Mr. James Burke - Leadership in Crisis Management

Leadership is required for handling a crisis. Very few organizations know how to use PR effectively. The importance of Public Relations comes out at its best as an effective tool for handling a crisis. PR is a sub function of Marketing but many large organizations create so called Corporate Communications to handle it exclusively. However, PR will not be effective in the absence of top class leadership. The best example is the use of PR by J & J during the 'Tylenol' cyanide poisoning crisis.

The Tylenol Cyanide poisoning incident

In the autumn of 1982, McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, was confronted with a crisis when seven people on Chicago's West Side died mysteriously. Authorities determined that each of the people that died, had ingested an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule laced with cyanide. The news of this incident traveled quickly and was the cause of a massive, nationwide panic. These poisonings made it necessary for Johnson & Johnson to launch a public relations program immediately, in order to save the integrity of both their product and their corporation as a whole. The public relations decisions made as a result of the Tylenol crisis, arrived in two phases. The first phase was the actual handling of the crisis. The comeback of both Johnson & Johnson and Tylenol, was the second phase in the public relations plan. The planning for phase two began almost as soon as phase one was being implemented.

Phase one of Johnson & Johnson's public relations campaign was executed immediately following the discovery that the deaths in Chicago were caused by Extra- Strength Tylenol capsules. As the plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns.
The company immediately alerted consumers across the nation, via the media, not to consume any type of Tylenol product. They told consumers not to resume using the product until the extent of the tampering could be determined. Johnson & Johnson, along with stopping the production and advertising of Tylenol, recalled all Tylenol capsules from the market. The recall included approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a retail value of more than 100 million dollars.

This was unusual for a large corporation facing a crisis. In many other similar cases, companies had put themselves first, and ended up doing more damage to their reputations than if they had immediately taken responsibility for the crisis. An example of this was the crisis that hit Source Perrier when traces of benzene were found in their bottled water. Instead of holding themselves accountable for the incident, Source Perrier claimed that the contamination resulted from an isolated incident. They then recalled only a limited number of Perrier bottles in North America. When benzene was found in Perrier bottled water in Europe , an embarrassed Source Perrier had to announce a world wide recall on the bottled water. Apparently, consumers around the world had been drinking contaminated water for months. Source Perrier was harshly attacked by the media. They were criticized for having little integrity and for disregarding public safety. Johnson & Johnson, on the other hand, was praised for their actions by the media for their socially responsible actions.

Along with the nationwide alert and the Tylenol recall, Johnson & Johnson established relations with the Chicago Police, the FBI, and the Food and Drug Administration. This way the company could have a part in searching for the person who laced the Tylenol capsules and they could help prevent further tampering. Johnson & Johnson was given much positive coverage for their handling of this crisis.

The comeback plan is not being covered in this page as it concerns more with sales and marketing aspects of the business rather than crisis management but members of Madgopes.com can access the original article from its article index page under the title 'Using PR as a Crisis Management tool - The 'Tylenol' Cyanide poisoning case'. People can also refer to the "Johnson & Johnson - 'The Comeback - A Special Report From the Editors of Worldwide Publication of Johnson & Johnson Corporate Public Relations" - 1982.

Parting words

Handling crisis's of such magnitude needs top class leadership. J&J had a great leader in Mr. James Burke at that time. He had integrity, conviction and courage. He did not bother about shareholders reactions, profitability, market shares etc., when the crisis hit J&J. If crisis's are not handled properly by most, it is because of lack of courage, conviction and
integrity. Money should be the last thing on the leadership's mind. Many forget that reputation that is hard earned over decades but can dissipate in a matter of seconds, if crisis's are not handled properly. There is one more aspect that needs to be considered in this case. J&J's founder, Mr. Robert Johnson called as 'General' Johnson, wrote the organizational credo way back in the 1940s when the company was founded. I have not come across a better written credo so far. It is that document that guided J&J in the time of crisis. Unfortunately, people in many organizations would not know what a credo is . They would need to refer to a dictionary for that. J&J is a global top 50 brand and highly respected. Because of the nature of industry it is in, it often faces crisis's but always comes out on top by putting its customers first. It has an excellent work culture. We at MMG rate it top amongst companies engaged in ethical and OTC drugs, pharmaceuticals and healthcare. 

© Copyright, Dec 02-07 . www.madgopes.com . Without prejudice. All rights reserved

Mr. James Burke - Leadership in Crisis Management - To learn more about this author, visit Madhavan T Gopalachary's Website.

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