Logos team blog posts

Tiny Mistakes, Dire Consequences

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All choices we make have consequences, no matter how big or small the choices are. And the deliberate and proactive management of choice is necessary for good leadership and crisis prevention. But when choices – no matter how seemingly inconsequential – are managed poorly, there can be grave consequences.

This was devastatingly the case on November 5, when a gunman named Devin Kelley entered a small church in Texas and massacred 26 parishioners, including a pregnant woman with her unborn baby, with an assault-style rifle. On November 6, the Air Force admitted that they failed to enter Kelley’s domestic violence court-martial into a federal database for firearms background checks, which would have prohibited him from buying guns.

(Photo source: The New York Times)

In 2012, Kelley violently assaulted his wife and toddler stepson while serving in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. This charge, under federal law, should have stopped him from legally purchasing the rifle he used in the massacre. An initial Air Force statement issued after the shooting said, “Initial information indicates that Kelley’s domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database by the Holloman Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations.”

To it’s credit, The Air Force immediately launched an investigation looking into whether other convictions had been improperly left unreported to the federal database. It was discovered that the administrative oversight that allowed Devin Kelley to purchase a gun was not “an isolated incident.” Air Force officials said on November 26 that dozens of other Air Force service members convicted of serious crimes were never reported to the federal gun background-check database, and acknowledged in a statement, “Although policies and procedures requiring reporting were in place, training and compliance measures were lacking.”

This massacre had highlighted an administrative issue of the Air Force, a seemingly inconsequential data entry neglect with dire consequences. The issue escalated a crisis response within the Air Force. Within a month of the massacre, a family who lost eight family members in the church shooting has filed a wrongful-death claim against Secretary of the Air Force, alleging that the Air Force’s negligence allowed the gunman to purchase firearms and “directly caused this horrific tragedy.” While the Air Force did not commit the tragic shootings, it may be liable as an indirect player.

This is not the first time an “indirect player” in a crisis has been accused of culpability. When the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and poured oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the then-CEO of BP Tony Hayward responded by saying “this was not our drilling rig… this was not our equipment.” Despite his efforts to cast the blame to Transocean, the owner of the rig, we now know that it was BP’s series of deliberate neglect to safety warnings and skimping on materials that created all the conditions to ultimately lead to the explosion. As the entity licensed to operate the rig, BP failed to meet its legal obligation of assuring its ability to contain a worse-case discharge of oil in the ocean.

(Tony Hayward, photo source: Getty)

The pattern here is that this type of crisis is mostly caused by the third party’s incremental, tiny negligence and mistakes. In contrast to regular two-party crises with a clear causality, such as Wells Fargo’s customer fraud, in the breakout of this type of crisis, the third party is completely caught off guard and unprepared, because it never occurred to them that their trivial missteps would one day center them in a huge crisis and the stakes are this high. The seemingly tiny, innocuous negligence of failing to enter the crimes into the database has, as in the Texas massacre, left the gun background checks impaired, and, consequently, granted Kelley the deadliest means of taking innocent lives.

The danger of committing small errors lies in the mentality that they do not matter. Due to that mentality, people commit even more small mistakes or repeat the old ones again and again. At the same time, those minor mistakes layer on top of each other and, finally, they fall, like the unstoppable dominoes. Unfortunately, in the world of crises, there’s no such thing as tiny mistakes; every detail counts.

With regard to crisis prevention, leaders would be better served simply by thinking about the potential significant consequences small things can lead to. Only in this way, can they hold each one of their choice accountable, no matter how insignificant it might seem.

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Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership Presents Inaugural Outstanding Leader Award to James E. Lukaszewski

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On Thursday, November 16th, Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership gathered with nearly 50 communication industry guests to celebrate James E. Lukaszewski, “America’s Crisis Guru”®, as he was honored as the inaugural, 2017 recipient of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership Outstanding Leader Award.

The Outstanding Leader Award recognizes established industry professionals for their consequential professional achievements that set the aspirational standard for others, and the recipient’s excellence in the use of strategic communication to achieve professional or business objectives with substantial and positive results. Recipients also possess the impressive ability to inspire and empower others through their status as role models, trusted advisors, and visionaries.    

Jim Lukaszewski, President and Chairman of the Board of The Lukaszewski Group Inc., is a highly regarded leader in crisis management and strategic communication. For more than four decades he’s helped senior leaders facing crisis get through challenges with focus, ethics, and decisive action. In addition to being an advisor to those “at the top,” Jim has dedicated much of his career to sharing his wisdom and time with students and young professionals only starting their careers. He remains, in fact, a mentor to Logos President Helio Fred Garcia, and inspired much of what developed to be the Logos Method. With 13 books and hundreds of articles and monographs authored, his mentorship and leadership influence have easily touched many thousands.

(James E. Lukaszewski, 2017 Outstanding Leader Award recipient)

Jim began his illustrious career working as the assistant press secretary to the governor of Minnesota, then as deputy commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Economic Development, before starting his first crisis management firm in 1978 with the help of his wife Barbara; the firm was acquired by a larger PR firm five years later. In 1986, Jim moved to New York to work as a crisis consultant under the tutelage of Chester Burger, a mentee of Edward L. Bernays, also known as the Father of Public Relations. “One of the greatest talents Jim has is that he knows how to listen; that is hard to do when you know the answer,” said Burger ( Barnes, 2009,  Living Legends in Public Relations).

(President of Logos Consulting Group Helio Fred Garcia presenting the award to James E. Lukaszewski)

Ever dedicated to his clients and the industry, Jim served for 22 years on the Public Relations Society of America’s Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS) and became its first Emeritus member. His list of recognitions is long and the gratitude of clients and mentees is deep.

“The reason I do what I do is simple,” says Jim. “I want to have an important, constructive impact on the lives of people and organizations I help. My ultimate goal in working with other PR professionals or staff members is to help them learn to have happier, successful, and more important and influential lives” ( Barnes, 2009,  Living Legends in Public Relations).

Please join us in honoring Jim for his distinguished service and achievement.

To watch the award ceremony, please click here

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Logos President Launches Crisis Management Elective at Columbia Engineering

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Logos Consulting Group is pleased to note that Logos President Helio Fred Garcia has launched a new elective, Advanced Leadership: Crisis Management for Engineers, for graduate students at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, also known as Columbia Engineering.

Garcia has been an adjunct associate professor at Columbia Engineering since the summer of 2017, where he has taught Introduction to Ethics to all 1,400 incoming 2017 graduate students. The pilot for the elective in advanced leadership and crisis management was conducted on November 10, 2017.  More than 140 students, or about ten percent of the student body, enrolled in the course.

The course focuses on the drivers of trust and how engineers can make smart decisions in a crisis by achieving mental readiness: a combination of emotional discipline, deep knowledge, and intellectual rigor. It builds on material that students learned in Garcia’s Introduction to Ethics course.

 

Case Studies

The Advanced Leadership: Crisis Management for Engineers course features three case studies of crises involving engineering and engineers.

The first, the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion.  BP’s mishandling of what became the nation’s largest environmental disaster cost CEO Tony Hayward his job.

The company suffered significant consequences:

  • BP pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter and one count of lying to Congress.
  • BP paid $62 billion in fines, penalties, and settlements.
  • BP stock lost $105 billion in value in the months following the explosion, and remains depressed even seven years after the explosion.

The second case study was on General Motors’ handling of problems with the ignition switch in Cobalt and similar model cars that had been implicated in fatal accidents. The problem was discovered in 2001, but, according to an independent investigation in 2014, because engineers failed to fully understand the way the car was designed, GM labeled the issue a “customer inconvenience” rather than a safety defect, and therefore took very little action to resolve it for more than a decade. By 2014, 124 people had been killed, 17 people had suffered catastrophic injury such as multiple amputations or pervasive burns, and 250 others had been hospitalized with major injuries.

The consequences to General Motors were also significant:

  • GM paid $600 million to families of those killed or injured.
  • The company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
  • As part of the deferred prosecution agreement, GM forfeited $900 million.

The third case study focused on Apple’s dispute with the FBI following the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino, California. In early 2016 the FBI obtained a court order compelling Apple to design software to allow investigators to unlock a suspect’s iPhone and to overcome the encryption of any data that might be on the phone. Apple refused, saying that such software would make it possible to unlock every iPhone, creating significant safety and security risks for millions of Apple customers around the world. Two days later, Apple CEO Tim Cook received a standing ovation at the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

. . . . . . . . .

Logos analyst Holly Helstrom helped Garcia design the course and the case studies, as well as his Introduction to Ethics course and an advanced ethics elective that will launch in December, 2017,

The Crisis Management for Engineers course is offered through Columbia Engineering’s Professional Development and Leadership program, which is intended to help engineering graduate students develop skills that will help them navigate the world of commerce, government, and academia following their course of formal study.

Garcia teaches similar courses in New York University’s Stern School of Business Executive MBA program and in NYU’s MS in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program,  He also teaches similar content as a contract lecturer at Wharton/Penn, both traditional and executive MBA, Philadelphia and San Francisco.  He also teaches as a contract lecturer in several of the professional schools of the U.S. military, including the U.S. Defense Information School, the U.S. Air Force Air War College, and various Professional Military Education programs of the U.S, Marine Corps.

 

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Logos Participates in Religions for Peace Board Meeting

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Religions for Peace is the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition, advancing common action among the world’s religious communities for peace. Logos Consulting Group has advised Religions for Peace as a pro bono publico client for more than 15 years, and Logos president Helio Fred Garcia has served on its Board of International Trustees for the past six years.

The global Religions for Peace network comprises a World Council of senior religious leaders from all regions of the world; six regional inter-religious councils and more than 90 national ones; and the Global Women of Faith Network and Global Interfaith Youth Network.

 

L to R: Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, Bishop Emeritus of Oslow, Church of Norway, and Honorary President of Religions for Peace; Metropolitan Emanuel Adamakis, Vice President, Conference of European Churches; Cardinal Raymundo Assis, Archbishop Emeritus of Aparecida, São Paulo, Brazil.

 

In mid-October 2017 Religions for Peace held its annual meeting of its World Council of religious leaders and its Board of International Trustees, as a strategy planning session for the next World Assembly of Religions for Peace, in 2019.

Dr. William H. Vendley, Secretary General of Religions for Peace, briefing the meeting on the current state of Religions for Peace.

 

The meeting was held in the American Academy in Rome, Italy.

The theme of the meeting was “Advancing a Moral Alliance Among the World’s Religions for an Integral Ecology,” using a phrase that Pope Francis coined in a recent encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’. The meeting began with a private audience with His Holiness, Pope Francis, in the Vatican.

His Holiness addressing the Religions for Peace World Council of Religious Leaders and Board of International Trustees in the Vatican

 

In his address to the Religions for Peace World Council and Board, His Holiness said,

“I express my esteem and appreciation for the work of Religions for Peace. You provide a valuable service to both religion and peace, for religions are bound by their very nature to promote peace through justice, fraternity, disarmament, and care for creation.

There is a need for a common and cooperative effort on the part of religions in promoting an integral ecology. The religions have the wherewithal to further a moral covenant that can promote respect for the dignity of the human person and care for creation.

Thanks be to God, in various parts of the world we have any number of good examples of the power of inter-religious cooperation to oppose violent conflicts, to advance sustainable development and to protect the earth. Let us continue along this path.”

Logos president Helio Fred Garcia meeting His Holiness, Pope Francis at the beginning of the Religions for Peace Board meeting.

 

The Vatican played a central role in the meeting, through the offices of Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, a part of the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s administrative body.

L to R: Sheikh Shaban Ramadhan Mubaje, Grand Mufti, Uganda Muslim Supreme Council; Cardinal Jean Louise Tauran, President, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the Vatican; Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, Dean, Department of Islamic Studies, Academy of Sciences, Iran; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh, Chairman, Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, UK, Kenya, India.

 

The two-day meeting featured substantive planning of critical issues to be addressed in the next World Assembly of Religions for Peace, held every seven to nine years, that brings together more than 2,000 religious leaders from all major faith communities in the world.

L to R: Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Trustee, Professor, Columbia University, and Special Advisor, UN Secretary-General on Sustainable Development Goals; Sheikh Shaban Ramadhan Mubaje, Grand Mufti, Uganda Muslim Supreme Council;Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, Bishop Emeritus of Oslow, Church of Norway; Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria; Religions for Peace Secretary General Dr. William Vendley; and Mrs. Christine Brown, Trustee, and Chair, Institute of Healthy Air, Water, and Soil, Louisville, Kentucky.

 

The planning meeting in mid-October, 2017 included working groups in three separate work streams:

  • Conflict transformation: the use of religious leadership and religious community to stop violence being conducted in the name of religion; to prevent conflicts from occurring in the first place; and to create social conditions for peace and stability in otherwise unstable parts of the world. Religions for Peace acknowledges the reality that religion is all-too-often being misused in support of violent threats to Peace – by extremists, by unscrupulous politicians, by the sensationalist media, and others. Through the years Religions for Peace has amassed a record of successful engagement in a number of conflict areas, including: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Burundi, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the Mano River and Great Lakes African sub-regions, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, and Syria.

    Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, Dean, Department of Islamic Studies, Academy of Sciences, Iran, denouncing ISIS and others who hijack the identity of Islam to commit violence, and calling for all Islamic leaders to denounce violence in the name of Islam.

     

  • Sustainable development: equipping religious leaders and communities with the necessary resources and knowledge to address critical issues of health and well-being, education, climate action, and distribution of resources to reveal the potential inherent in all human communities. Extreme poverty threatens peace and human flourishing by depleting health, perpetuating existing inequalities, and jeopardizing access to basic human rights.

Jeffrey Sachs, Trustee, Professor, Columbia University and Special Advisor, UN Secretary-General on Sustainable Development Goals, addressing the challenges of sustainable development.

 

  • Protecting the earth: addressing climate change, safe drinking water, and other environmental challenges. Religions for Peace is faced with a clear moral imperative to respond to threats to the planet. For the world’s major religions, care for the earth is a religious obligation. Working with top climate scientists and development experts, Religions for Peace has developed and deployed climate sensitive advocacy and action training materials across its global networks as well as implemented multi religious initiatives in partnership with other concerned entities—especially the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Vatican.

Logos President Helio Fred Garcia presenting a strategic path for religious leaders and communities to protect the earth.

 

Each working group developed a statement of problem, a proposed path forward to engage the world’s religious communities, and actionable steps to take between now and the World Assembly to show the impact that multi-religious cooperation can have on each of these challenges.

L to R Religions for Peace International Co-Moderators, Dr. Vinu Aram, Director, Shanti Ashram, India; Rev. Kosho Niwano, President-Designate, Rissho Kossei-kai, Japan.

These recommendations will now become part of the work coordinated by Religions for Peace’s International Secretariat, based at the United Nations in New York, and will be implemented through the six regional and more than 90 national inter-religious councils in the Religions for Peace network over the next two years. Results from that work will form the policy agenda for tenth World Assembly of Religions for Peace in 2019.

The Religions for Peace World Council of Religious Leaders, Board of International Trustees, and invited civic and foundation leaders, at the American Academy in Rome

 

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Integrity as Competitive Advantage

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How Lyft’s new slogan capitalizes on the ethical shortcomings of its biggest competitor and why leaders need to pay attention

Lyft’s new slogan “It matters how you get there” prompts a natural and provocative follow-up question, what matters how you get there? The answer, is the integrity of the individuals, companies, or organizations consumers choose to be involved with. “You always have a choice,” begins actor Jeff Bridges in the televised version of the ad, “choose to ride with the right people, doing things for the right reasons, you’ll always end up in the right place.”

The slogan is a thinly veiled yet tactful jab at Lyft’s larger and ethically dubious competitor, Uber. 2017 was the year Uber fell from grace as the vaunted $70 billion ridesharing pioneer to the poster child for everything-wrong-with-Silicon-Valley-companies. Allegations of sexism and harassment (see former employee Susan Fowler’s astounding blog post), intellectual property theft (see Google’s lawsuit against Uber), and evasion of the authorities (see the Department of Justice’s investigation into its use of “Greyball” software) all make the list of Uber’s missteps for the calendar year, culminating in co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick’s forced ouster in June under pressure from board members. Lyft, all the while, watched and waited silently in the wings. Until now that is.   

(Travis Kalanick, photo Source: Scottamyx.com)

Themes of right and wrong, good versus evil are as captivating as they are ingrained in the human experience because they force us to contemplate our identity, and ask which side am I on? Which side is (insert company/public figure/organization) on? Which side should I choose? Lyft’s emphasis on choice and choosing “right” not only speaks to the human preoccupation with where we fall on the spectrum between good and evil, it also elevates Lyft as the ethical superior to Uber, spelling dollar signs for Lyft and more defensive maneuvering for Uber.

Behaving ethically is not good for business only in terms of image, which is easily shattered when actions incongruent with stated values become public knowledge. Ethical integrity is and will continue to be a critical part of business’ ability to attract and retain top talent and customers, which are essential to survival. “They no longer look at it as just a paycheck,” CEO of Pepsi Indra Nooyi said recently in an interview with Fortune, of the sea change she’s observed in the needs and desires of today’s workforce. “We have to weave purpose into the core business model of the company.” The purpose Indra Nooyi speaks of is fundamentally linked to the fulfillment that comes with compliance with ethical standards. Clearly stated ethical standards give people the opportunity to live as they know they should, and fulfill the expectations set before them creating a sense of competence that is essential to happiness and productivity. As for consumers, the ability afforded by social media to say and do something about one’s concerns means people will continue to call out businesses and their leaders for ethical breaches, both real and perceived.   

What are ethics anyway, and why should leaders, businesses, and organizations care about them? Ethics are standards of behavior that inform how a society, or any group of people with common interests, should behave. Ethics are concerned with the actions people take, and the rightness or wrongness of those actions. Morals, which are related to but conceptually distinct from ethics, inform why a person chooses one action over another or believes one action to be better than another; morals are a person’s internal belief system of what is good and bad. It is possible however, for a person to perform an action that is against his or her internal belief system; morals are not obvious in the way a person’s actions are. Ethics are public; morals are private.

Companies and leaders would be wise to take a page from Lyft’s playbook on the following:

  • Capitalize on opportunities to share what you and your business are doing right. People instinctively want to identify with being “good” and “right” and will choose the product, service, or company that’s actions align with this desired self-concept.
  • When it comes to the competition, play the long game. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist, prudence is essential to victory over one’s enemy. After five years of being compared as the plucky number two to Uber’s domineering number one spot in the ridesharing sector, Lyft knew how and when to capitalize on their competitor’s missteps, without interference or immature gloating on their part.

If there is one thing to learn from Lyft’s clever and disciplined response to its competitor’s self-inflicted wounds, it is that genuinely maintaining the ethical high ground provides opportunity for lasting and substantial competitive advantage.

Well played, Lyft.      

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Adam Tiouririne of Logos Breaks Down Trump and May’s Big Speeches with Bloomberg

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The United Nations calls its annual General Assembly meeting a “debate,” but the top world leaders rarely make it look like one. This year was different.

Donald Trump spoke second, the traditional slot for an American president, and set the stage for a real debate about the future of international relations. He ditched words like “cooperation” and “partnership” that were favored by past presidents, according to an exclusive analysis with Bloomberg Politics, and reframed US policy in terms of the “sovereignty” of individual nations.

Trump’s peers on the world stage, the leaders of the other G20 major economies, lashed back. All of them mentioned “internationalism” more than Trump’s “sovereignty” buzzword.

And just two days after her UN speech, one of the G20 leaders had an even bigger task. Theresa May jetted to Florence in an attempt to reclaim her country’s momentum in Brexit negotiations with the EU. A separate Bloomberg analysis shows how the Prime Minister softened her tone from a more confident negotiation kickoff speech in January.

For more, follow @Tiouririne on Twitter.

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Logos President Guest Lectures at Air War College

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(Fred teaching)

Logos Consulting Group is pleased to note that Logos President Helio Fred Garcia recently spoke as a guest lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Air War College, part of Air University, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Air War College is the senior U.S. Air Force professional military school. Annually, it prepares about 250 resident and over 5,000 nonresident senior students from all US military services, federal agencies, and 41 nations to lead in the strategic environment.

Garcia spoke on August 15, 2017 under the auspices of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Leadership Communication Program.

Garcia’s lecture, The Power of Communication as an Instrument of Policy, was based on the principles of his 2012 book, The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively.

Garcia spoke initially to all 250 resident students, mostly U.S. Air Force colonels, plus equivalent ranks from the other U.S. armed services and air force colonels from allied nations.

He later spent time in a number of the students’ cohort groups, ranging from 10 to 20 students each, answering questions and discussing related topics.

Here is segment 1 of the guest lecture, the introduction, where Garcia introduces the topic of leadership and communication:

Here is segment 2, on the application of strategy to communication:

Here is segment 3, on communication and warfighting, based on the adaptation of the U.S. Marine Corps doctrinal publication called Warfighting, which Garcia adapted in his book The Power of Communication:

Here is segment 4, where Garcia lays out a leadership communication planning tool that Logos Consulting Group uses with clients to help them assure that their communication is aligned with strategy and likely to achieve their desired purpose:

In segment 5, his conclusion, Garcia brings together themes from the prior segments and fields questions from the audience:

You can see the complete lecture here:

This was Garcia’s second major presentation to the U.S. Air Force in the past year. In December, 2016, he was the civilian keynote speaker at the U.S. Air Force Global Public Affairs Summit in Washington, DC.

Garcia delivered an equivalent Power of Communication workshop on August 31, 2017 to the U.S. Marine Corps General Officer Warfighting Program at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia.

Garcia has taught and advised elements of the U.S. and allied armed services for 26 years. He has worked primarily with the U.S. Marine Corps, and also with a number of joint commands. He is currently a contract lecturer at the U.S. Defense Information School.

 

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Logos Turns Fifteen

Friends, I am delighted to share the news that today Logos celebrates its 15th anniversary. I want to take a moment to thank all of our clients, Logos employees through the ages, and all who have provided support, advice, referrals, help, and encouragement.

We were founded on September 4, 2002, in the middle of a recession. On the day we were founded we had no clients, and only one employee, me. Our first client came a few days later; our second the following month; within six months we were active with a dozen clients.

Our clients include leading companies in banking, investment management, insurance, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, manufacturing, professional services, technology, food and beverage manufacturing and distribution, hospitality, and consumer brands.  Also leading universities, where we both provide advice, as we do to all clients, and also do contract teaching in their various graduate programs. We have also worked for human rights, cultural, artistic, and social justice NGOs. And we also work for and teach in a number of governmental organizations, in the U.S, and elsewhere.

Our client work has taken us to dozens of countries on six continents and to at least 36 states in the United States. Just as an example, on the day we were founded, 22 years into my career, I had already flown one million miles on a single airline. Since then I am up to six and a half million miles: five and a half million miles flown on just that airline since Logos was founded. And there were dozens of other airlines along the way, both in the U.S. and in all corners of the world.

Some of the milestones in the life of the firm so far:

  • September, 4, 2002, we are founded.
  • September 27, 2002, we receive our first client fee payment, from our first client, a leading commodities exchange.
  • October 4, 2002, we get our second client, a global human rights organization. It is still a client today.
  • October 7, 2002, we get our third client, a leading life insurance company. It is still a client today.
  • November, 2002, we get two additional clients, a leading financial data services company, and a global investment bank that is still a client today. From this point we have critical mass, and begin assembling a team. Those first team members are still with the firm today.
  • June, 2004, with our client work well underway, we launch the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, to serve as a think tank and idea lab to develop best practices and analyses for clients, and to house our executive education practice.

  • June, 2007, we move into our first Manhattan office, at 245 Park Avenue; we build our staff.
  • June, 2009, we move to our present office, at 875 Avenue of the Americas, which we designed and had built.
  • June, 2016, we expand our office by 50 percent, to accommodate additional staff and to increase our meeting capacity.
  • July, 2017, we launch our book publishing initiative, the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership Press.

What I am most proud of is the Logos team. Logos people not only provide great value to our clients. They are also shaping and mentoring the next generation of leaders. All senior Logos people teach in one or more graduate, law, or equivalent program at leading universities. Most of us have formal faculty appointments; others of us teach as scheduled guest lecturers. And most of us advise graduate students on their theses. Most are also actively involved in civic, philanthropic, cultural, and human rights causes we care about, independent of the firm.

As we begin our sixteenth year I want to once more thank our clients, our friends and supporters, and all Logos people through the years.  And especially the families: spouses, partners, significant others, children, and friends of the the Logos people, who make it possible for them to do their important work.

With great gratitude,

Fred

 

 

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Logos President Named to Columbia University Faculty

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Logos Consulting Group is pleased to announce that Logos president Helio Fred Garcia has been appointed to the faculty of Columbia University.

Effective August, 2017, Fred is an adjunct associate professor teaching in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, also known as Columbia Engineering.  Fred will teach ethics to all 1,500 incoming graduate students through Columbia Engineering’s Professional Development and Leadership program.  Fred’s course will cover the foundations of ethics and ethical decision-making, the evolution of professional ethics in general and ethics in engineering and applied science in particular. He will also cover particular ethical issues in science publishing and in academic settings.

In addition to this course at Columbia Engineering, Fred also teaches ethical decision-making for U.S. military public affairs officers in the Joint Senior Public Affairs Officer course and Joint Intermediate Public Affairs Officer course in the U.S. Defense Information School.

Fred also taught business and communication ethics in New York University for more than 25 years, most recently in the M.S. in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program.  He remains on the NYU faculty, as an adjunct associate professor of management and communication in the M.S. in Public Relations program, and as an adjunct professor of management in the NYU Stern Executive MBA program, where last year he was named Executive MBA Great Professor.

Fred is the second Logos senior staff person to join the Columbia faculty.  Since 2001 Logos Senior Advisor Anthony Ewing has taught a graduate seminar on corporate responsibility at Columbia Law School. Several other Logos senior staff members are frequent guest speakers at Columbia’s Journalism School, Business School, Barnard College, and Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership Studies.

During the 1970s and 1980s Fred was a graduate student at Columbia, where he studied ethics. In 1980 he received an M.A. in Philosophy from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He continued his graduate studies in Greek philosophy at Columbia for several years thereafter.

 (Helio Fred Garcia at the Philosophy Building on the day of his M.A. graduation, May 14, 1980)

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New Book: The Agony of Decision by Helio Fred Garcia

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Logos Institute is very pleased to announce the publication of a new book by Helio Fred Garcia,The Agony of Decision: Mental Readiness and Leadership in a Crisis, volume 1 of Logos Institute Best Practice Series. The book is also the first volume in our publishing imprint, Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership Press.

The book is now available for purchase here for individual or bulk orders. For a 15 percent discount, use the discount code QW9CFYKM. A Kindle edition is also available here on Amazon.

This book is about how leaders and the organizations they lead can maintain reputation, trust, confidence, financial and operational strength, and competitive advantage in a crisis.

Through Fred’s 30-plus years of professional involvement in thousands of crises affecting companies, governments, NGOs, and other organizations, he has discovered that the real value in resolving crises is not in excellent internal and external communication, nor in highest-quality tactical execution, however important they may be – and they are mighty important.

Rather, real value came from helping clients figure out and answer the bigger questions and then make the tough choices in a timely way. The execution would follow. So would the communication.

But people often misunderstand. That’s why Fred felt the necessity of writing this book — to help leaders think clearly, plan carefully, and execute effectively when facing high-stakes decisions. A wise man once said, the only meaningful way to escape the agony of decision is by thinking.

This book is for leaders of organizations who need to be good stewards of reputation, trust, and competitive advantage; and for those who advise those leaders, whether in public relations, law, or other business disciplines. We hope you find it helpful.

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