Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

The recent Hewlett-Packard scandal helps us to understand some important lessons in how to handle bad news.

I've felt from the beginning of the whole scenario that Tom Perkins is the real villain that has gotten away with being a traitor to the company and his fellow board members. I haven't heard through all the noise whether he had signed a non-disclosure agreement as being part of the board; most people have to.

In thinking about that, I like what Steve Silvers says in one of his recent posts concerning managing crisis situations:

"The response to a crisis often becomes the bigger crisis." He goes on to say that the use of identity theft to obtain private phone record was like "HP used a hydrogen bomb to kill a skunk."

I agree with him totally. If HP had handled this differently, they could have identified the problem and went on to talk generally about the type of person that would undermine a company and reveal secrets to the press. Although unknown at the time, Perkins would have been seen for what he was, rather than the company now having a public relations nightmare that will last for years.

They were completely unprepared for understanding the situation from a public relations viewpoint. The only people involved in advising seem to be attorneys; who didn't even get the advising right.

Yes it was wrong what Perkins was doing, unethical to the core; but to handle bad ethics with other bad ethics doesn't do anything to help the situation at hand.

Even though Perkins was flushed out of hiding, he is made to look like he is the victim, rather than the company. Now the original problem isn't even being looked at or Perkins wrongs that he committed. Rather, leaders of the company are under fire for mishandling the situation.

So now the original crisis isn't even part of the public discourse, and a company is shaken to the core because people didn't manage the actions they put into play. To attempt to do what they were doing without tight controls in place was a recipe for disaster; and that's what they got.