Will J&J's Gorsky Plead the 5th? Or Send a Minion to Testify Like Bill Weldon?

Will J&J's Gorsky Plead the 5th? Or Send a Minion to Testify Like Bill Weldon?

Johnson and Johnson is acting more and more like an "old school," mill town Big Pharma company -- like the circa 1900 photo shown on left that was featured recently on the JNJBTW Blog -- instead of a warm & fuzzy, mommy-friendly consumer goods company, which is how it prefers to be known.

As revealed by Pharmalot (here), the United States has "respectfully" sent a memo to J&J in "support of its motion to compel the deposition... of Alex Gorsky, who recently became the Chief Executive Officer of J&J, but was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing and then President of J&J’s Janssen unit during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the time period covered by the United States’ Complaint."

The "complaint," reports Pharmalot, concerns a "whistleblower lawsuit, which was joined by the US government, that charges Omnicare [nursing home pharmacy] received kickbacks – in the form of rebates, educational grants and payments for marketing data – so the Risperdal antipsychotic would be prescribed more often. The lawsuit also alleged J&J’s Janssen unit hid the payments from Medicaid to avoid reporting a ‘best price’ that would have triggered rebates to the agency."

"The feds contend that, unlike the lawyers who had difficulty recalling certain key details and interactions [when they were deposed], Gorksy should know a thing or two," reports Pharmalot. "J&J argues that Gorsky 'has no reasonable connection to the subject matter of the government’s complaint and was not involved in the facts underlying this case.' But the feds point out that he was the go-to guy when it came to Omnicare and Risperdal, and no one else possesses the same level of knowledge."

This is reminiscent of the time that Colleen A. Goggins, Worldwide Chairman, Consumer Group, Johnson & Johnson, was sent to testify in place of Bill Weldon, JNJ's CEO at the time, who declined to attend due to medical problems (see "JNJ's CEO Weldon May Send Underling to Congress. The Aching Back Excuse"). Afterward, Goggins left J&J, probably with a nice severance package. It's good to be the Minion!

Like Weldon, Gorsky will likely be a no-show and send his own minion instead.

Eventually, Weldon did confront Congress and he even wrote a blog post as a mea culpa. Given Gorsky's reaction to this whistleblower lawsuit and his apparent culpability, it is not likely that he will do what Weldon did or take my advice (see here) and "Start Tweeting, Blogging, and YouTubing." J&J goes back to "old school" communications, circa 1999.

Advice to J&J's New CEO Alex Gorsky: Start Tweeting, Blogging, and YouTubing

Advice to J&J's New CEO Alex Gorsky: Start Tweeting, Blogging, and YouTubing

Alex Gorsky will have to address trouble at J&J's consumer business when he becomes CEO, notes the Wall Street Journal (see here).

Sure, "those who know Mr. Gorsky laud his skills diagnosing problems by reviewing reams of data and visiting the company's front lines, motivating experts on staff to fix the issues and then holding the staffers responsible," but can he tweet? That's what I want to know.

Gorsky should learn from the mistakes of his predecessor, Bill Weldon, who flubbed handling the growing PR crisis by not adequately, IMHO, leveraging social media to assure consumers he was working to resolve the issue. More importantly, however, Weldon did not use social media to interact directly with consumers.

Gorsky should have his own Twitter account, Blog, and YouTube Channel. And ALL of them should allow comments. Open the social media floodgates and learn why J&J is now ranked #7 instead of #1 or #2 in the Harris Poll Reputation Quotient study.

You might object and say that a CEO of a huge corporation such a J&J simply does not have the time to engage in social media. That may be the case. But I advise Gorsky to learn from celebrities and political candidates -- have surrogates (ie, PR people) handle the day-to-day interactions and make sure you approve what they say in your name. But EVERY day make at least one personal tweet or reply to a tweet and every week write a blog post. Once a month, do a YouTube video update. Is that too much to ask of a CEO?

I cannot find a Twitter account for Gorsky, whereas at least 5 J&J junior executives have such accounts according to my "Pharma Social Media Pioneers" database (here).

The only social media account I can find for Gorsky is a LinkedIn page (here). It is out of date! Mr. Gorsky, how come you only have 160 links? Not only should you update your page and start linking to more people on LinkedIn, you should have a "vanity" URL. Mine is www.linkedin.com/in/pharmaguy. How about www.linkedin.com/in/Gorsky? Whoops! That's already taken! What about www.linkedin.com/in/AlexGorsky? That's taken as well. Too bad. You should have thought of this sooner.

Having a personal social media presence, however, is even more important when the NEXT crisis occurs -- and, Mr. Gorsky, it will occur, believe me.

During a previous JNJ PR crisis, I was asked what I would do in JNJ's shoes by Melissa Davies -- a mom and Social Media Practice Lead at Return on Focus, a company that helps companies market their brands. Melissa asked:

"John, could you share some thoughts on what you would advise JNJ to do as part of a more fully developed social media response strategy? Are you thinking the company should have more Tweets, engage on more sites, etc.? I'm curious what you think the ideal roadmap looks like."

My response:

"For what it's worth, I believe this situation calls for more information and conversation no matter what the channel or the road.

But since we are talking about social media, let's stick to that.

Because the CEO has been targeted, is expected to meet with Congress, and posted a message to JNJBTW, he should lead the discussion. In addition to a formal letter posted to the corporate blog, how about opening up a YouTube channel in which he and McNeil executives talk directly to their audience and provide updates. They should allow comments -- and respond to as many as necessary.

Twitter can work with this to keep people informed about what is going on and link to specific videos.

If the CEO talks to Congress, get the transcript and post it before anyone else does. Ask readers to comment on how well or not so well questions were answered by the CEO and what was missing.

Of course, there needs to be some progress if you are going to give updates. Actions speak louder than words. Social media won't solve the problems.

Right now, I feel that JNJ doesn't have a handle on what's causing the problems. At least that's what I suspect from the reports I have heard. Maybe there are complicated manufacturing issues that involve things JNJ doesn't want to be made public (eg, importation of tainted supplies from China)? Maybe this is a good opportunity to provide a virtual tour of a Good Manufacturing facility with interviews of employees.

I don't know if this is a roadmap or not, but when your company's reputation is at stake, the leaders have to be visible. You can't just say "one of our companies has let you down" and leave it at that. What are you going to do about it so that it doesn't happen again? is what people really want to hear from the people who are in charge, not the PR department."

What do you think Mr. Gorsky? Is that good advice? Would you consider doing something along these lines yourself?