Applying the Lesson May be Harder than Winning the Tour de France

I saw a blog this afternoon that was entertaining, and disgusting. Titled Despite a troubling end, Lance Armstrong’s PR Offers Lessons, it was written by a guy in Denver who specializes in crisis communications.

He made the claim, “Without taking sides, those of us in the crisis communications field can learn from Armstrong’s Public Relations campaign tactics, fully acknowledging that he crossed the line from offering balance to powering up a turbo-charged spin machine.” Balance?–Maybe my understanding of the word is a bit different than that espoused in the article.

The article identified five principles learned:

Less is more
Taking responses to the masses
Coordination and consistency
Staying on point
The big picture

I’m not going to take the time to outline what each means, because they all miss the point by such a wide margin that they might as well have been arrows shot in exactly the wrong direction. I’m left wondering how anyone can look at the allegations against Armstrong and not learn two more fundamental lessons.

First, don’t cheat, and don’t force and bully others into cheating for you. Whatever you think is so important isn’t.
Second, if you do make a mistake and choose to cheat, admit it; take the consequences and try to undo the harm you’ve done to yourself (in terms of character damage) and to others.

It doesn’t even matter if the allegations against Armstrong are correct or not, these lessons are still far more fundamental and important than anything presented in the article.

Being good at PR is probably a good talent or skill to have, but far more important is having a character of integrity and a desire to do real good to fellow humans (and animals). History is littered with flawed men and women who thought their public image and success–power, money, fame, etc–was more important than the costs borne by the innocent people whom they cheated, coerced, assaulted or persecuted.

Anyone who ignores this point is essentially supporting the next I’m-more-important-than-everyone-else-and-thus-the-means-justify-the-end scandal. Haven’t we had enough of those.

Of course, the real challenge is not finding the lessons, it’s applying them; and that’s harder than winning the Tour de France.