I first met Mark Hurd at the 2005 IABC International Conference in Washington, D.C. He had just joined Hewlett-Packard as its CEO and president, after a successful stint in a similar role at NCR. In fact, Hurd was being honored as the recipient of IABC’s EXCEL Award for his support, encouragement and practice of exemplary communication.

It saddened me to read the news article on Friday under the headline, “HP CEO Hurd resigns after sexual-harassment probe.” To be clear, an investigation by HP’s outside legal counsel and its General Counsel’s Office, overseen by the HP Board determined that no violation of HP’s sexual harassment policy occurred. However, it did find that Hurd violated HP’s Standards of Business Conduct. Read the official statement on the HP website.

As I reviewed some notes I took during Hurd’s address at the 2005 conference, the irony of some of his comments and statements jumped out.

• He had begun his remarks, following a warm applause by the audience, with the comment, "As CEO, you aren't used to hearing people say nice things about you."
• Hurd later told the audience that the term "fired" originated from an incident that involved two early leaders at NCR. Quick summary: NCR head John Patterson allegedly punctuated the termination of Thomas John Watson, Sr. by having Watson's desk taken outside and set ablaze. Hence, the phrase "fired."

I’ve since found many references to the origin of the phrase, “fired,” that don’t point to NCR. It may be another example of Hurd’s misunderstanding of information—like HP’s Standards of Business Conduct.

Two other Hurd comments from his 2005 EXCEL Award address stood out to me today:


• The CEO can't replace the relationship of front-line employees with their immediate supervisors, he said. "The CEO can provide a context [to] try to bring clarity."
• Hurd later said that as he would "promote, demote, recognize and reward people, I tell 30,000 people what I value."


As a highly visible CEO, Hurd has sent a message to his employees with his misconduct, and I hope that it doesn’t erase the good that he did for HP. I also hope he uses this as a lesson in what to value most as a business leader and champion of communication excellence.

What context and clarity can Hurd’s interim successor, Cathie Lesjak, bring to company employees? In my next post, I’ll look back at a presentation on employee communications made at that same 2005 IABC International Conference by HP communicators, and then compare that with what has been communicated in the past couple of days following Hurd’s resignation.

You wouldn’t know it by my lack of recent posts, but I have been actively engaged lately in communication activities. A lot of the activity has surrounded my transition into the role of IABC/Chicago chapter president for the 2010-2011 board year (beginning July 1).

Before things get rolling, I’m going to spend next week as a volunteer youth leader and take a trip to “Never the Same Camp“. Early mornings, late nights, a lot of running in-between lots of prayers. Not sure how that will be different than the past few weeks.

Anyway, I’ll be off the grid. Be good.

Today is Father’s Day in the U.S., and I’m sending a greeting to all fathers. What son hasn’t had conflicting thoughts about their dad at some point? My dad used to drive me crazy at times. Now I see myself driving my kids crazy at times too.

I woke up earlier than anyone else, because our dog, Clue, came by to remind me that he needs to get to his morning pee and breakfast. The dog doesn’t know that this is my “special day.”

I saw a brown paper bag sitting at my place at the family table, with a handwritten note from my son. “Sorry about the wrap job. The women weren’t available.” Obviously put there last night after I went to bed.

I’ll wait for the rest of the family to wake up before opening it. Then off to church, where I’m scheduled to deliver the children’s message at both services.

Father’s Day to me means time with my kids and my wife, with whom I started the Keefe family nearly two decades ago.

Here is an Easter greeting to you.

Many people think of Easter in a secular way, Easter bunny, egg hunts and the like. The original meaning remains the best.

It may seem old-hat and boring, even for those who picked today (Easter Sunday) as one of the two days per year when they graced the inside of a church.

I’m fairly realistic, so I don’t look at this day as the actual day when Jesus Christ, through the power of God, rose from the dead. That awesome event happened one time, more than 2,000 years ago.

I’m more excited about the fact that Jesus is still alive today, and will be for eternity. What’s more, anyone who accepts his free gift of grace can have the blot of sin removed from them, and receive eternal life through faith in his atoning work.

Whew! A lot for some of us to consider. Many doubt that this took place, and doubt that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection mean anything to them.

I pray that you consider the evidence, and make an informed decision. Whatever you decide is your business, of course.

My desire for you would be that you experience life in the Lord.



Make your own free digital greeting card

In the past couple of days, terrorist plots have been in the news, indirectly targeting two innocent faith groups which have to once again see that people don’t understand some very basic concepts.

The first terrorist plot was launched successfully on Monday, March 29, when twin suicide bombings of the Moscow subway system killed 39 people and wounded scores more. The attack has been blamed on “Muslim extremists” in the Caucasus region.

The second terrorist plot was nipped in the planning stages over the weekend, when nine “apocalyptic Christian militants,” who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers in hopes of inciting an antigovernment uprising, were arrested in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

The link in those two separate terrorist events was the belief that political change needed to be made through violence, and that the violence was approved by the God of these Muslim and Christian terrorists. Nothing could be further from the truth, and these terrorists couldn’t be further from true Muslims and Christians.

The time has come to sit and resolve all problems by dialogue, and to completely abandon violent ways using guns and bombs. Islam never says you should fight with another person. This concept is wrong.

That is a quote by Maulana Jameel Ahmed Ilyasi, secretary-general of the All-India Association of Imams and Mosques, during a visit to Israel, organized by the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) India office. Ilaysi arrived as part of a delegation of Indian Muslim leaders and journalists, and his organization represents half a million imams, who are the main religious leaders of India’s 200 million Muslims.

So he was the voice of reason for a large organization of Muslims, when asked to address Hamas’s call for jihad to destroy Israel. Ilaysi said,

I believe in peace and this is the message I take. I don't believe in anything that destroys another country.

That view would be applauded by the millions of Christians who are in the midst of Holy Week, a time for reflection and recognition of the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I imagine that the Lord is saddened by statements taken from the website created by the recently arrested militants:

A motto, “Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive”

and a quote:

Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment. The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God wills it.

According to a news article in the March 30 New York Times,

Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a liberal-leaning nonprofit group that tracks far-right networks, said the Hutaree’s philosophy was drawn from a populist strand that fuses fear of a conspiracy to create a one-world government with a belief that a war is imminent between Christians and the Antichrist, as described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation.

I’ve been studying the Book of Revelation with another member of my church and our youth pastor. For you non-Christians, let me assure you that it doesn’t state that anyone is to stockpile munitions and be ready to “fight for Jesus.”

Actually, Revelation is clear that the final battle against Satan and his deceived followers will be fought and won by the Lord. No sword-wielding human fanatics will be necessary.

When you read news accounts about “Muslim extremists” or “Christian militants,” please don’t help fan the flames of religious intolerance by spreading the lie that these idiots represent the Muslim or Christian faiths.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, I believe that Easter symbolizes forgiveness, rebirth, and God’s saving power. It is a victory over sin and death, which cause so much harm in people’s lives.

This Easter Sunday, I’ll be thinking about God’s saving power, and the destructive forces, like extremists and militants, that distort the true meaning of the holiday.

Peace.

Communications pro Allan Jenkins, from his base in Hjelm Bay, Møn, Denmark, sends a tweet calling the Danish daily Politiken “complete wimps” for apologizing over the publication years ago of unflattering editorial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Link to story

Was it cowardice, or common sense? If an axe-wielding extremist broke into your home because you posted a comment or cartoon that might be considered “offensive,” or continued to plot ways to kill you, would you be willing to die for freedom of speech? Really?

Why then, do I hear and watch so much “humor” and “editorial comment” knocking the Christian faith, but just about zero directed at Islam? Why do people think it is acceptable, even in the workplace, to use “Jesus Christ” as a swear word, but those same people wouldn’t think of substituting “Prophet Muhammad”?

Christians don’t blow up innocent groups of people, and they don’t grab an axe to attack people who disparage their Lord, Jesus Christ.

Should they? It seems to work for Islamic extremists, at least in Denmark. Allan might think his local journalists are wimps, but maybe they are realists. And maybe we are, too.

A few days before Christmas, I read David Murray’s blog post about a fundraising effort to cover nontraditional treatment for a family’s terminally ill wife and mother. I thought about other people who had died after placing desperate hope in some unproven, promised cure: Farrah Fawcett, whose battle against anal cancer included treatments in a German clinic to boost her immune system, and my own sister, Annette, who died 18 years ago from breast cancer.

Cancer is ugly and scary. This year, about 562,340 Americans are expected to die of cancer, more than 1,500 people a day, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the U.S., exceeded only by heart disease. In the U.S., cancer accounts for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths, according to the ACS statistics.

While cancer is ugly and scary, its treatment can be even more grim. Chemotherapy with its nausea, hair loss and other side-effects. Mastectomies and other surgeries. Radiation.

All for what? The 5-year relative survival rate for all cancers diagnosed between 1996-2004 was 66%, up from 50% in 1975-1977. So even with progress in diagnosing certain cancers at an earlier stage and improvements in treatment, one-third of all people in the U.S. who were diagnosed with cancer in 2004 aren’t alive today.

That’s why people like the Wieland family fight like hell to beat cancer. When someone you love has cancer, the first response, after the tears, is to stay positive and to expect to defeat the cancer. Unfortunately, studies show that a positive attitude doesn’t extend the life of a cancer patient.

Of course, support groups can affect quality of life, but the threat of death from cancer-related causes can open the door to long-shot treatments and no-shot money wasters dangled by charlatans.

As research intern Krystal Wilson said in an October 2007 online article for the American Council on Science and Health,

The popular guideline of staying positive while going through something as difficult as cancer diagnosis and treatment is unfair and very demanding of patients, and it is good to see a scientific study set the record straight. Even more critical is making sure that one uses science-based information while tackling a cancer diagnosis instead of falling prey to widespread mind-over-matter miracle cures promoted by quacks out to exploit desperate people.

That’s why I had mixed emotions when I read Murray’s post and checked out the “Lana’s Hope” site. I want to help the family in this small way, by spreading the news about the fund-raising effort. I want Lana to get those long-shot treatments that just might cure her cancer.

On the other hand, I want this emotionally drained family to avoid being taken by charlatans on the hope of a fake miracle cure. But I understand what’s driving them.

In the fall of 1982, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Aurora, Colo., just outside Denver, with a former college journalism buddy. I had called him the previous August from Decatur, Ill., where I had just decided to leave my job as a reporter at the Decatur Herald & Review. I told him that I had decided to move to Colorado “to see the mountains.” I was pleasantly surprised when he called me back later to say that he would go with me!

My friend, Bernie, quickly secured a nice position in the call center of a national check security firm. I was more focused on partying, and had floated through some low-paying, no-future “jobs.”

One day, the phone rang. It was my sister, Annette. It was about three months after she and her husband had their first child, a son. Annette was reaching out to her younger brother, to offer some encouragement.

During the phone call, Annette mentioned that she had been having some inexplicable back pains. A voice in my head said, “Tell her that is a sign of possible cancer.” But I pushed that thought aside; I mean, how weird would I have sounded, scaring my sister with the idea of cancer?

A few weeks later, I learned that Annette did indeed have breast cancer, and she needed to begin chemotherapy. I decided to move back into my parents’ home shortly afterward, stating that I wanted to be there to support Annette. The larger truth was that I needed the support of my family just as much.

Annette and her family went through a lot of ups and downs in the next eight months before she died on June 1, 1982. I later referenced that time in a song I wrote titled, “Cells of Fear”:

I watched a friend die of cancer.
You know, she never ever once asked the answer to why
Her life had to end that way.
As the months went by, her body witherin',
At the end it was me that was shiverin'
Standing there with nothing to say.

At the end, I'd just sit there and stare.
For her to die so young, without any hair,
Oh it just wasn't fair.

Oh the world will never seem fair.
The Truth can't reach you there,
While you're engrossed with those little cells of fear.

Near the end, as the cancer spread to Annette’s brain and lungs, choking her breath and stealing her sight, her family was desperate.

My mom told me that Annette’s husband had paid a fee and expenses to bring a “faith healer” from somewhere in Canada. “Don’t you say anything,” my mom sternly told me through tears. “This might be Annette’s last chance.”

I couldn’t help but glare at the “faith healer” as she was escorted past me in the hallway outside of Annette’s hospital room. I wasn’t going to watch the “show,” even if I had been invited. I wasn’t going to be invited because my unbelief might affect the potential “miracle,” some of my family thought.

So I spent a few minutes alone in the hallway, until the procession left Annette’s room. I may be making this up, but I have a partial recollection that someone commented that Annette was now “in God’s hands.”

I believe that she was always in God’s hands, and he did the merciful thing when he ended her suffering. That’s the way we deal with cancer: Expect to beat it, then if we don’t, hope to limit the suffering with a quick death.

I hope that Lana’s family raises the money to pay for the treatments they desire for Lana. If the treatments provide her with a longer, more enjoyable life, that would be a blessing.

I pray, as well, that they don’t fall victim to charlatans, dangling empty promises of hope. That is a curse.

When my wife and I began premarital counseling 20 years ago at her Lutheran church, I decided to convert from the Catholic to Lutheran faith. It was an easy decision for me, because I had long before stopped identifying with the Catholic religion I was taught from birth through high school. The Lutheran faith was similar to Roman Catholicism, but it held key theological and practical differences that made sense to me then…and now.

As someone who made a reasoned decision two decade ago regarding my religious beliefs, I was perturbed a few weeks ago when my dad sent me an email, inviting me to “come home” to the Catholic church.

The problem isn’t that the Catholic church is making an outreach effort to win converts. The problem is that the outreach efforts are sending a message to people like me that the Catholic beliefs are the only right choice. Even other Christian denominations “have it wrong.”

That message is, in the words of the apostle Paul, “a resounding gong,” (1 Corinthians 13:1) because it demonstrates a lack of love on the part of the people behind this outreach effort. How else to explain an outreach effort that alienates brothers and sisters in Christ, that assumes that “home” is a belief system that people like me left behind for theological reasons without regret?

I don’t want to get into a debate with Catholics. I want them to be able to express their beliefs, while respecting the beliefs of others. This “Come Home” campaign doesn’t do it in theory or in practice.

My grandfather, Clarence Fieberg, was in the trades for all of his adult life. He worked up the ranks at McNulty Construction Company, eventually earning a role as a vice president.

This is my grandfather, whom we called “Pop-pop,” along with his wife, Gladys, her mother, Maud, my mom, and her six children. That’s me in front, threatening to shoot the photographer (my dad).

Among its projects, McNulty Construction helped build the Pentagon in the early 1940s. Pop-pop commuted by train for months as he worked on the Pentagon project.

One day, his boss told Pop-pop that the firm had won another large project bid in the Washington, D.C. area, and that it would be a multi-year commitment. Pop-pop talked things over with my grandmother, and they decided to move to Washington so that they would be together.

They went ahead with a few suitcases, leaving the rest of their belongings to be loaded onto a moving truck. They had barely arrived in Washington when Pop-pop was offered a kickback from someone related to the new project. He refused it, and when he was told, “that’s the way things work around here,” he reported the incident to his boss at McNulty. “McNulty Construction doesn’t take bribes,” his boss affirmed.

Pop-pop called the movers back in Chicago and told them to stop loading the truck. McNulty Construction pulled out of the project, and Pop-pop returned home.

I remember feeling very proud of Pop-pop years ago when he told that true story to me and my siblings. He spoke matter-of-factly, as though it was understood that honesty was not something to compromise.

I wish that I remained forever unsoiled by the attitude that “it’s the way that things are done around here.” But I eventually became jaded growing up in Chicago, and reading numerous newspaper accounts of widespread graft, favoritism and an apparent lack of accountability for wrongdoing. It wasn’t just in the newspapers, it was in companies where I worked, among people who worked alongside me, or were in management positions.

The attitude that “right doesn’t matter, getting your way does,” even reared its ugly head in the youth sports in which I coached and in which my kids participated. Many people had a great perspective–that sports was a way to teach the values of honest work, determination, and discipline. But it seemed like there would always be a few coaches or parents on the sidelines, dragging down the team with ways to “play the system” or complain about fair calls that didn’t go their way.

Anyway, I thought about Pop-pop and McNulty Construction recently when I shooed the dishonest tradesman out of my home (read Part One of this post for the background). I’m not “Ivory Soap pure” by any stretch of the imagination, but every once in a while, I can do the hard thing, the right thing, that let’s me feel good about looking at myself in the mirror.

Sometimes, I guess I see part of Pop-pop looking back.

In recent years, my appreciation of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday has grown. Thanksgiving is different than the highly commercialized Christmas holiday which follows in a month. Non-Christians (and, sadly, many Christians as well) use Christmas as an opportunity to covet things they don’t have.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to be grateful for what we already have been given, in context of spirituality, health, relationships and “worldly goods.”

I slept in a bit today, a benefit of a holiday from work. Still, I began the day as usual, with time spent reading a bit of the Bible, along with a related devotion. Today’s devotion quoted a proclamation made in 1863 by then-President Abraham Lincoln.

I’m not well-versed in the study of speeches or proclamations; for that, I defer to DaMurr, David Murray. As editor of Vital Speeches of the Day, Murray has shared many examples of well-written prose.

Yesterday, Murray reprinted a very touching account by military veteran Stephen Banko, of events during one Thanksgiving lived in Vietnam during the war. It made me say thanks to the thousands of military men and women who are spending this Thanksgiving away from home, family and friends. I pray for their safety and honor their service to the nation.

President Lincoln designated Thanksgiving as an official U.S. holiday with a proclamation he signed in 1863. It was during another major military operation: the Civil War. As I read the proclamation, I thanked God for all of the things He has given me, and for all of the things He has taken away.

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation
Washington, DC—October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.