Richard Edelman - 6 A.M.
The Jewish Immigrant Success Story
Thu, 02 Sep 2010
I journeyed to Philadelphia today to see the soon-to-be-opened National Museum of American Jewish History, conveniently located near Independence Hall and the Constitution Center. As our client, Michael Rosenzweig, director of the Museum, told me, “This is a celebration of the American immigrant experience. It shows the benefits of liberty and free markets for immigrants of all backgrounds.”
The first Jews came to America in 1654 from Brazil, moving to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (now New York City). In their petition to Governor Peter Stuyvesant, they asked simply for freedom to pursue their religious practices and to avoid prejudice. The first synagogue in what would become the United States was built in New York City in 1730, followed by one in Philadelphia in 1740. It is this same Philadelphia congregation that established the National Museum of American Jewish History in 1976 to coincide with the Bicentennial.
The new building, expected to attract 250,000 visitors per year, houses an exhibition on the lives of the 18 most famous American Jews, from the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to entertainer Barbara Streisand to filmmaker Stephen Spielberg to Emma Lazarus, author of the poem about the Statue of Liberty, to Estee Lauder who mixed ingredients on her stove at home. Among the archival material collected includes Spielberg’s first movie camera, vials from Dr. Jonas Salk’s laboratory that found a polio vaccine, clothes from Streisand’s movies and Irving Berlin’s piano on which he composed God Bless America. Russian-born Berlin’s story is typical, with the family fleeing Tsarist-inspired pogroms, coming to the Lower East Side in NYC, working as a newspaper boy when he finds that singing brings more customers than song-writing.
More than thirty short films will tell the story of the American Jewish experience. There are several moving tales, none funnier than the Trefa dinner in New York, organized by the founder of Reform Judaism, Isaac Wise in the late 1800s. To draw a sharp contrast between Reform and Orthodox practices, the dinner featured oysters, shrimp and frog’s legs. The more devout members of the movement were so upset by the dinner that they founded Conservative Judaism. Or the often repeated saga of Sandy Koufax, star pitcher of the LA Dodgers, who refused to pitch on the High Holy Days, even though his team was in the World Series, then went onto be the MVP of the Series.
I have known many self-made American Jews, including client Charles Lubin, who pioneered flash freezing of cakes to create Sara Lee, Len Abramson who was an early devotee of managed care through US Healthcare and Joe Neubauer, who has outsourced services from school cafeterias to hospital gowns at Aramark. They share a love of community, commitment to religion, and devotion to family. We have been given an unprecedented opportunity in America, the ability to compete without the historical constraints. We can never take this privilege for granted.
Voodoo Academia
Thu, 26 Aug 2010
Monday’s Wall Street Journal featured an article titled “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility,” by Professor Aneel Karnani of the University of Michigan’s Business School. The take-the-cake lines in Karnani’s thesis: ”a focus on social responsibility will delay or discourage more-effective measures to enhance social welfare in those cases where profits and the public good are at odds,” and “in most cases, doing what’s best for society means sacrificing profits.” My greatest fear is that Luddite PR executives will grab this feature story and head into the corner office to tell the CEO that he/she should stand fast against the siren song of the stakeholder society, to continue to be an exclusive devotee of the magic power of markets.
I spoke this morning with three experts to get their views of the story: Matthew Bishop, author of “The Road from Ruin” and “Philanthrocapitalism,” also USA editor of the Economist; Rakesh Khurana, professor at Harvard Business School; and Steve Fludder, GE’s VP of Ecomagination. Here are their views.
Bishop told me that Karnani’s characterization of the world of business falling into two states, either perfectly aligned or not aligned with public interest, is utter fantasy. As he wrote in his blog post, “Markets and their relation to public interests are constantly evolving – and the actions of companies play a crucial role in whether they evolve in a direction that serves the public interest.” He told me that the best people will want to work for a company they believe in. “How can you win the battle for talent in a world where workers are increasingly choosy about the ethics and mission of the firm they work for?” He argues passionately that smart companies are focused on long term shareholder value, not short term earnings. “The current economic crisis was caused not least by endemic short-termism in capitalism.” He jokes at the end of his blog post, “Anything but capitalism red in tooth and claw is a perversion of the true faith.”
Khurana noted that the Karnani model “has no application to the rest of the world, beyond a mile square radius from the University of Chicago campus that housed Milton Friedman. In Europe or in China or in India, a company would not have the license to operate this way.” He added that there “is a group of persistent rationalizers who change the facts instead of changing their theory, offering old wine not even in new bottles.” He insisted that companies change tastes and evolve markets, “because vanguard firms capture the lead in business.” He sent me a brilliant white paper that he co-authored with Professor Rosabeth Kanter, titled “Advanced Leadership Note: An Institutional Perspective and Framework for Managing and Leading.” In this paper, the professors contend, “In addition to economic performance as determined by economic outcomes, organizational decisions are also judged by the criteria of legitimacy…A legitimate organization is one that is perceived as pursuing social acceptable goals in a socially acceptable manner….in some cases the social logic of values is linked to an economic logic of resource maximization, but in other cases these can be in tension, which means that effective societal outcomes cannot be left to the invisible hand of unregulated or unguided markets.”
Fludder (disclosure: a client) pointed out that GE is in the business to make money, “not for altruism.” He added, “We see this evolution as a market opportunity, but one that also serves society. These tough environmental challenges are addressable through technologies we can implement.” He suggested that companies attempt to shape the future, “leading by example….with innovative products….reinventing the category.” But Fludder provided great advice, “Try to influence the regulatory environment. Show the government through demonstration projects that you can remediate a problem.”
We are at a very important moment in the relationship between business and society. The catastrophic economic events of September 2008 undermined the confidence in the private sector’s ability to self-regulate. Bankruptcies of centerpiece companies in the global economy, such as GM, plus reputation issues for leaders in finance (Goldman Sachs), energy (BP) and transport (Toyota) have called into question the values of corporate leaders. In the race for public credibility, it is fortunate for business that its prime regulator, government, is not seen as a worthy replacement as the leader in the dance.
The role of the PR person is to advocate for a stakeholder approach, to engage with non-traditional partners (such as NGOs) and to enable solutions that serve private and public interests. Then the PR person should communicate differently by engaging employees first, being completely transparent on the timeline, reporting progress on corporate commitments, and not just communicating to consumers about responsibility and sustainability – but engaging with them to join the journey.
Here are four examples of client work:
GE spent considerable time engaging business unit leaders and initiating a new conversation internally among employees on Ecomagination before it went public. GE employees are now at the forefront of driving its commitment to address the world’s environmental challenges.
Clorox Brita’s FilterForGood campaign inspires consumers – and communities – to take a personal pledge and even engage in (planet) healthy competition with others to reduce their bottled-water use, as well as informs them about other environmentally-friendly decisions that each can personally make.
Unilever’s Omo Detergent adopted the “Dirt is Good” campaign - aligning with the brand’s business proposition by asserting that “every child has the right” to be a child and get dirty. After fielding new academic research highlighting the importance of outside play for the physical and social development of children and engaging parents, governments and NGOs to take action, the campaign triggered real social change – Vietnamese schools agree to assess national provisions for school recess while the brand commits to build 100 playgrounds over three years.
The Pepsi Refresh Project, partnering with NGOs and experts, is directly crowdsourcing ideas from consumers to foster innovation in social good – awarding more than $20 million this year to fund local community initiatives and ideas that refresh the world.
These companies demonstrate that contrary to Karnani’s assertion, the decision isn’t whether to run an effective, “smart” business or a socially responsible, engaged one. Performance with purpose (a term used by PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi) is not an either/or proposition.
Vacation Reveries
Fri, 20 Aug 2010
I have been out of the office for the past two weeks. The break was overdue—I was getting groggy in the afternoon, relying on a Diet Pepsi for energy to get through the day. I can always tell when it is time to go back to work. My right arm and back ache from too much tennis and I bounce out of bed at 7 am. Here are a few observations from my time off:
1) China Has a Superior Political System for Economic Growth—So said George Soros, bemoaning the dysfunction of the US Government, at a recent dinner in the Hamptons.
2) Raising Money for Charities Is Really Tough—I had a fundraiser for the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park program. It was like pulling teeth to get contributions.
3) Getting Money for Politicians is Impossible—I tried to interest friends in a fundraiser for a local Congressman. Voters are irritated about the lousy economy, concerned about impending tax increases, revile the health care bill as costly at a time of budget stress and think that government is too involved in the activities of business.
4) Rise of Private Label Products—Shopping at the local grocery store, it is impossible to overlook the increasing space taken up by store brands, especially in lower interest categories such as garbage bags.
5) Idealism of the Next Generation—Having seen a dozen Bowdoin volleyball players plus another dozen college students who are friends of my children, I see much less interest in a career on Wall Street and more desire to give back through Teach for America or other charitable options.
6) The Mosque at Ground Zero—I watched an advertisement last night for a gubernatorial candidate whom I have supported for years. It turned my stomach to see images of 9-11, then a clip of the candidate saying that the new mosque cannot be placed on hallowed ground. Politics is one thing, integrity is another. For the record, there are two other mosques four blocks and 12 blocks away from Ground Zero.
7) Spending Money Does Not Guarantee Success—My friend, Ned Lamont, ran in the Democratic primary for Governor. He spent a boat load, actually $9.5 million, mostly on TV ads. He opted not to debate his opponent because he was ahead in the polls by as much as 20 points; his advisors said he should not take the chance of a mistake. The newspapers then turned against him as ducking the discussion. Only 20% of the registered voters actually came to the polls, mostly union members or party regulars. He lost by 18 points. The lesson is to make your own decisions, as a client or a candidate, weighing the advice of experts.
8) Best Books and Movies—Books read on vacation include Constantine’s Sword on the relationship between Jews and the Catholic Church, Chris Hibbert’s The Borgias, David Fischer’s Champlain’s Dream about the father of New France in Canada. I started but gave up on The Brothers Karamazov. Best movies include Avatar, My Cousin Vinny, Ben Hur and the Alamo (directed by and starring John Wayne).
I live for these two weeks in August when I can pretend to be a teenager again. I go bodysurfing with my girls, ride my bike excessively with my new best buddy (John Allman, headmaster of Trinity School, who can fly on two wheels), eat blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream after a dinner of BBQ chicken and debate issues of the day with any who will have at it. Now it is time to go back to the real world—I am excited about Monday.
The Man Who Sold America
Thu, 12 Aug 2010
I am on vacation for this week and the next. My days include going to the grocery store, playing tennis, riding my bike, going to the beach with my kids and picking tomatoes. But above all, I love to sit on the back porch, reading books that will entertain and inform me. I have just finished The Man Who Sold America, a new biography of Albert Lasker, legendary advertising man, by Jeff Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz (former CEO of Foote, Cone & Belding, successor firm to Lord & Thomas, which was headed by Lasker).
The advertising business prior to Lasker “served mainly as intermediaries between advertisers and publishers….were little more than brokers of magazine and newspaper space….the more successful advertising firms had spheres of influence….J. Walter Thompson controlled space in the nation’s leading women’s magazines, NW Ayer controlled the agricultural publications.” The copy was secondary to “keeping the client’s name before the customer. Clients wrote the ads and even were kidding their own names, about the worst thing you can do, such as Armour’s Ham What Am. That was advertising: sloganizing.”
Lasker changed the essence of advertising to “salesmanship in print…advertisers had to give consumers a reason why they should buy their goods.” Here are some examples of campaigns that worked:
- Van Camp’s Evaporated Milk—Make the “scalded taste” a comparative advantage by asking consumers to look for the almond flavor, “turning vice to virtue”
- Schlitz Beer—Pure beer must be filtered then sterilized in the bottle, making it healthful. The Schlitz brewery in Milwaukee had plate glass windows to give visitors a clean view of the process
- Quaker Puffed Rice Cereal—Tag line was “Food Shot from a Gun”. The firm invented a personality, Professor Anderson, to explain the process as “personalities appeal, soulless companies don’t”
- Goodyear Tires—Moving the brand from “Straight-Cut” to “All Weather” allowed it to become the #1 in category
- Sunkist Oranges—A combined ad and PR campaign for Orange Week in Iowa in March, 1908, with fruit shipped in special bannered trains and ads touting “Oranges for Health, California for Wealth”, yielding a 50% jump in sales
- Kotex—Going direct to consumer with sanitary napkins was considered heresy. Lasker developed a “trained nurses recommend” campaign, then worked with the client to develop a plain white box with a blue ribbon that was available on store shelves without asking the pharmacist.
- Lucky Strike cigarettes—Lasker suggested that the client stop supporting its nearly 50 brands and concentrate spending on Luckies. He linked the “toasting” process of Luckies to “reduced acidity on the throat that “protected the voice.” He recruited Metropolitan Opera star sopranos to give advertising testimonials and did not even have to pay them—they just wanted the publicity associated with the endorsements. He later initiated a campaign that suggested a weight loss regimen via smoking, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”
Here are a few rules from Lasker’s agency that might prove useful to all of us. On the creative process, “no man is privileged to reject his own ideas, no matter how absurd…it is a healthy conflict where everybody attacks everybody’s work with no quarter given and no pride at stake.” On working at a firm, “Try to learn from everyone, high and low…he finally leads who first learns to serve….always think of the other fellow’s viewpoint and try to get him to think of yours…Believe in yourself and grow creatively every minute so that you will justify your belief.”
He had a rather limited view of public relations, perhaps shaped by his brief foray into the political campaign business, working against Upton Sinclair’s bid for Governor of California in 1934. Sinclair, a well known author and muckraker (The Jungle on the meat industry in 1906) frightened business with promises of higher taxes and communal industry. Lasker mobilized his agency, finding new ways to reach voters, including a series of radio soap operas such as The Bennetts, in which members of a middle class family worried about the effects of Sinclairism (no more church choir if atheist governor elected). The favorite billboard ad was a supposed quote from Sinclair (taken out of context), “If I am elected Governor, I expect one of the unemployed in the US will hop the first freights to California.” Phony newsreels were produced for the cinema, with “swarthy indigents from Eastern Europe endorsing Sinclair—‘Vell his system vorked vell in Russia, vy can’t it verk here?” Pamphlets were prepared “quoting all he had said against the Catholics, and another against the Jews, under the cover of ‘By His Own Words Shall Ye Know Him.” His motto on PR: a few simple ideas hammered home steadily.
Lasker retired from advertising in 1942, selling his clients to a start-up of three of his employees, Messrs. Foote, Cone and Belding. He spent his remaining ten years in philanthropy, giving generously to mental health, cancer and contraception. He persuaded the American Society for the Control of Cancer to change its name to the American Cancer Society. His mission was to “do something of significance.” That is a goal each of us can embrace.
A Moral Man
Tue, 03 Aug 2010
I had an hour long meeting this morning with Elie Wiesel -- professor at Boston University, Nobel Laureate, writer (57 books) and Holocaust survivor. Our firm is doing pro-bono work for the Prix Gallien, a world life sciences forum being held in New York City at the end of September. Professor Wiesel is involved with the event as a member of the organizing committee.
Here are my impressions of Wiesel. He is slight and of middling height, with a rumpled look befitting a man of letters. His office is modest, filled to the brim with books. On the darkened passageway en route to his office hang photos of Jewish life in Europe prior to the Holocaust, including one of an aged religious man, his face wrinkled, his arms full of Hebrew texts. He has a very firm handshake. He muses more than speaks. His observations are pointed and intended to provoke thought, not simply repartee.
Here are a few of his observations:
“The guilty feel innocent and the innocent feel guilty in today’s world.”
“An educator brings justice into the world.”
“Share what you know and what you feel, from joy to despair.”
“Does a 90 year old person have less of a right to live than an 18 year old (in discussion about access to end of life medical care versus cost to society)”
“We have seen worse” (describing his reaction to the midnight call from his financial advisor who told him that Bernard Madoff had lost all of Wiesel Foundation money
“Since we have to do it, we do it" (how the Wiesel Foundation gathered funds in the wake of the Madoff scandal in order to maintain its programming)
“Not even Madoff can bring shame to an entire community…it is wrong to condemn any group for the evil of one”
“There is tremendous progress in the sciences. Contrast that to the crisis in literature and philosophy. Where is the Tolstoy or Thomas Mann of this generation?”
“You can make more of a difference today in business than in politics.”
“We need leaders in the world who are courageous enough to stand up and raise their voices on important issues. And when they stand up, people will listen.”
As we were preparing to leave, he related a story about the opening of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. “I had stayed up all night. There were 36 heads of state represented. I would be meeting President Bill Clinton for the first time. I wrote a beautiful text to deliver. The building was spectacular. The only problem—the Museum staff had not counted on torrential rain. As President Clinton and I sat on stage, water was soaking our shoes. I was to go first, then introduce the President. I reached into my pocket for the speech and realized it was soaked and illegible. I decided it was best to improvise. I feel that I did well enough. Then President Clinton reached for his speech and had a perfectly clean text because his staff had provided a plastic sheath. I understood the value of a supporting cast at that moment! I am also proud to report that during my speech, I talked about my visit to Bosnia and how the USA had a responsibility to stop the genocide. At a later date, President Clinton told me that I was the one person who persuaded him to reconsider American involvement in that conflict.”
One man can make a difference in the world. Here is a quote from the introduction to his book, Night, which describes his experience in Auschwitz:
“Sometimes I am asked if I know the response to Auschwitz….I answer that not only do I not know it but that I don’t even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response. What I do know is that there is a response in responsibility.”
Redemption
Thu, 29 Jul 2010
On Monday, Edelman’s US operations moved onto a new Global Financial System (GFS). Four thousand separate transactions were recorded, from time sheets to expenses. Bills are scheduled to go out early next week to clients. A pretty boring blog post is in store, you might think. Well think again.
In 1998, in my second year as CEO, Edelman was growing quickly and becoming increasingly global. We recruited a new chief financial officer from a division of a Fortune 500 company. She concluded that our home-made financial reporting system based on spread sheets and manually produced bills was antiquated. Since we had PeopleSoft as a client in Silicon Valley we engaged them to install the financial backbone that would carry us into the 21st century. I was content with the salesperson’s pitch, promising immediate access to profitability by client, outstanding receivables by client, productivity of each operating unit. I went back to my day job, counseling clients, managing people, winning new business.
What I failed to recognize was that PeopleSoft hadn’t fully evolved from a human resources package. It needed a partner software vendor to offer a complete financial solution. That partner was a small Midwestern operation called Proamics, which “specialized” in professional services firms in law and accounting. Time and expenses were collected in Proamics, but the accounts payable interface from Peoplesoft to Proamics was so bad, out-of-pocket expenses couldn’t be billed. The Edelman financial team assured me that everything was going well in the test phase, so we shut down the legacy system and moved onto the new platform.
All seemed to be going well, as we sent out our bills to retainer clients. Then the system came up with bizarre bills for hourly clients, which the account teams rightly refused to approve. Within the month, it became obvious that the Proamics and PeopleSoft interface was flawed. We were a ship with a crippled rudder, unable to bill clients correctly and incapable of processing expenses. We could go neither backward to the legacy system nor forward to a dysfunctional new system.
In short order, I concluded that I had a full-blown, company-at-risk crisis at hand. I wrote down a list of action items, from finding a new CFO to bringing in programming assistance from our audit firm to meeting with our accounting staff to tell them we would have to go to manual processing of bills for a period of time to calling our bank to inform them that we would need to tap our credit line to notifying Proamics that they were in breach of contract to calling clients personally to tell them what was happening. I put a time line together and gave myself a deadline for each action.
So in order, I found a new CFO and fired the incumbent. We gave Deloitte sixty days to fix the system by disabling Proamics and enabling manual bill producing functionality. I called our account leaders twice a week to update them. Our internal financial team worked like Trojans to get bills out in consultation with the staff and clients (who were understanding and paid upon presentation of accurate bills). After running our credit line up from zero to several million, we stabilized the ship and paid it back over the course of the next twelve months. Nothing like a near-death experience to prepare you for running a company!
Fast forward a decade, with Edelman’s revenues more than $400 million and our PeopleSoft system now so obsolete that Oracle says it will no longer provide support for the version we have. We began the process of selecting a software vendor and implementing a new system. Hearing the presentations by the sales people, I heard, “This is going to be a piece of cake. It will take only six months to install. We have a full offering now. There will be no customization. Just talk to our customers who are so satisfied.” On and on the palaver was endless. We stayed with PeopleSoft.
This time I was a lot more cautious. We would not go live on the new system without a way to retreat (keep the old system on line just in case). We would test the system in a smaller unit than the massive US division—in Edelman Canada as it turned out. We would hire PWC as outside counsel from the start, with the senior partner reporting to me each month on progress. We would not have a specific budget nor commit to a timeline to complete the installation. The cake would be baked when it was ready, not a minute before.
So here is what happened. I was told it would take six to eight months to complete the work, then two months to test in Canada. In fact it took over a year and a half to customize the system, then a year of testing in Canada where it became clear that there were system processes that didn’t meet our needs. Here is one example: if one senior person disapproved time of a junior staffer, then the whole time sheet went back to the start, requiring re-approval by each senior person, holding up billing. The software consulting firm recommended by PeopleSoft was disappointing at best, with a constantly changing cast of temper-prone experts. Half way through the project, one of them told me to scrap the whole thing. Over time, we brought more of the expertise in-house. I spoke with account people in the Canadian office, went up to Toronto to see how it was being used and why certain executives just would not enter time. At Christmas, I had to make a decision about whether to delay the implementation four more months to install “bundles” of improvements which PeopleSoft programmers had made to the 9.0 version given customer complaints but enduring the higher consulting costs necessary (I opted for the safety of installing the bundles).
Here are the lessons for all of you considering a comparable voyage across the river into the unknown. Put yourself in a position to make informed decisions, not just to approve recommendations by your CFO or your outside accountant. Go into a test phase that is live production of bills and paychecks, not just a simulation. Take the financial estimates provided and double them—this is just like renovation of your home—it will take twice as long and cost twice as much. Make sure that you have a path out of the forest if the worst happens. Get personally involved with your account people, particularly the squeaky wheels who may overstate their complaints but will offer critical kernels of truth. I want to thank all of those at Edelman who have gone on this adventure for the past three years (Vic, Derek, Barb, John, Kristin, Paul, Anna and Gene) and our consultants at PWC. Dogged persistence and commitment to excellence is the Edelman way. And for me, getting a second chance as CEO to do it right has been a blessing.
Liespotting
Tue, 20 Jul 2010
Did you know that the average person is lied to 25-200 times per day? One study discovered that lies were detected in 37% of phone calls, 27% of face to face meetings, 21 percent of IM chats and 14% of emails. Liespotting, (on store shelves today) a book by Pam Meyer (disclosure: a friend) gives us a way to fight back.
Research indicates that Americans are particularly gullible because of a “truth bias—as a nation we grew up with the George Washington legend of saying that he never told a lie even though he chopped down the cherry tree.” Ms. Meyer told me that “deception is a cooperative act. A lie does not have power by its utterance, its power lies in someone agreeing to believe it. Self deception is where it starts—you are a lot less likely to be duped if you know yourself well.”
Who lies? Extroverted, unmarried men are the worst offenders. Unmarried people lie 70% more to their partners than married people and men tell eight times more lies than women. I can attest to one whopper. On my second date with my now wife, I proudly showed off my new apartment. I walked into the bedroom and to my horror, discovered that the bed was still not assembled. I lamely tried to explain that the cleaning lady had done this and got the retort, “Don’t ever lie to me.” I have lived in mortal terror of home spun spin ever since.
How to uncover a lie? If you are in person, Ms. Meyer advises the BASIC interview technique: Baseline Behavior (laugh, voice, posture or even looking you in the eye too often—people telling the truth only look you in the eye 60% of the time); Ask Open Ended Questions (if somebody repeats a question in full, this is stalling tactic); Study the Clusters (Non verbal clusters such as grooming gestures where even asymmetrical smiles or shrugs are telltale and verbal clusters such as short clipped answers); Intuit the Gaps (logic or behavior gaps); Confirmation (ask the same fact seeking questions repeatedly but in different ways). If you are not in person, use statement analysis, in particular overly specific or excessively formal language, to detect lies.
Why does this matter? The financial impact of deception is significant – from fraud in the workplace to undermining the firm’s fundamental license to operate during times of crisis, an estimated $994 billion a year cost to business. With the number of platforms used to communicate, the opportunity for lying has expanded geometrically.
Ms. Meyer is a technology entrepreneur and has used many PR firms over the years, including Edelman. She said, “Trust accelerates business while deception gums up the gears.” PR pros need to advance transparency – being committed to openly communicating results, failures and successes alike. We must push for the truth-- to cross check what clients are telling us. We should avoid hype which corrodes belief and hinders ability to recover in tough times.
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