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July 12, 2007
Hero takes a fall
"To live outside the law you must be honest."
-- Bob Dylan
Consider some of the more famous rebels in recent time: Marlon Brando, Pablo Picasso, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul Newman, or even Herb Kelleher.
Their genius has been to create their own paths against the grain of common expectations. They defied convention because their vision was powerful enough to illuminate new paths for the rest of us to follow.
Not everything they tried was successful but on the balance, they've come out ahead.
One thing we can always rely on from our iconic rebels is intellectual honesty. To them, truth is absolute, even if it isn't always comfortable or convenient. The iconic rebels stay true to truth.
That's why Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey, in my book, was knocked off the rebel ladder today when the WSJ revealed that he'd spent eight years hiding behind an online facade astroturfing his company. Posing as just an everyday investor on the Yahoo Finance message board for Whole Foods, he cheered his company's financial results. He demonized the competition. Using his alias, he even astroturfed himself, defending criticism of his haircut.
I'm just as insecure as the next guy, but I'm not the CEO of a publicly traded company and responsible for the livelihoods of 40,000 employees. That's why it's inconceivable that someone who fights off the wolves of Wall Street every quarter would resort to hiding behind an online mask. It may say more about his character than his wordy attempts to shift blame. A true rebel would confront his own worst fears head-on. Honestly.
Right?
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There is so much crap that comes across my desk, virtual or otherwise I dont know where to start. Why not a posting concerning the truth, from the great Church of the Customer blog. Im sure there is a lesson in this posting for some of ... [Read More]
did his online "masked" comments support or contradict his public "CEO" statements? i can only assume he was echoing what he said publicly, hopefully trying to generate momentum and enthusiasm behind the statements.
While not noble or ethical, i can imagine he "hid" because would anybody believe him if he went out to the Yahoo! message boards and posted as himself, the CEO of Whole Foods. i'm sure the web sceptics would try to rip him apart and discredit all his postings. the board would ignore his message and focus on who he really is. perhaps the "mask" was a convenient way to skip all the unnecessary conflict around proving his identity.
He hid in order to spread false rumors about a company he wanted to buy. His goal was to drive the price down, plain and simple. There's no good way to spin that. By his actions, Mackey seems perfectly willing to screw the other guy over for his own benefit. This goes against everything Whole Foods said it stood for.
He should resign.
You were right to focus on the truth here.
Rebels -- and good bloggers -- are wrong sometimes and they face up to it honestly.
This behavior was dishonest. Nobody who behaves this way deserves respect.
He's gonna get flamed and, I bet, knocked out of his company for this.
A lesson here for corporate bloggers everywhere . . .
To ddv- you have a point. However, Mackey would not have needed to divulge that he was the CEO of Whole Foods. Simply disclosing that he worked for the company would have been, IMO, enough to provide for the transparency that he vaunts on his corporate blog. I'm deeply disappointed in Mackey.
I think you should have him read your transparency policy
Right. Right on all counts.
So right it's hard to understand why this would happen in a public company. But, as Chris Berman would say, "that's why they play the game."
This guy's not a rebel -- he's a rule breaker. There's a big difference. One bravely sets a new course while the other just lies.
I posted on this when I saw it on the news crawl and still get a chuckle out of it.
Quite, quite extraordinary for a senior officer - the senior officer - in a public company to act like this. Sounds like it became something of a compulsion, though - I can't believe that he wasn't aware of the inappropriateness and dangers of what he was doing.
Just stumbled upon your blog via other discussions of this issue, by the way. Great read!
Thank you Ben. Yet another good and timely post. You are taking a reasonable point-of-view on this revelation about Mr. Mackey. He was, in essence using the blog to "market" his company and himself. As one involved in this type of marketing activity...he would have served himself (and other interested parties) well to observe the WOMMA "Honesty ROI":
Honesty of Relationship: You say who you're speaking for.
Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe.
Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity.
Enough said.
Thank you Ben for this thoughtful post, which I found via Marketing Profs and CK. Mackey's behavior reminds me of topic of the week here in Washington - the increased scrutiny that politicians who talk family values deservedly invite when they hire hookers. It's bad enough to be a fake voice online -- it's even worse when you project an absolutely antithetical position publicly. Authenticity sure seems in short supply these days. (For more on that topic, see Mark over at Sea Change -- http://seachangestrategies.com/blog/2007/07/16/getting-real-a-blog-carnival-on-authenticity/ )
