Earlier today, a colleague sent me the link to this very funny youtube video, showing Greg Karber's commitment to 'readjust' the Abercrombie & Fitch brand.
His efforts were spurred primarily by remarks made by A&F's CEO, Mark Jeffries, in an interview in 2006. Among these remarks, "…we go after the cool kids…a lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong." and "Are we exclusionary? Absolutely." Then I noticed that one of the most viewed posts on Forbes today, by Davia Temin, focused on the same topic.
Now the whole thing has gone viral: the little video above has over 5,000,000 views and counting, and if you google "Abercrombie & Fitch" "news" you can see the uproar this has created. I would venture to say that this single, 7-year-old interview is in the process of creating a hole that Mike Jeffries and his team may never be able to dig their way out of.
Which leads me to a line that a friend of mine, Scott Cronin, used to use in group sessions when someone was doing something obvious to everyone and not-cool. For instance, if the group had agreed to turn off their electronics and one guy was tapping away on his device, Scott would walk over to him and say, "You know we can see you, right?" Everybody would laugh (including the offender), because we all know that feeling of incredulity when someone does something inappropriate in public as though no one will notice.
CEOs and other senior executives forget this at their peril. If you're a senior executive in any organization, everything you do and say reflects on your company. I'm not kidding. Unless you're locked alone in your bedroom, and you're sure that no one can see or hear you, you need to recognize that anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion.
Now, you can go one of two directions with this understanding. You can get resentful and paranoid, not be honest with anyone, and curse the day you were put in this position. You can - but I don't recommend it. It won't be any fun, and it won't work - you may not be seen as having major foot-in-mouth disease, but you will be seen as resentful, paranoid and dishonest. Which won't help you or your company.
Instead, you can use this simple you-live-in-a-glass-house fact of leadership as an opportunity to reflect: to consider your most deeply-held values; to clarify how your business could operate so as to serve its customers, grow profitably, and be a good citizen of the larger community all at the same time. You can talk with the other executives in your company to make sure you're all on the same page and that your philosophy is being being acted upon consistently throughout the company. Then, when you speak, you can speak from that understanding.
And if you do that consistently, you'll build a great reputation for yourself and your company, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you're an authentic and high-integrity human being. And then, the fact that we can see you won't be a problem.
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Check out Erika Andersen’s latest book, Leading So People Will Follow, and discover how to be a followable leader. Booklist called it “a book to read more than once and to consult many times.”
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