No Limit

Over the years I’ve been watching and writing about business failures I’ve encountered examples that can be explained by bad strategic planning, bad marketing surveys, bad demographic information, bad product design, faulty product development, faulty product construction, bad advertising, bad product distribution, bad customer service, bad human resources policy, bad financial decisions, bad accounting practices, fraudulent accounting practices, idiotic purchasing decisions, incompetent technology development (too high and too low), insufficient capitalization, absurdly bad public relations, and horrible taste. I have also encountered experts, both consultants and professionals available for hire, who can help you to avoid every one of these errors and many more in both concept and execution of your business model. There is, however, only so much they can do about rampant stupidity…

Consider, for example, the case of a movie theater in Jefferson City, MO, which decided to stage a publicity stunt for the opening of the new Iron Man movie: having a man dressed in tactical gear and carrying a prop assault rifle walking around the building. You can pick up the account of the situation from the local ABC affiliate if you want to, but the story should still seem vaguely familiar…

If you were watching the news last summer you will probably remember this as exactly how the movie theater shooting rampage in Colorado began – except, of course, that one was a real maniac with a real gun. But the similarity in the scenario (man in black tactical gear with an assault rifle invades a movie theater on opening night of a superhero movie) was enough for several patrons, who summoned the police. Needless to say, perhaps, neither the law enforcement personnel nor the theater patrons were happy to learn that the whole thing was a hoax…

Now, in fairness, the “gunman” in our story was part of a group that included an actor wearing an Iron Man costume, and anyone seeing the entire scene would probably have realized what was going on without any additional issues. Still, I think we are justified in asking why the actors arrived in costume and walked onto the property dressed that way, instead of suiting up once already inside. And, of course, we could also ask how management could possibly have thought that this sort of stunt was a good idea in the first place. Granted that having costumed actors on hand could add some impact to an otherwise routine event, there is still an excellent chance of offending people who are in favor of gun control, have friends or relatives affected by the Colorado shooting, or who have friends or relatives who have been affected by some other gun-related incident…

Then there’s the issue of fake armed confrontations turning into real ones. In this case, no one was hurt – the responding police units did not jump to the wrong conclusions, and there was no actual armed showdown. But if the officers responding to the 911 call had been just a little bit trigger-happy – or worse, if someone inside the theater had been carrying a concealed weapon and decided to take pre-emptive action – this whole situation could have ended in tragedy…

Many years ago, when I was trying to explain my new job as a management consultant to my (then) 92-year-old grandmother, what I ended up saying was “I provide common sense to companies that don’t have any of their own.” It wasn’t much of a joke even then, but when I read stories like this one I sometimes wonder if such consulting firms may become a growth industry in the new century. Assuming that anyone has the common sense to hire them in the first place…