Rodney Johnson - Without Warning

It’s been a year since my book Without Warning first came off the presses. Since then, the incidences and case study possibilities relating to what I refer to as Silent Problems (problems that are being avoided, neglected, going unnoticed or are being intentionally silenced) seems to be growing exponentially. And the stories I’m referring to are front page news. Maybe that isn’t all that surprising due to the explosive nature of silent problems when they do finally become visible - Without Warning.

Over the past couple of weeks, news items that would fall under the umbrella of being a silent problem are worth noting. Here are just a few of the high profile cases.

1. Porn at the SEC: One would think that the Federal Governement would have an effective I.T. strategy in place to prevent the viewing of porn while at work or with government owned computer equipment. Well, the SEC proved us wrong and received another black eye for incompetence. The Washington Post states, “Dozens of Securities and Exchange Commission staff members used government computers in the past five years to access and download pornographic images, according to a summary prepared by the agency’s watchdog.”
2. Goldman Sachs on Winning: Goldman was considered the investment banking firm you could trust. Well, all of that has changed over the past 6-months or so, and its going to get even more complicated as Goldman e-mails show how crash turned into cash.
3. Ratings Agencies Exposed: I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the ratings agencies also have some dirty laundry now being exposed. From the Financial Times article, Rating Agencies’ Nixon Moment, “As one Moody’s managing director wrote to his superiors in 2007, the company’s errors, made it look “either incompetent at credit analysis, or like we sold our soul to the devil for revenue, or a little bit of both…” “Jason is looking into some adjustments to his methodology that should be a benefit to your folks,” wrote a Moody’s employee to a Chase banker.The bankers seemed fully aware of the competitive pressures the rating agencies faced - and they knew how to game them.”"E-mail from Moody’s chief risk officer to Raymond McDaniel, CEO, October 2007 - ‘[N]o body gives a straight answer about anything around here . . . how about we come out with new [criteria] or a new stress and actually have clear cut parameters on what the hell we are supposed to do.”

The list could go on including stories about the Catholic Church, Toyota and others. However the storyline is the same. A problem is avoided because it is too costly, potentially too damaging or simply too time consuming to solve. Over time, the problem grosw in size and magnitude, and jumping off the treadmill is too costly. And just like a volcano, when it blows the impact is devastating, extremely disruptive and costly. Such is the case of silent problems in the real world.

Keith Wendell, the new CEO at Harley Davidson puts it in perspective when talking about the tough decisions he had to make at the firm. “There is not one of us who wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Wow, this is another opportunity to ruin someone’s life,’ ” Wandell said. “. . .  But you cannot turn your head and look the other way when there are issues that are going to ruin the company. I wish we could be totally clear about that.”