When crisis hits, culture speaks.
In 1982, Johnson and Johnson faced a nightmare. Cyanide laced Tylenol capsules killed seven people in Chicago. Panic spread, sales collapsed, and the company’s most trusted product became a national threat.
Executives could have waited for the facts or minimized the damage. Instead, they showed values in action. Within days, Johnson and Johnson pulled 31 million bottles off store shelves, destroying them at a cost of more than one hundred million dollars. No one forced their hand. Their decision came from a simple truth embedded in their Core Beliefs:
“We believe our first responsibility is to the patients, doctors, and nurses who use our products.”
That statement was not a slogan. It was values in action. Every choice, recall, transparency, tamper proof packaging, flowed directly from their Guiding Principles.
The result was extraordinary. Within a year, Tylenol regained its market share and public trust. What could have been a corporate disaster became a defining moment of integrity and leadership.
Here are three lessons for executives who want to lead with values in action:
- Culture drives decisions. In a crisis, you do not rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your culture. Johnson and Johnson’s Core Beliefs made the right path clear.
- Values only matter when they cost you. Real values in action appear when the stakes are high and the choices are hard.
- Trust grows through transparency. By acting quickly and communicating openly, Johnson and Johnson turned fear into faith.
The Tylenol crisis remains one of the clearest examples of values in action. Culture is not what you print on the wall, it is what you practice when everything is on the line.
The question for every leader is simple: When the next crisis comes, will your organization show its words or its values in action?
Dr. Mark DeVolder is a Top Change Management & Transformation Expert, Award Winning Motivational Keynote Speaker Empowering Confidence through Change. Mark can teach you how to change, anticipate business trends and accelerate future-proof transformation. He’s done it before with industry leaders like Qatar Petroleum, PepsiCo, Royal Bank of Canada and Pfizer.
