Nov. 8, 2007 Oprah Could Have Averted Scandal

One of the biggest laments of those following the Oprah School scandal is that Oprah should have opened a school here, in the US, where she could watch things. That is ridiculous as a solution. If having to be present was a prerequisite for being able to have one's business (or organization) be Powered by Principle, or even just ethical, than multi-nationals would all be dismal failures in every way. But that isn't the case. The problem isn't that Oprah wasn't there. The problem was that there was way too little alignment between the principles underlying the school (Oprah's personal values may, in fact, have been all there was) and the actual, moment-by-moment operation of the school.

There are lots of aspects to this problem. The first, and most important, is that Oprah's personal values, while laudable, are probably not sufficient to act as a core values list for the institution. The school needs its own set of core values, both those that are fundamental to anything Oprah cares about, and those which were essential for the particular mission to get accomplished. While I don't know for sure, I suspect that there was not work like that done, since Oprah is so powerful, and her "brand" would have been seen as a clear enough statement of principles.

Along with a complete and relevant set of principles, the school needed top to bottom alignment with those values--not just cheer-leading and self-congratulations. Those values should have been completely woven throughout the hiring, training, compensation, teaching approach methods, performance reviews and evensome feedback mechanism that might have given early warning of the abusive behavior. These structural elements are always vital, but they become even more crucial when the founder and "heart of the enterprise" is remotely located. Counting on the sentimentality and inspiration that the school's creation generated is a naive move. But one can understand how Oprah chose to do it that way. She runs a very successful enterprise here, in the US. Of course, she is here, evangelizing, modeling, correcting and managing all the time. Plus, she probably has lots of appropriate structure in Harpo Productions--structure that encourages the right choices and level of excellence she demands.

The key for the school is not just replacing the people--even if the new batch has no one of abusive tendencies. Corruption and the gravitation toward mediocrity areintegraltendencies in most organizations and in many people. They get corrected through structure, reinforcement, self-criticism, improvement and the understanding that being Powered by Principle is always just a moment away from the next violation. Having that humility and vigilance on the ground, in Africa, is what was and is needed.