Toughest Moments: Dealing with Being Accused

“Dave, you’re going to want to see this.”

C.P. handed me a single white piece of paper. On it were three short paragraphs. No signature.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s not good.” said C.P.

Less than a minute later, I handed it back to C.P.

“I’m not worried about it. There’s no credibility in this accusation. It looks random.” I said. “Where did you find this?”

“It just printed on every network printer in the complex.” He said.

I could feel the blood drain from my face.

“Great…” I said. “I better go make some visits.”

15 years ago, I was a contractor working for the Federal government. I was at one point, the senior on-site person responsible for contracts managing the help desk, network operations, security, the officer pay program, patient admin, concierge, and a small application called SPMS. I was also a target, and I had just been accused by an anonymous person of illegally loading software on every computer in the place.

This accusation, since it has such wide-spread distribution, got the attention of several people who questioned its authenticity. I had no idea how many copies were distributed, but there were hundreds of network printers. By the time I read the copy C.P. handed me, the damage was already done. I didn’t know it yet, but the next several months would bring visits from the Inspector General (IG), dozens of interviews, and an ultimate verdict – which you will soon know.

A few years before this event I was hired right out of uniform. I was an enlisted Navy Corpsman with a sterling record and an reputation for going above and beyond. I was once asked to chauffeur the Surgeon General, organized relief efforts in Puerto Rico for Hurricane Hortense, brought together more than 20 civilian and military organizations to produce a film on drinking and driving, and put together a joint Navy/ Marine Corps skills exchange program – all while operating an IT consulting business on the side. Many of the senior enlisted and officers in the medical community knew my name & helped me out from time to time.

Unknown to me when I got the job, my former Commanding Officer had called the Director for Administration (3rd in command) to tell him he had an asset on board – a new young contractor that used to work for him as a Corpsman. They decided to use me to improve some things in the new organization.

I was summoned in my second week on the job and informed that I had two missions – the one that was on my statement of work, and the one this Navy Captain was about to give me. Being a recently discharged veteran, my loyalty to the military chain of command was strong and unquestionable. I believed that following these orders – especially as given through a fraternal military chain – was my duty. Contracting issues aside for now. This is what was in my head.

“I’ve got a lot of dead wood in my civil servants,” he said. “and my two officers in charge of this operation need a lot of help. I want you to make my two officers look good and do whatever it takes to make this (command) work the way it should.”

My own experience confirmed civil servants literally sleeping on the job, elaborate schemes to drag projects on forever, a passive aggressive security manager who came in at 10 AM, reshuffled his papers and left at 2 PM without consequence, and countless examples of solitaire and other time wasters. That Captain was right. He had lot’s of people on the pay roll who were not doing much beyond collecting a paycheck. Morale was rancid. Lethargy and passive aggression seemed to be the actions of choice.

I set out to light the world on fire. I teed up project after project for those two officers to take credit for. My teams were hot. They knocked down the backlog of several thousand help desk calls via a program we called “Going for the Goose,” (as is the big Goose Egg – Zero help desk tickets). We found all manner of security flaws and restored it to state of the art. We started a computer training program for government staff, and generally raised H.E.-double toothpicks.

Customers and that Navy Captain were very happy with the changes, but the civil servants were pretty ticked, and likely frightened. A-76 studies were going on at the time and many civil service personnel felt they were under threat of being replaced by contractors. I imagine I was a poster child of the devil to them. I suppose they believed it was time for the devil to go.

This accusation of loading illegal software was one of what would become many accusations thrown in my direction in an attempt to get me out of the way. The civil servants were on the war path and they wanted me gone. In this case, someone with access to the server that managed the network printers had forced a print job that was designed to make it look like I was doing something illegal. If true, it would be grounds for getting me fired.

The command did indeed have a lot of illegal copies of software loaded on computers. Poor record keeping, tight budgets, competing priorities, and an abysmally slow acquisition process made loading copies of software that hadn’t yet been paid for a pretty common occurrence. This had gone on for years before I got there. A simple audit revealed that that portion of the mystery memo was true.

Who was responsible and whether I would be hung for it was still to be determined. It was, however, pretty common for contractors to be considered third class citizens at the time, so I knew my future was in jeopardy.

How I handled it:

• First, I was worried. My reputation and integrity had never been challenged like this before. I was hurt, embarrassed, and offended. It’s uncomfortable to be accused of something, even with knowledge that the accusation is unfounded. The IG inspection seemed to give credence to the accusation. I thought the accusation should have been dismissed unceremoniously, but when politics are involved, things are rarely that simple.
• I made myself available to the Navy Captain who had sent me on my mission. He didn’t want (or wasn’t allowed) to see me.
• I disclosed what I knew to the two officers in charge, my contract company chain of command, and my staffs. Then, I settled into a waiting period. A very LOOONG waiting period where hours seemed like days and weeks seemed like months. Stress was always on simmer in the background.
• Every so often, I’d hear about someone else – mostly from the civil service staff – being summoned to see the IG and provide a statement. I knew those statements couldn’t have painted me in a very positive light. I waited some more & attempted to do my job – though admittedly, the wind was blowing a little less full in my sails.

The IG didn’t ask for my statement until the very end. Several months later, I got the call. I hung up the phone, gathered my things, and the phone rang a second time. It was the Navy Captain.

“Your about to go see the IG?” he said.

“Yes.” I responded.

“I want you to tell them the whole truth and nothing more, do you understand?” He said. “Don’t volunteer anything they don’t ask you about. Don’t belabor your responses. Just answer their questions.”

“Yes sir.” I replied, and went off to my interview. A stack of papers in my briefcase.

I always kept meticulous records. Every staff action, every order received, every suggestion or criticism, and every bit of appreciation expressed got documented somewhere: the time, date, person involved, status and outcome if I knew it. I had gathered all the documentation I could find and brought it with me to the interview.

The interview lasted for maybe 30 minutes. I answered questions as they came and bit my tongue to keep my mouth from wandering on side trips. When the investigator was wrapping up, she asked if I had anything else I would like to share. I pulled out my documentation and handed it to her.

“This is a record of every piece of software we’ve ever loaded.” I began “The computer it was loaded on, the serial numbers, the person who gave the order, the person who received the order, the date, the technician… everything. I hope you find this useful.”

Two weeks later, I was informed of the verdict. The government was found guilty of loading illegal software on computers and instructed to remedy the situation. I was found not guilty of any charges and invited to return to business as usual. The anonymous “accuser” was never identified to my knowledge. And while the line item in the budget labeled “software” got a little more love, the government system for managing IT operations wasn’t improved in any substantial way.

The victory was empty. I had wasted a lot of time and energy on worry and empty threats. My integrity was questioned, and the momentum my teams had gained was weakened. We were really good at record keeping, but it wasn’t fun. The best I could say at the time was that I had first hand experience with political tactics I wished I didn’t know about.

From a leadership perspective, I had to reassure staffs along the way that if anything negative came out of this, that I would be taking full responsibility. I had to open myself and my operations up to full Transparency. I had to sit still for a long time when my instinct was to take action. And I had to learn what it feels like to be in the hot seat.

If you’re an action taker, particularly if you’re in the business of creating change, there’s a better than average chance that you will tick someone off. If you tick people off consistently or well enough, they may resort to accusing you of wrong doing to get you out of the way. Like it or not, being accused of something – justified or not – puts limitations on what you can do until things can be sorted out.

At times like those I was grateful for the positive things I had done and the relationships I had built in advance. Being in the hot seat, there isn’t time or opportunity to make new relationships. Just about anything you do after being accused of something can be construed as an attempt to save yourself.

Here’s my top five picks for preparing defense against accusations:

1. Do the right thing. The more painful it is to do the right thing, the better. Doing the right thing consistently establishes your personal “brand” as one with integrity. Accusations are still both possible and painful, but it’s harder to levy an accusation against someone who is clearly wearing a white hat.
2. Establish and maintain positive relationships. Having people in your corner makes a huge difference in times of crisis. If you make the time to develop positive relationships now, you may never “need” them, but they’ll be there if/when you do, and you’ll have a good time with them if you don’t. Positive relationships are a win for everyone.
3. Keep good records. Keeping good records is one sign of a professional. Whether you think you need them or not, good records can help you manage staff (try recording every time a staff member does something cool – it’ll come in handy when it’s time to write performance evals), keep your life organized, and could mean the difference between guilt or innocence when the chips are down.
4. Know when NOT to speak. We spend a lot of time helping people learn how to speak up and speak clearly, but little time on when and how to shut up. When politics or legal action is concerned, common sense does not always prevail. You may have noticed, for example, that the more senior a person gets, the shorter their emails usually get too. There is a reason for that. It’s not all about time management either.
5. Relax & give yourself a break. Things that happen – including accusations thrown in your direction – are not always about you. As long as you keep your morale compass calibrated, you can hold your head high, regardless of what other people are saying.

What other things can you think of that can help people defend themselves against accusations?