakes, or potential mistakes, without fear, blame or recrimination;  organisations where it’s regarded as the norm to co-create concepts and ideas with others without being undermined or threatened;  places where we really listen to and give learning feedback to others so we all develop and grow,  perhaps then we create lasting extraordinary opportunities and a better place for all.