4. Speed, Focus, and the First Mover Advantage

It was to be the most important meeting of the year for McDonald’s Corporation. More than 12,000 people who ran 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries were assembling in Orlando, Florida, to hear from the chief executive officer about the company’s new strategy.

James Cantalupo, 60, had been brought back from retirement to preside over a strategic repositioning of the company. McDonald’s, once an icon of American business, had struggled in recent years as customers complained about service and cleanliness, and health activists criticized the company’s food and marketing for contributing to the United States’ obesity problem.

Mr. Cantalupo took the helm at the end of 2002 and launched a strategy to change the company. He overhauled the menu to include alternatives to fried foods and sugary drinks. He added grilled chicken, salads, and healthier drinks to the McDonald’s menu. He discontinued “supersize” portions.

When Mr. Cantalupo took over, the company’s stock was just over $15 per share, and it reported its first quarterly loss since it had become a publicly traded company 38 years earlier. But the next quarter, as the new strategy and menu were rolled out, same store sales jumped nearly 5 percent, the largest sales increase in five years. Same-store sales continued to rise for 11 consecutive months. The company ended the year with a fourth-quarter profit of nearly $126 million, compared to a loss of $343 million in the year-earlier quarter. And in the year just before the Orlando meeting, the stock price of McDonald’s doubled, closing at just under $30 in the last trading session before the meeting.

By late April 2004, the people who owned and operated McDonald’s restaurants were assembling in Orlando for their every-other-year meeting with the company’s leadership team. It was to be their first meeting presided over by Mr. Cantalupo, the first since the new strategy was launched. And as the meeting opened on Monday, April 19, they were eager to hear a progress update from Mr. Cantalupo and his team.

But Mr. Cantalupo never took the stage. He had died overnight, apparently of a heart attack. Paramedics were called to Mr. Cantalupo’s hotel just after 3 AM. He died in an ambulance en route to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:53 AM. Sheriff’s deputies reported finding heart medication in the hotel room. The medical examiner said that the death was “probably cardiac related.”

McDonald’s announced Mr. Cantalupo’s passing in a press release at 8:07 AM.¹ The financial markets reacted quickly, with analysts warning investors to sell McDonald’s stock. They noted that the company’s new strategy was still being rolled out, and without a clear successor it was not certain whether the strategy would be continued.

Some pundits on financial television programs noted the irony of Mr. Cantalupo’s apparent cause of death—heart attack—and the criticism McDonald’s received for promoting unhealthy food.

The risks to McDonald’s were significant. The convergence of thousands of the company’s most important stakeholders in one place at the very moment the CEO died was an unusual circumstance to begin with. The passing of the architect of the new strategy also put the company at risk of strategic drift. Operators of the restaurants came to the meeting expecting both an update on the strategy so far and clear guidance about the game plan for the rest of the year.

But by the time the New York Stock Exchange opened at 9:30 AM, the McDonald’s board of directors had already met. Several directors were already in Orlando for the meeting with restaurant operators. They convened a board meeting, with other directors attending via telephone conference call. By 9:30 that morning they had selected Mr. Cantalupo’s successor, Chief Operating Officer Charlie Bell. They announced his appointment as CEO at 10:42 AM.²

Mr. Bell took the stage in Orlando, and after an appropriate acknowledgment of his predecessor’s passing, delivered the presentation Mr. Cantalupo would have given. The McDonald’s strategy was affirmed. The audience responded well. The company went on to have a very successful 2004. And Mr. Cantalupo’s menu remains in place today.

The speed with which McDonald’s took action was uncharacteristic of many companies. But that speed allowed it to keep its most important stakeholders—the men and women who run its restaurants—focused on its strategy and committed to making the strategy work.

McDonald’s was able to move quickly for a number of reasons, but primarily because of Mr. Cantalupo’s wisdom in establishing a succession plan for himself with the board. Although he had expected to serve for several more years, he had already completed his succession process when he died, and his successor had already been provisionally approved by the board. When he died, the board was faced simply with the task of formally ratifying the work it had already done. The board met immediately on hearing the news, and announced the new CEO as promptly as possible after making its decision.

McDonald’s received widespread praise for its ability to name and announce a new CEO so quickly. The Wall Street Journal said,

The swift decision gave immediate reassurance to employees, franchisees and investors that the fast-food giant has a knowledgeable leader in place who can provide continuity and carry out the company’s strategies. It may also shift any spotlight away from McDonald’s high-cholesterol, fat-rich foods and prove a savvy public-relations move.³

It noted that most companies are unprepared to name a new CEO, and have at best only a plan for an interim leader, what the paper called a “bus-crash envelope”—an envelope to be opened in the event the CEO gets hit by a bus or otherwise dies suddenly.

Jack Welch, retired chief executive officer at General Electric, told the Wall Street Journal, “If there’s someone capable who can take over permanently, it’s best to name that person quickly. But boards who haven’t groomed someone for the job yet shouldn’t make a call for the sake of making a call.”⁴ He noted that his own board would have been able to name a successor within an hour if he had been suddenly unable to serve.

The ability of McDonald’s to move quickly was also noted by governance experts. Jay Lorsch, a professor at Harvard Business School, told the Wall Street Journal, “The speed with which they’ve moved is exactly what you would expect to happen, but few companies are as prepared as McDonald’s appears to have been for this calamity.”⁵ And Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an associate dean at Yale University School of Management, told the Wall Street Journal, “The worst-case scenario planning of most companies is only a Band-Aid transitional solution, not a strategic solution. McDonald’s directors, by immediately naming a battle-tested insider, showed the wisdom of having a succession plan in place.”⁶

Six months after Mr. Bell succeeded Mr. Cantalupo, McDonald’s again faced a succession challenge. Mr. Bell, seemingly in good health at the time of his appointment, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer two weeks later. By late November Mr. Bell handed the reins to his own successor, James Skinner, a 33-year veteran of the company. Mr. Skinner committed to continue Mr. Bell’s and Mr. Cantalupo’s strategy. The markets were heartened by that news. The New York Times declared in a headline: “Change at Helm, but a Steady Course at McDonald’s.”⁷

The McDonald’s board recognized the importance of moving quickly to demonstrate steady leadership at the top, especially as the company was transforming its operations. It took the responsible steps to be able to reassure stakeholders in a moment of sudden concern. And it engaged stakeholders promptly: in the case of the Orlando meeting, telling the 12,000 owners and operators the news, and in the case of the second succession announcement, in a matter-of-fact manner when Mr. Bell’s decision to step aside was made.

Speed isn’t just acting quickly. Impulsive communication—such as BP CEO Tony Hayward’s “I want my life back” quote—is counterproductive. Rather, speed is best understood as tempo: the consistent ability to be effective in a timely way. As with McDonald’s, it’s about more than just talking. It’s about acting effectively and engaging stakeholders promptly.

The consistent ability to act and engage stakeholders quickly and effectively creates a competitive advantage in the best of times. But it is in the worst of times that tempo matters most: it can prevent a negative event from becoming a tragedy, or worse. It is precisely in high-stakes situations that stakeholders, critics, and adversaries look for leadership in the form of effective engagement.

The Second Battle of Fallujah

The United States Marines were fighting the Second Battle of Fallujah, a major city in the heart of Iraq’s Anbar Province in the so-called Sunni triangle. It was one of the fiercest battles of the war, the fiercest of many recent wars. It was urban warfare at its bloodiest—a block-by-block, house-by-house, room-by-room infantry battle that has been compared to the World War II Battle of Stalingrad.

In the middle of the battle, an incident occurred that had the potential to become a defining atrocity of the Iraq War. It was November 13, 2004, about 18 months after the United States invaded the country, more than a year after a full-bore insurgency arose, and 6 months after evidence of U.S. abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib had provoked outrage in Iraq, the region, the U.S., and the rest of the world.

During the battle, a unit of Marines fought insurgents who were using a Sunni mosque as their base of operations. They killed ten of the insurgents and wounded another five. The Marines could not evacuate the prisoners because the battle was raging around them. So they sheltered the prisoners in place, treated their wounds, secured them, and moved on to continue fighting. When another unit of Marines entered the mosque later in the battle, they had a brief skirmish with the five wounded prisoners, further wounding some of them.

Kevin Sites, a freelance journalist on assignment for NBC News, was embedded with that unit of Marines. He was simultaneously serving as a pool cameraman, feeding his video to all other news organizations, a common practice for combat journalists. As the Marines entered the mosque, Sites videotaped a violent encounter between one of the Marines and one of the wounded prisoners, who was lying prone on the floor. The Marine, clearly agitated and cursing, shot and killed the prisoner. It looked like an execution. And it was on tape.

Executing a wounded prisoner, especially one lying prone, on sacred ground, could easily be seen as an atrocity, immediately interpreted as a crime. And as a violation of the Law of Armed Conflict, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and the Marines’ own rules of engagement. And coming on the heels of wall-to-wall coverage of the U.S. military’s abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, this also had the potential to create a global media feeding frenzy. And it was sure to be a local outrage, a sign not only of brutality but of disrespect for religion in general, for Islam in particular, and especially for the Sunni branch of Islam.

Speed matters, especially in controversial situations. The longer it takes to fulfill legitimate stakeholder expectations, the harder it is to win, maintain, or restore trust.

The Administration had played defense during the Abu Ghraib controversy six months earlier. And it hadn’t worked.

In the Second Battle of Fallujah the Marines chose to play offense.

The first mover advantage applies particularly in crisis situations. Whoever is first to define the crisis, the motives, and the next steps typically wins. And whenever there’s a victim, the single biggest predictor of reputational harm is the perception of indifference. Silence—or delay in engaging stakeholders as a crisis unfolds—creates that perception of indifference, inviting critics, stakeholders, and other audiences to paint a leader or institution as uncaring. And anything that smells of coverup is even worse, leading critics to leap beyond indifference to attribute legal or ethical lapse, guilt, or intentionality in causing harm.

But for the first mover advantage to work, speed is essential. Speed isn’t just rapidity of action. The leadership discipline isn’t just to say things quickly in a given instance. Rather, it’s a predisposition to make sound decisions quickly and communicate them effectively. The Marines call it tempo—the consistent ability to operate quickly.

In maintaining public support in a crisis, the consistent ability to operate quickly becomes a distinctive competitive advantage. And for the Marines in the wake of the Fallujah mosque shooting, tempo made the difference. Their predisposition to operate quickly and for seizing the initiative allowed the Marines to manage the aftermath effectively and protect the Marine Corps’ reputation and American interests in the region. They also had focus: All elements of the Marine Corps involved in communicating the aftermath of the shooting were well coordinated, consistent, and mutually reinforcing.

The Marines Act on the Fallujah Shooting

The Marine chain of command in Washington learned of the shooting early on November 15, Washington, D.C., time. Within a few hours the Marines made tough decisions, including these:

• They launched an investigation into what happened and why, to be conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), an independent law enforcement agency under control of the Secretary of the Navy.

• They removed the Marine involved in the shooting from the battlefield.

• They made a public announcement in the name of the top Marine, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, announcing the investigation and affirming the Marines’ commitment to the Law of Armed Conflict.

• The Marine commander in Fallujah conducted a press conference, both describing the investigation and affirming commitment to the Law of Armed Conflict.

• They returned the videotape of the incident, which had been temporarily confiscated by the Marines in Fallujah, to the cameraman, Kevin Sites. They also provided facilities for the immediate broadcast of the video.

The Commandant’s statement read, in part:

[The Marine Corps] is investigating an allegation of the unlawful use of force in the death of an enemy combatant. The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether the Marine acted in self-defense, violated military law, or failed to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict. The Marine has been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of the investigation.⁸

Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Fallujah, echoed the Commandant in his discussion with the media:

Let me make it perfectly clear: We follow the Law of Armed Conflict and we hold ourselves accountable to a high standard of accountability. The facts of this case will be thoroughly pursued to make an informed decision and to protect the rights of all persons involved.⁹

These all seem like common-sense steps to take in the immediate aftermath of a suspicious shooting. And they are. They represent foreseeable expectations of reasonable stakeholders.

But a delay taking and communicating those steps could have deprived the Marines of the first mover advantage. The NBC cameraman could have spoken with other reporters; the rumor mill would have begun, and in the course of the rumors spreading, the incident would likely have been exaggerated (especially in the absence of the tape) into something much worse. The news media would likely have reported the exaggerated rumors plus the apparent coverup due to the confiscation of the tape. It could easily have been reported as a massacre, most likely of more than a single prisoner. The tape confiscation could easily have been transformed into having taken the cameraman into custody. The coverage would have been severe, widespread, and sustained.

Crisis managers speak of the Golden Hour of Crisis Response. It’s based on a principle first observed in emergency medicine and now accepted in high-stakes communication as well: Incremental delays in fielding an appropriate response have a greater than incremental effect on the outcome. This is the basis of the principle of disproportionality described in Chapter 5, “Initiative, Maneuver, and Disproportionality.”

So what was the effect of the Marines’ rapid action and communication?

That night there was minimal coverage in the U.S. media. Television networks aired brief segments about the investigation, using a still photograph from the video, but didn’t air the video itself. And the content of the stories wasn’t the shooting, but the investigation. There was minimal follow-up coverage in the next few days.

In other words, by taking effective action early and communicating what they had done, the Marines made the story a lot less newsworthy. An investigation of a single shooting isn’t nearly as interesting as a massacre and coverup.

Six months later the investigation was concluded and the Marine was exonerated. The investigation, based on a review of the tape, forensic evidence, and interviews with witnesses, concluded that the Marine genuinely feared that the prisoner was about to harm him and his fellow Marines, by either detonating a bomb or shooting at the Marines. The Marine’s actions were in response to a legitimate threat, and therefore completely consistent with the rules of engagement, U.S. law, and the Law of Armed Conflict. The Marines announced the result of the investigation, but it got very little press coverage—not a surprise, since the event itself got so little coverage in the first place. But the Marines’ reputation and U.S. national interests remained intact.

In publicly communicating in the aftermath of the mosque shooting, the Marines showed a capacity to operate quickly: to fulfill the appropriate expectations of stakeholders before the media had defined the shooting. The Marines themselves defined the crisis, their motives, and their actions. They also showed focus, aligning all communication up and down the chain of command.

Contrast the Marines’ handling of the Fallujah mosque shooting with the Pentagon’s and Administration’s handling of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison.

Abu Ghraib and Loss of the First Mover Advantage

Abu Ghraib prison had become notorious during Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s reign—known in Baghdad as Saddam’s torture chamber. In 2004 it became notorious for other reasons.

The United States had invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, and by mid-April had taken Baghdad and sent Saddam Hussein into hiding. In May the U.S. appointed Ambassador Paul Bremer as director of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority, effectively naming him governor general of Iraq. Ambassador Bremer then set about establishing a working government. In September he proclaimed that Iraq was free of many of the scourges of the Saddam era:

The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don’t have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over.¹⁰

It turned out to be wishful thinking.

At about the same time, the U.S. had begun to repopulate Abu Ghraib prison. Some prisoners were suspected terrorists, insurgents, and allies of Saddam Hussein. Some were common criminals. Others were simply swept up in raids, or turned in by their private enemies.

Soon after Ambassador Bremer reassured the Iraqis, members of the 800th Military Police Brigade, guarding prisoners at Abu Ghraib, began taking souvenir photographs of themselves mistreating prisoners, including sexual humiliation and assault. The abuse continued into October, when an inspection by the International Committee of the Red Cross uncovered the abuse, which was then brought to the attention of the United States government.

In early January 2004, a soldier with the 372nd Military Police Company, on duty at Abu Ghraib, reported both the abuse and the existence of photographic evidence to his chain of command. That month the U.S. military began a formal investigation, led by U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba. On January 21, CNN reported on the start of the investigation:

Sources have revealed new details from the Army’s criminal investigation into reports of abuse of Iraqi detainees, including the location of the suspected crimes and evidence that is being sought. U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners, a Pentagon official told CNN on Tuesday.¹¹

All the while, President Bush and others in the U.S. government continued to differentiate between U.S. occupation of Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s tenure. On January 12, President Bush had told a group at an international meeting in Mexico, “One thing is for certain [in Iraq]: There won’t be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms.”¹² On February 4, President Bush said that Saddam Hussein, since captured by the U.S. military, “now sits in a prison cell, and Iraqi men and women are no longer carried to torture chambers and rape rooms.”¹³

As the investigation proceeded, key personnel in command of the prison were suspended, including Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade.

In early March 2004, General Taguba submitted his report.¹⁴ As a result, formal criminal charges were filed against 6 military police personnel, and 17 other soldiers were disciplined.

General Taguba’s report included the following conclusions:

That between October and December 23, at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated.... These allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.¹⁵

The photographic evidence consisted of the souvenir photos and videos taken by the prison guards. The report documented numerous instances of intentional abuse, including the following:¹⁶

• Punching, slapping, kicking, jumping on their naked feet

• Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees

• Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing

• Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time

• Forcing male detainees to wear women’s underwear

• Forcing male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped

• Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and jumping on them

• Positioning a naked detainee on a [Meals Ready to Eat] Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture

• Writing “I am a Rapist” on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year-old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked

• Pouring cold water on naked detainees

• Having sex with a female detainee

• Using military working dogs without muzzles to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee

• Threatening male detainees with rape

• Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick

The report was presented by General Taguba through his chain of command. But it was not initially released to the public. On March 19, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told CBS’s The Morning Show, “There are no more rape rooms and torture chambers in Iraq.”¹⁷

The next morning Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Coalition Operations in Iraq, told a press briefing:

As you know, on 14 January 2004, a criminal investigation was initiated to examine allegations of detainee abuse at the Baghdad confinement facility at Abu Ghraib. Shortly thereafter, the commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force Seven requested a separate administrative investigation into systemic issues such as command policies and internal procedures related to detention operations. That administrative investigation is complete; however, the findings and recommendations have not been approved. As a result of the criminal investigation, six military personnel have been charged with criminal offenses to include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts with another.¹⁸

On April 15, a month after General Taguba submitted his report, President Bush told an audience in Iowa,

Our military is doing incredibly good work. They’ve been given a hard job. They’ve been given a tough job, and they’re performing brilliantly. See, the transition from torture chambers and rape rooms and mass graves and fear of authority is a tough transition. And they’re doing the good work of keeping this country stabilized as a political process unfolds.¹⁹

Both CBS News and reporter Seymour Hirsch at The New Yorker had acquired the photographs of guards abusing prisoners, and the text of the Taguba report, and had begun putting together stories about the Abu Ghraib abuses. CBS was ready to air its program on April 15, but it delayed the broadcast at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Air Force General Richard Myers. CBS delayed the broadcast the following week as well, again at General Myers’ request. But on April 28, CBS concluded that The New Yorker would publish its article with the photographs within a matter of days, and told the Pentagon that it would go ahead with its broadcast, on CBS’s 60 Minutes II.

The morning that CBS was scheduled to air its program, the U.S. military attempted to establish a first mover advantage. It did so in the form of a briefing for the media at the Pentagon:

As you remember, in January it was announced that a criminal investigation was initiated to examine allegations of detainee abuse at the Baghdad confinement facility at Abu Ghraib. The Criminal Investigation Division investigation began when an American soldier reported and turned over evidence of criminal activity to include photographs of detainee abuse. CBS television has acquired these images and may show some of the evidence tonight on 60 Minutes II.... Shortly after the criminal investigation began, Lieutenant General Sanchez, the commanding general, requested a separate administrative investigation into systemic issues such as command policies and internal procedures related to detention operations. That administrative investigation is complete. Lieutenant General Sanchez has also directed a follow-up investigation of interrogation procedures in detention facilities, and that investigation is ongoing. The coalition takes all reports of detainee abuse seriously and all allegations of mistreatment are investigated.²⁰

The statement, in both tone and content, was very matter-of-fact, business as usual. And coming from a relatively low-level spokesman, it didn’t have the desired effect. It did not effectively define the crisis, the motives, or the actions the U.S. was taking.

That evening, CBS aired its program, including the graphic photographs.²¹ It was scathing. And it led to immediate outrage, in the United States and elsewhere, about the abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners by the U.S. The pictures were on the front pages of virtually every newspaper and at the beginning of every news program in the world. The prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib became the defining atrocity in the Iraq War. And it led to immediate outcries for comment, condemnation, and apology from the senior levels of the U.S. government. But instead there was near silence from the top.

The next morning, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Chris Matthews on MSNBC:

I watched the program, is all I have seen on it. And I watched General Kimmitt on that program who is in Iraq and is a professional soldier. And the pain in his face, the expressions that he gave of his disappointment and his heartbreak at seeing those accusations and allegations that are there. I’m in the chain of command. I am not allowed to opine about things like that.... Allegations like that will end up in the military justice system as they should.²²

That statement was remarkable. How could the Secretary of Defense know nothing about Abu Ghraib except what he had watched on television? The statement expressed little curiosity about what had happened; no commitment to get to the bottom of it; no discussion of justice being sought; no affirmation of core values or of steps that had been taken and were being taken to prevent further abuse. Rather, it contained a weak assertion that the Secretary of Defense is not allowed to opine on such topics.

President Bush did not address the American public, but did share his views with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, who was visiting in the White House the following morning. Speaking with reporters about the meeting, the President said, “I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated. Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people.”²³ But that quote didn’t make the newspapers. What he said later did. Responding to the casualties in Iraq that month, President Bush reminisced about the one-year anniversary of his declaring “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The President said:

A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we’d accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq.²⁴

The reference to torture chambers and rape rooms, less than 48 hours after the pictures of sexual abuse, humiliation, and torture, left many baffled, many others angry.

On Monday, May 4, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice went on the Arabic-language network Al Arabiya, and told the Arabic-speaking world:

I want to assure people in the Arab world, Iraq, around the world, and the American people, that the President is determined to get to the bottom of it, to know who is responsible and to make sure that whoever is responsible is punished for it and held accountable.... we are deeply sorry for what has happened to these people, and what the families must be feeling. It’s just not right. And we will get to the bottom of what happened.²⁵

The words were right, but they came from the wrong person. A relatively unknown figure outside the United States at that time, Dr. Rice seemed to be a functionary rather than the principal on whose behalf she was speaking. Her apology and her assurance that the President was determined to get to the bottom of the issue left people wondering why the President hadn’t said so himself. An apology by a functionary is not the same as an apology by a principal. In this case, because Dr. Rice was not in the chain of command, her comments weren’t taken seriously, especially in the Gulf.

The same day, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld addressed a Pentagon press briefing, and took issue with reporters’ calling the Abu Ghraib situation “torture”:

I’m not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture.... I don’t know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there’s been a conviction for torture. And therefore I’m not going to address the torture word.²⁶

The White House also announced that President Bush would speak directly to the people of Iraq and of the Arab world in two separate interviews: The first was to be with Alhurra, a U.S.-operated Arabic-language television station based in Iraq and part of the U.S. government; the second was with Al Arabiya. Pundits and commentators assumed that President Bush would apologize to the people of Iraq, and the White House did not dissuade them from that assumption. But in neither interview did he apologize.

He told Alhurra:

First time I saw or heard about pictures was on TV. However, as you might remember, in early January, General Kimmitt talked about an investigation that would be taking place about accused—alleged improprieties in the prison. So our government has been in the process of investigating.²⁷

He told Al Arabiya:

The practices that took place in that prison are abhorrent and they don’t represent America. They represent the actions of a few people....

In our country, when there’s an allegation of abuse...there will be a full investigation.... We have a presumption of innocent until you’re guilty in our system.... This is a serious matter. It’s a matter that reflects badly on my country.²⁸

The lack of an apology, and the statement about the presumption of innocence, caused the opposite reaction than had been hoped. Many in the intended audience—who were unaware of American jurisprudence and the constitutional presumption of innocence—interpreted the statement as an assertion that the prison guards were in fact innocent.

The White House had set an expectation that the President would apologize. It then had to field questions about failing to fulfill those expectations. Press Secretary Scott McClellan faced the media:

Q: “Okay, a simple question. The President had two interviews today the White House set up for Arabic TV networks. In neither did the President apologize. Why was that?”

McClellan: “We’ve already said that we’re sorry for what occurred, and we’re deeply sorry to the families and what they must be feeling and going through, as well. The President is sorry for what occurred and the pain that it has caused. It does not represent what America stands for.”²⁹

Later in the briefing he was asked again:

Q: “If the Arab world had heard him—heard the President personally apologize—it would have gone a long way. Why did he choose not to use those words?”

McClellan: “Well, I just told you, the President is deeply sorry for what occurred, and the pain that it has caused.”

Q: “Why didn’t he say so himself?”

McClellan: “The President is deeply sorry for it. And he was pleased to sit down and do these interviews and address the questions that were asked of him.”

Q: “Why didn’t he say so himself?”

McClellan: “I’m saying it for him right now.”³⁰

A functionary describing the principal’s regret is not the same as the principal expressing regret, and a spokesman saying he’s apologizing for the principal is not the same as the principal apologizing. One of the burdens of leadership is to say things that are uncomfortable. President Bush seemed unwilling or unable to utter the words to the people of Iraq.

The next day President Bush met in the Oval Office with Jordan’s King Abdullah. Afterward, the President and the king met with reporters in the Rose Garden, and President Bush said,

I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families. I told him I was equally sorry that the—that people would see those pictures, didn’t understand the true nature and heart of America.³¹

The President had not apologized on Arabic-language television to the people of Iraq. But he told the King of Jordan, Iraq’s neighbor, that he was sorry for the humiliation of the Iraqi prisoners. Telling the king of a neighboring country that he was sorry about what happened in Iraq was not the same as saying he was sorry to the people of Iraq.

That day New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called on the President to fire Defense Secretary Rumsfeld:

This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all. That overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—today, not tomorrow or next month, today. What happened in Abu Ghraib prison was, at best, a fundamental breakdown in the chain of command under Mr. Rumsfeld’s authority, or, at worst, part of a deliberate policy somewhere in the military-intelligence command of sexually humiliating prisoners to soften them up for interrogation, a policy that ran amok.³²

Finally, the next day Secretary Rumsfeld apologized to the people of Iraq. Ten days after the photographs were made public, the Defense Secretary delivered a statement in front of two congressional committees: first the Senate Armed Services Committee, then the House Armed Services Committee. In those statements he finally gave voice to what should have been said on the very first day:

So to those Iraqis who were mistreated by the members of the U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology. It was inconsistent with the values of our nation; it was un-American.³³

The apology was the right thing to say, and coming from the Defense Secretary, speaking on his own behalf, it was seen to be from someone accountable in the chain of command (compared to a third-party expression of apology from the National Security Advisor some days earlier). It came eight days after the Defense Secretary had said that he wasn’t supposed to opine on such matters.

If Secretary Rumsfeld had said those words the night the program aired—or better yet, before it aired—the coverage could have played out differently, and the outrage may have been more muted. But by the time he said it, the apology seemed forced, insincere, and contrived.

The contrast between the Marines’ handling of the mosque shooting and the Pentagon’s and Administration’s handling of the Abu Ghraib photographs is stark:

• The Marines played offense: They seized initiative to take the first mover advantage by communicating first, forcefully, and consistently from high in the chain of command. On Abu Ghraib the Pentagon played defense, poorly. It allowed the photographs to air without a senior policymaker shaping the public perception. And senior policymaker silence in the immediate aftermath left the impression that the Administration didn’t care or that it condoned the mistreatment of prisoners.

• The Marines’ commentary was consistent throughout the chain of command. The Pentagon’s and Administration’s response on Abu Ghraib lacked focus. It was inconsistent across the chain of command and even among individuals. For example, Secretary Rumsfeld initially said he shouldn’t opine, but later apologized. National Security Advisor Rice and White House Spokesman McClellan both spoke about President Bush being sorry for what happened, but President Bush didn’t express that regret directly to the Iraqi people, even as he described his regret indirectly to the Prime Minister of Canada and to the King of Jordan. And President Bush and others in the Administration continued to repeat their comments about a post-Saddam Iraq no longer having torture chambers and rape rooms, even while pictures of sexual humiliation and torture were appearing on television and on newspaper front pages.

• The Marines fulfilled the appropriate expectations of both Americans and international observers; the Pentagon and Administration did not.

The first mover advantage applies well beyond matters of life and death or national security. It applies whenever there’s a need to manage the interpretation of events.

The First Mover Advantage and Celebrity Scandal

On October 1, 2009, comedian and late-night television host David Letterman looked his studio audience in the eye and matter-of-factly said, “I’m glad you folks are here tonight, and I’m glad you’re in such a pleasant mood because I have a little story that I would like to tell you and the home viewers as well. Do you feel like a story?”³⁴ The audience applauded and cheered, not knowing what the story would involve, but assuming that it would be part of his usual irreverent commentary on the news of the day.

Letterman, host of The Late Show on CBS, then spent ten minutes telling a personal anecdote outside the usual scope of his comedy. The key elements of his narrative were these:³⁵

• Several weeks earlier he had found a package in his car, with a note saying that the note’s author knew and could prove that Letterman had done “terrible things.”

• The note’s author said that he planned to write a screenplay featuring Letterman and his misbehavior. But he would not write the screenplay if Letterman paid him “some money.”

• Letterman called his lawyer, who suggested that they meet with the person to determine what was going on.

• They met, and the person told them that he would produce a very damaging film about Letterman unless he received a “very large sum of money.”

• The lawyer contacted the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which concluded that Letterman was being blackmailed. Letterman then cooperated with the District Attorney’s investigation.

• Letterman and his lawyer met again with the blackmailer, who confirmed that he knew that he was committing a crime, and raised the stakes: unless he was paid, he’d write not only a damaging screenplay but also a damaging book.

• They arranged a third meeting, at which time Letterman paid the extortionist $2 million, in the form of a personal check.

• That morning Letterman had testified in front of a grand jury. The testimony involved not only the extortion attempt, but also the details of the misbehavior that the extortionist had threatened to expose.

Letterman’s narrative continued:

And I had to tell them how I was disturbed by this, I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family, I felt menaced by this. And I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I have done, that were going to be [laughter]. Now why is that funny? That’s, I mean.... [laughter/applause] So the idea is that if they believe, in fact, a crime has been committed, then they issue a warrant, and that’s exactly what happened. And a little bit after noon today, the guy was arrested.³⁶

The audience cheered at the news that the extortionist had been arrested. But they still hadn’t heard what the misbehavior in question had been. Letterman finally, more than seven minutes into his story, delivered the news:

Now, of course, we get to, “what was it?” What was all the creepy stuff [laughter] that he was gonna put into the screenplay and the movie? And the creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.³⁷

The audience let out a quiet gasp. Letterman, looking the TV audience in the eye, continued, “Now. My response to that is, yes I have.”³⁸

The audience laughed and applauded. He went on: “I have had sex with women who work on this show.” The audience applauded more strongly. “And would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. Perhaps it would.” The audience laughed. “Especially for the women.” More laughter and applause. He didn’t name the women, and said it was up to them to decide whether they would talk about the matter.³⁹

Letterman then thanked the District Attorney and described his motive in coming forward:

It’s been a very bizarre experience. I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family. I need to protect myself—hope to protect my job—and the friends, everybody that has been very supportive through this. And I don’t plan to say much more about this on this particular topic. So, thank you for letting me bend your ears.⁴⁰

The audience applauded, and Letterman closed by making fun of himself:

Now. I know what you’re saying. “I’ll be darned, Dave’s had sex!” [laughter] That’s what the grand jury said also. [laughter] “Really? You’ve had sex?”⁴¹

Letterman thanked the audience for listening, and went to commercial.

The news coverage that night and the following days was less on the scandal of Letterman’s affairs and more on the extortionist and the women. The extortionist was revealed to be Robert Joe Halderman, a CBS News producer whose girlfriend was one of the women Letterman had been involved with. Halderman was promptly fired by CBS News. After a week of low-intensity coverage about Letterman, the scandal subsided and Letterman kept his job.

Letterman had used the first mover advantage effectively. He took the initiative and kept it. He defined the crisis as an extortion attempt. He defined his motives as self-protection and the protection of his friends and family. He defined his actions as coming clean and getting the extortion behind him: “What you don’t want is a guy saying, ‘Oh, I know you had sex with women so I would like $2 million or I’m going to make trouble for you.’ So that’s where we stand right now.”

By communicating first and fully, Letterman controlled the agenda. He controlled the narrative, even referring to it as a story. If he hadn’t, the likelihood is that the arrest report would have made it into the celebrity gossip world, into the entertainment media, and then into the mainstream media. Reporters would have camped out near the Letterman studios, and CBS executives would have been called on to fire Letterman as well as the extortionist.

Letterman also understood who his key stakeholder group was: the audience of his television program. He didn’t release an impersonal statement to the media; he didn’t hold a press conference. He made his statement directly to his television audience as part of his show. The audience heard directly from him, in his voice, with his characteristic irreverence, this time directed at himself.

Operationalizing the First Mover Advantage

Leaders all too often allow delicate situations to linger too long. Worried about embarrassment, litigation, or being fired, they become paralyzed with fear and either make poor decisions or no decisions. All the while their stakeholders—including employees, customers, business partners, and investors—are looking to the leaders for a sign that they’re in control. And in the silence the vacuum gets filled by critics, adversaries, the media, and others.

So leaders need some mechanism to determine when to communicate: Communicate too late and they lose the trust and confidence of their stakeholders; too soon and they may unleash a set of events beyond their control.

Recap: Best Practices from This Chapter

Lessons for Leaders and Communicators

In controversial situations leaders need to step up and control the communication agenda, thereby controlling their destinies. The consistent ability to operate quickly in high-stakes situations—to make smart decisions and to engage stakeholders effectively—creates a powerful competitive advantage. This is true in business—per McDonald’s—and in nonbusiness settings.

The longer it takes to fulfill appropriate stakeholder expectations, the harder it becomes. Incremental delays in fielding an appropriate response have a greater than incremental effect on the outcome. An apology on Day 1 may be sufficient to prevent expressions of outrage; an apology on Day 10 after uninterrupted expressions of outrage probably won’t be sufficient.

The first mover advantage prevents critics and adversaries from framing the situation. Leaders need to define the crisis, their motives, and their actions first, consistently, and persistently. When stakeholders expect their leaders to step up, the leaders need to. Subordinates describing a leader’s regret is not the same as the leader expressing regret.

As important as the consistent ability to operate quickly is focus: the ability to concentrate attention on the right thing, and to align multiple communications by multiple parties. The burden of leadership is to seize the initiative when it can do the most good.