It would be a rare thing indeed for me to be immersing myself in Hollywood pop culture, glitz and glamour on a work day or truthfully, any day really.
But this is no ordinary day. It’s the Oscar’s and it’s no ordinary Oscar’s day. The 6,687 voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have had to make the same agonising decision that senior executives with help from their HR friends have to make constantly about their “performers and artists” – how to resolve the exquisite and agonising tension between pure merit, in this case directing or acting ability and conduct… Conduct known or alleged, public or settled confidentially before or after a hearing, public testimony or a story by an intrepid investigative journalist. Three Oscar nominees have a cloud over them – Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) for sexual harassment allegations, Nate Parker (The Birth of a Nation) for allegations of rape when in College and Mel Gibson (directing Hacksaw Ridge) for that DUI- related anti-Semitic rant.
We see these decisions being made in sport, in workplaces, in life. We see them debated in the media, in the pub and around the lounge room table.
Wayne Carey became persona non grata at North Melbourne after his extra marital indiscretions. One interviewed footballer put it succinctly: “The one thing you don’t do in football is sleep with another man’s wife… and especially if it’s your mate’s”. And later, horrifically, Carey ‘glassed’ his girlfriend. We were shocked. We were outraged. And then I waited. I waited and I counted…. Days turned into months, and months to years for the announcement I felt sure would come. Wayne “The King” Carey would be doing special comments for the football call on radio that afternoon. While I’m sure the station got some blowback, he became a regular. And then he and a television station executive put their toes into TV water to gauge public reaction… and sometime later, well, the rest is history.
The most embarrassing thing Shane Warne has done in a while is to state publicly that Steve O’Keefe shouldn’t be called up for the Australian test against India and the young bowler took 12 wickets in the test that finished yesterday. But arguably one of, if not the finest spin bowlers to ever play the game, S.K. Warne, our loveable, irreverent, baked bean eating larrikin always got to bat on (forgive the weak pun). He made numerous errors of judgment including accepting money from a bookmaker for information about pitch conditions and many would have found his serial ‘sexting’ and rumoured infidelity abhorrent – but it was never fatal (putting aside the fact that Ricky Ponting, five years his junior, was elevated to captain of the Australian team ahead of him).
Nike stuck by Lance Armstrong interminably and renowned for being loyal and tolerant with their most edgy bankable stars, only after the damning USADA report, did Nike pull the pin in October 2012. That’s when the other sponsors left him, with skid marks on the pavement and this became Armstrong’s infamous “75 million dollar day” in lost future earnings as he confessed to Oprah.
Mark McInnes left David Jones in disgrace after allegations of sexual harassment we are unlikely to forget. His complainant, Kristy Fraser-Kirk now works overseas. McInnes presumably sat living off his bank account for around a year and then took up the plum position with Premier Investments and their stocks rose, considerably. Because he would seem to be a genuinely high performing CEO.
Is there a crime that’s unforgiveable? And what is it?
How long in the wilderness is long enough?
How do we balance the desire to give someone a second chance when what they did is so bad that they don’t deserve one? Or that at least a majority of those making the decision think does not deserve one.
Is making a decision based purely on merit our highest form of morality?
How does this moral dilemma cause heartaches and sweaty palms at work? Examples?
· The sexually harassing lawyer who brings a million dollars in annual billings to the firm.
· The underperformer being carried by others because he/she is mates with or the cousin of a senior executive and it would be career limiting to highlight their deficiencies.
· The workplace bully who doesn’t need to be liked and isn’t out to make friends who pulls off the most miraculous deal for the company or makes brutal, even necessary decisions to shed staff in bloated departments; saving the company millions.
Even more vexed is the board that might be almost unanimous in its belief someone has to go, except that the Chair doesn’t agree and the offender stays on…. And how much more likely might that be if the offender is a top performer?
And so here we are with the red carpet having been rolled out and two hours to Jimmy Kimmel’s opening stand-up routine. I no longer care what he does and doesn’t decide to say about Mr. Trump. I’m much more interested in what the voting Academy will say about Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic slurs or the charges of rape made against Nate Parker when he was in College but for which no trial took place. Last year, the Oscar’s was slammed for the fact that all Best Actor nominees were white. Will Nate Parker be adjudged the winner because he is truly deserving? Or if he wins will it be because Academy members feel morally compelled to redress the racial imbalance (or perceptions of such) of last year by giving him the gong? What amount of dissonance will any of them feel if they have genuine concerns about the disturbing allegations against him which were neither proven nor disproven? And will such concerns transcend any sentiment about race and the desire to prove the Oscars are truly colour blind?
You see we could fall back on the argument that it’s all about the art but when does bias, conscious and unconscious get in the way. In the workplace we try to safeguard against unconscious bias by constituting a selection panel. Well the selection panel this time is 6,687 panellists strong so we’ve just got to hope they get it right on the night. But what will we decide is right? I dare say there will be several different versions and, despite the fact that it’s a work day, I know I will be taking a sneaky peak at the awards ceremony as it unfolds.