The size of the group that believes “the rules don’t apply to me” seems to grow daily. We all see countless examples of this every day both at the office and outside of the office. It’s a growing problem that demands sophisticated management expertise to keep it from injuring organizational efficiency, effectiveness, profitability and personnel. The latest instance of this belief comes from the NFL and one of its Hall of Fame players who is also a commentator on ESPN. A video of former player Cris Carter’s comments to NFL rookies has come to light this week. Carter’s comments are on one hand shocking, and on the other quite expected from the NFL.

When speaking to a room full of rookies Carter informed them they should have a fall guy to take the blame for their misdeeds. He implied the rookie players would do things that were not smart or legal and to keep the blame from falling their way they should have a designated fall guy from their crew ready to assume the blame.

On one hand the advice from Carter is shocking. As a representative of the NFL he should be expected to give far better advice to the new players in the league. Parents, college coaches and agents would expect a respected former player to warn the young men about the many issues current and former players have experienced:
– female abuse
– child abuse
– the dangers of drunk diving
– drug abuse
– teammate abuse
– guns and weapons
The NFL has had to deal with all of the above issues and lives and careers have been lost due to the above. But Mr. Carter did not choose that path. He chose another path that indicated if the players did incur actions that fell into any of the above areas to make sure they had someone ready to take the blame for them.

On the other hand the advice from Mr. Carter as an NFL representative seems to be in keeping with historical NFL thinking. The NFL has a history of trying to sweep things under the rug, and that is precisely the advice given by Mr. Carter to the rookies. Put another way, “if you are an NFL player the rules of society do not apply to you”.

Ultimately Mr. Carter’s comments are the responsibility of the NFL commissioner. It is his office that developed the rookie meetings and the speakers for the meetings. Whether the commissioner knew of Mr. Carter’s comments in advance or not the end result becomes his problem and his issue. If the commissioner knew of Mr. Carter’s comments in advance it simply adds to the NFL image of avoiding the truth and trying it’s best to put a positive spin on the actions of its players. The recent suspension of Ray Rice for hitting his then fiancee and knocking her out before dragging her out of an elevator feet first is a perfect example. No video: 2 game suspension; video: year long suspension. It’s impossible to sweep video under the rug. Mr. Carter is on video so it is also impossible to sweep his comments under the rug.

If the commissioner was unaware in advance of what Mr. Carter would advise the young players the problem seems equally severe. It is hard to imagine any capable executive asking a guest speaker to address some of his organization’s top employees and not know the content of the speech before hand. In his book “A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference” Tom Peters stresses the point that a good leader is “Focused to the point of monomania on the company’s values and objectives” while a non-leader is “Unfocused except on self”. Thus a real leader would know in advance if a speaker was divergent or supportive of company values and objectives. Under either scenario the NFL commissioner comes off as a non-leader.

Further proof that the NFL commissioner is unfocused on company values and objectives is the fact the Carter video remained on the NFL web site for over one year despite the NFL’s statement: “The league’s player engagement staff immediately expressed concern about the content to Cris [Carter]. The comment was not repeated in…this year’s symposium”. Neither Carter nor the NFL commissioner can be considered a good leader per the “rules” set by Tom Peters. Both continue to operate as if “the rules don’t apply to me” applies to them.