Johnson & Johnson point of view, another looking at it from a
product point of view, and then a group of our people out with
TV cameras talking to consumers. I took tapes home every
night and saw that everyone else who was making decisions saw
them, so we could listen to the people, see them, and get some
sense of their emotions, their reactions.
“I’ve been trained in market research and consumer market-
ing. I know the media. I was a news freak, and I’d dealt with the
networks several times. I knew the heads of news, who to call,
how to talk with them. I wasn’t anxious to go to TV myself, but
I was trying to get them to understand the problem and the
need to handle it responsibly. I knew that the public, in the
long run, was going to make the decision, not just for Tylenol
and Johnson & Johnson, but how we marketed over-the-
counter drugs in general. I was in this room twelve hours a day.
I solicited advice from everyone, because no one had ever dealt
with this kind of issue before. It was brand-new.
“My son said an interesting thing. He said that I had a philos-
ophy of life which I felt strongly about, and all of a sudden,
through an accident, that philosophy was tested, and all my ex-
perience was utilized in a unique way. Several very capable peo-
ple told me they couldn’t do what I was doing, and only one
person here supported what I was doing. I knew we were not
the bad guys, and I believed in the intrinsic fairness of the sys-
tem, and I believed we’d be fairly treated. But when I decided to
go on ‘60 Minutes,’ the head of public relations told me it was
the worst decision anyone in this corporation had ever made,
and anyone who would risk this corporation that way was totally
irresponsible, and he walked out and slammed the door.
“I had double-dated with Mike Wallace years before, and I
met with him and his producer, who was the toughest monkey
On Becoming a Leader