Hero or Villain?

Imagine this. You’re the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company that’s dispersed over several states. Your company has invested millions of dollars in a new IT system. One day you learn that a 22 year old employee somewhere in the bowels of your company has sent a lengthy e-mail to staffers throughout the organization documenting the inefficiencies and glitches of the new system, and suggesting that even the process by which the IT vendor was chosen might have less than stellar integrity.

This is pretty much what happened to the giant health maintenance organization Kaiser Permanente. The kid in question is Justen Deal, and his e-mail highlighted, point by point, why the new system was generating problems not just with costs but with medical providers’ abilities to serve patients. And for good measure, the memo took CEO George Halvorson and other senior executives to task for jeopardizing Kaiser’s capacity to deliver high quality care because of their unquestioning allegiance to the IT system in question.

If you were the CEO, what would you do? Would you fire Justin Deal? Well, that’s exactly what Kaiser did, and I suspect that most companies would have done the same. I say they’re stupid. I say Halvorson should have promoted Justen Deal.

UPDATE: Rather than devoting a chunk of time moderating comments on Oren Harari's post on Hero or Villain, I'm just posting a referral to his article. No comments will be taken on this one.