Source MSNBC.com Credit: Getty Pictures
By now, you undoubtedly know that Shirley Sherrod is an ex – but likely soon to be current, mid level offical in the United States Department of Agriculture. She was recently fired by someone, maybe the Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack. Just to put this into context, the USDA has a budget of $149 Billion. That is about the same amount as the 2009 annual revenue at GM.
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The short version is that Ms Sherrod gave a speech to a local NAACP group in which she told a story from 24 years prior. The point of the story and the speech was that she was tempted to indulge her racist feelings and provide, “less than the full force” of her position to help a white farmer save his family farm. The full speech is inspiring. A blog and then cable television programs publicized a short, edited clip which portrayed Ms Sherrod as being a racist. She is not and is in fact pretty obviously, quite the opposite. In the rush of the media furor over the clip and its deceptive indications, Ms Sherrod was contact by her superiors. As she tells it, she was driving several hours back to her office from across the State of Georgia. She was called multiple times but was not making progress satisfactory to her manager. So, on the third or fourth phone call she was asked to pull over and she was asked to submit her resignation via text message. She was allegedly told, because tonight you are going to be on [the] Glenn Beck [show].
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In a turn of events as sweet as a Georgia peach, the next day the tape of the full speech was aired, the farmer came out to declare that Ms Sherrod in fact did help him save the family farm, and has been a dear family friend for 20 + years. The message of the full speech (that we are all capable of overcomming bias and that we need to look beyond race in matters of economic and social justice) was revealed.
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Since then, Ms Sherrod has been offered reinstatement in a new, unique position by the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture; she has been apologized to by Robert Gibbs, the Press Secretary for the President of the United States, from the Secretary’s podium in the press briefing room at the White House; and, main stream media have rushed to resurrect their own journalistic credibility telling her side of the story after having told the accurate story of the original disingenuous smear.
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So… where the hell was the Human Resources leadership in this fiasco? Probably nowhere. This was about politics and managing the media reaction to what smelled like a great story – dead on proof that there really is deep seeded bias and that this administration is somehow racist. I will leave the sociology and political science to others.
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It seems from the outside that there were several fundamental HR errors here -
- Most obviously, a critical decision was made without looking at the full body of information. There was a full speech, but only the clip was viewed. In hindsight, that is an obvious error. However, if only the clip was shown, where a woman makes a credible testament to her own racist thoughts and actions, might you have reached a conclusion about her? I know that I might have. I think I have made that mistake – rushing to judgement based on what appears to be incontrovertible evidence.
- Apparently no one asked Ms Sherrod what happened. Have you ever been approached by a manager, a security department, corporate counsel, a customer, told a story about an employee and then reached a conclusion before speaking to the employee? I have. It is easy to extend the general trust that we have in our co-workers and in authority. Generally speaking, that trust is probably well placed. However, there is no better means to establish a framework for your investigation, than the simple play ground rule of hearing both sides. Note that I don’t say to establish a conclusion – that is really a bit down the road, the best gift of two sides is getting the proper context for real investigation and subsequent determination of a conclusion.
- Here is the tough one. It is exhilarating to make the grand, snap decision. See the evidence of racism – bang – “she’s outta here!” It feels like bold moralistic leadership. Snap decision can be leadership – however you better be damn sure that you are correct in the decision. Know that the decision is unassailable. Better yet, ask yourself a question, who is the audience to whom I am showing my boldness? It gives context to evaluate where the boldness is in fact leadership, or, if it is mere show boating. I have no idea what the motivation was here. I do know that it backfired tremendously. Typically, HR is enhanced by bold communication of throughly deliberated decisions, as opposed to snap decisions themselves.
- One unknown here, in fact is, was HR part of this process or, did general executive management make this decision “alone”. For all I know, there is someone in HR at USDA that stood on a table and shouted that this lack of process would lead to undue risk. I don’t know. I do know that our job is to bring decisions to the center of reason because that is the essence of our professional standing. Professionals do their job against established standards, even when others want to rush because it seems expedient.
- Finally, don’t do HR in public. HR makes for bad theatre. People’s careers, their reputations, their livelihoods, deserve sincere, professional practice. When HR is done for public consumption, bad policy and bad decision can find their way into the process too quickly.
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Careers, livelihoods and reputations – the ones you save may be your own.
Frank Roche also got this way right at KnowHR
12 Comments | In: How to do HR, Multiple Markets | | #
Recently I posted about the bungled, should-not-have-happened firing of Shirley Sherrod. Along with others, we prompted ourselves to “Count The HR Mistakes“. Among the mistakes in this particular example, one mistake-theme is worth pulling out for more general exposition.
