Even in the Digital Age, Speed Is Not Everything

It is, of course, conventional wisdom that in the digital age, it's even more important to move quickly when crisis strikes. But I'd suggest that the opposite is true: because things move so fast, it's important for organizations to make sure they are not being stampeded into hasty but ill-conceived decisions based on transient events.

A perfect example occurred last week, when a video surfaced at a conservative website purporting to show Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod confessing that she gave preferential treatment to black farmers. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, apparently under pressure from a hypersensitive White House, responded quickly and forced Sherrod to resign.

The next day, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina reportedly praised the decision, telling colleagues: "We could have waited all day, we could have had a media circus--but we took decisive action, and it's a good example of how to respond in this atmosphere."

Or it would have been, had the video not been exposed as a total distortion of what Sherrod actually said. By the end of the week, the White House and the Department of Agriculture were furiously back-pedaling, but the damage had been done: by panicking as it did, the administration was made to look craven and weak.

Sometimes it's worth weathering an initial storm of criticism--however uncomfortable it may be for a few hours or even a few days--rather than to blunder badly because you couldn't wait for all the facts.