An Open Letter to Timothy Ryan, PwC’s US Chairman Re: Oscars and Trust
Mr. Ryan,
Some days as Chairman must be fun. Others, like the Oscars the other night – not so much.
I recognize you, in fact, know a lot about trust. There are probably particular circumstances that make the Oscar boo-boo a unique event. You may also have taken some steps like those I suggest below.
But this is such a teachable moment for the area of trust recovery that I hope you’ll forgive my suggesting Three Steps that someone in your position should consider – on principle – taking.
Step One. Offer to resign the Academy account. Do so unreservedly and genuinely.
- If they accept your resignation (they probably won’t), it looks better than being fired; and hey, it did happen.
- If they reject your resignation, you will look gracious. (And why should they let you resign – look at all they just invested in training you!)
Step Two. Tell the Academy precisely what went wrong, and precisely what you’re going to do to ensure nothing of that type, flavor or category will ever happen again.
- Then fund somebody to start writing a paper on what implications this event has for improving audit industry practices at large.
Step Three. If anyone dares to suggest firing the poor gentleman at the heart of this most unfortunate event, tell them what the Academy will hopefully tell you: “Why would we ever let go someone in whom we just invested so much in training?” He just became one of your most valuable future cautionary story-tellers.
One of the many paradoxes about trust is that trust recovered can often end up stronger than trust unchallenged.
I’m rooting for you.