Century XXI Business Relationship Rules II

Last night, 60 Minutes broadcast a segment recounting the story of Darleen Druyun, an Air Force official in charge of purchasing airplanes and missiles. Druyun wrote up to $30 billion a year in orders from major aircraft manufacturers, including Boeing. Been doing it for 10 years, tough as nails, earning her the affectionate (!) nickname of "The Dragon Lady." Then, one day, using software parlance, she apparently just, "flipped a bit." You know, one day she was her old, aggressive, government-protecting, Dragon Lady self, and the next day...

Druyun called Michael Sears, the chief financial officer at Boeing, and asked him to arrange a job for her daughter’s fiancé, Michael McKee. Boeing set up the job right away. (From transcript of 60 Minutes broadcast)

Wow! One big flipped bit, there. But hey, once it's flipped...

And then, three months later, with the contract still on the table, Druyun asked for a job for her daughter, Heather. Boeing again complied. Ibid.

But, here's the kicker...

You might be surprised that under Pentagon rules, that’s not illegal. Ibid.

OK. So, here's this Petagon paragon whose integrity (we're asked to believe) has never given anyone the slightest cause for alarm, who one day decides that her future son-in-law and daughter need jobs, from a contractor with whom she's negotiating a multi-b-b-b-billion dollar contract.

But, it's OK because this is not illegal under current rules.

And then (it gets better/worse) she has her daughter inform senior Boeing executives that she'll soon be retiring from the Air Force and would be looking for a job.

In the midst of the tanker negotiations, Druyun’s daughter, Heather, Emailed Boeing's Mike Sears and revealed that her mother was retiring from the Air Force. Now, Druyun herself was looking for a job, one that Heather told Sears "must be challenging, tough, lots of responsibility.” … “She is very interested in talking to us, but we would have to give her something that would blow her out of the water.” … “She also mentioned that Boeing has her most admired quality: honest values.” Ibid

Honest values??

Now my head's spinnin'. So, she takes the job, ($250,000 salary, $50,000 signing bonus) and then people start thinking maybe something's fishy!? So they go after her, she confesses, the Boeing CFO resigns and confesses, the Boeing CEO resigns while Senators and Secretary Rumsfeld shake their heads ("adult supevision?" is he nuts, or what?) and cluck their tongues.

There's so much wrong here, it's hard to know where to start, isn't it? But, let's just focus on a couple of things.

Please don't insult our intelligence and tell us this is the first time anything like this has even happened in this woman's career. A month or so ago, I wrote a post about the consequences of routinely facing great temptations. Here's a snippet;

Simply put: the rewards of "cheating" are now so great, "playing fair" seems impossible for many of us. I don't believe it's because they are "morally inferior" human beings. I believe it's because we're creating a world that is increasingly difficult for "morally average" human beings to navigate.

That's why we put checks and balances into systems: not because we don't trust the individuals we put in those systems to do the right thing, but because we know anybody will do something wrong eventually if you keep placing them in situations that make it too easy to do so. I know that may not be a popular notion, yet I think history shows us that it isn't just the chronic criminals who yield to temptations, but that anyone can.

Dollars to fortune cookies, when the rocks start getting lifted, we find that the Dragon Lady has been cutting corners of all kinds for years, progressively getting away with more and more "legal" shenanigans, until losing all sense of reality and jumping into this current swamp.

And we'll also find that lots of people knew about her behavior for years, and said nothing because the Dragon Lady was "bulletproof."

How many of these do we have to see before we start recognizing the pattern prospectively instead of retrospectively? There have to be ways to get people to tell the truth about important matters in group settings. We cannot afford to keep making the same kinds of mistakes over and over again. How can we make progress on this?

Next: what does this scandal do to reset the rule set?

Comments

[Connie Sartain]

I would assume she had tacit okay to behave as she pleased all along(and no doubt as Rumsfeld does) and one day just pissed off a key person or someone who wanted her job, or they decided it was time for her to go, so they pulled the plug. The pentagon probably gave her the option of going quietly and she didn't. Is she blowing the whistle on anyone or perhaps the system yet? Or is she "loyally" "taking it like a trooper?"

[Tom Guarriello]

Well, the "60 Minutes" segment painted the picture of a bureaucrat who disdained the politico bosses who came and went. They actually never really pulled the plug on her: she quit, and her going to Boeing was just so blatantly fishy that the press picked it up and off they went.

Don't know if she's "naming names," but, somehow I doubt it.