Page 192 - The Voice of Authority

lots’ communications. After hearing real people talk hon-
estly and openly about the situation in the air, he lost his
fear of flying. He decided that Microsoft needed its own
Channel 9—straight talk. That’s when he hired famed blog-
ger Robert Scoble to talk honestly online about Microsoft’s
successes and failures for the whole world to read. And that
blogging by Scoble and others, according to Pryor, moved
public opinion of Microsoft from a net negative to a net
positive.
The negatives of such uncontrolled blogging? Negative
comments may get aired to customers. People sometimes
butt heads about someone’s foul-up. People get fired when
they go to extremes. Competitors may hear secrets. Liabil-
ity can become a legal issue.
But the positives of publicizing your point in all direc-
tions far outweigh such issues: People will build relation-
ships informally in all directions. Productivity goes up.
You’ll get things done efficiently—sometimes outside the
regular channels. Internal heroes in your company will
earn a good reputation with your customers and win their
trust for the long term. And most important, employees
engage.
For all the gripes against the government, kudos are cer-
tainly in order for this policy, highlighted by David Freed-
man in his “What’s Next” column in Inc. The Federal Avi-
ation Administration (FAA) rewards pilots who quickly
report their errors, agreeing to waive punitive action if they
report their errors themselves. Most pilots carry a self-
reporting form with them in their flight kit “just in case.”
(Pilots are allowed only one “pass” every five years; crimes
and crashes are another issue altogether.)
Why the policy? The FAA wants pilots to learn from oth-
ers’ mistakes so they can keep accident rates low. Self-
reports from air traffic controllers, mechanics, and flight

180 The Voice of Authority