An Ounce of Grace, a Cup of Perspective

Other than a good ethical compass, there is probably no more valuable attribute during a crisis than a sense of perspective. Anyone who can keep a level head on his or her shoulders when under the glare of spotlights generally reveals character traits the public will applaud and admire.

Examples of grace under pressure can be seen in the reactions of three people who this summer were unexpectedly thrust onto the national stage.

Major League pitcher Armando Galarraga and umpire Jim Joyce were forever joined in baseball lore when Joyce’s erroneous call with two outs in the ninth inning denied the Detroit Tigers’ pitcher a perfect game. For those in baseball, that’s not your basic inconsequential blown call.

Fans were outraged. TV couldn’t stop showing the replay even on non-sports shows. But the two men at the center of the hubbub showed calm and perspective. When Joyce saw the evidence of his mistake after the game, he immediately went to the Detroit locker room and apologized to Galarraga. An umpire apologizing to a player? Never happens. It’s surprising the stadium didn’t crumble.

For his part, the young Venezuelan showed more maturity and graciousness than anyone else in the ballpark, if not all of Michigan. He accepted Joyce’s apology with a hug and said, “Nobody’s perfect,” perhaps an ironic play on words. The next night, when Joyce manfully refused to skip his turn umpiring behind home plate, Galarraga delivered the Tigers’ lineup card to him in the pre-game meeting, and they smiled and talked. Talk about a “teachable moment.”

Shirley Sherrod’s 15 minutes of fame was somewhat more serious. Much has been written about the unconscionable mistakes made by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the Obama Administration and the national NAACP for falling prey to a right-wing blogger’s hoax and rushing to the judgment that Sherrod had made racist remarks in a local NAACP speech. We’ll look instead at how Sherrod handled the situation.

Before it was discovered that the blogger had edited Sherrod’s remarks to the NAACP in Coffee County, Georgia, to make them appear racist rather than the redemption story they actually were, Vilsack publicly and unceremoniously fired her from her job as the USDA rural development officer in the state. When the hoax was exposed the next day, the Secretary, the national NAACP and even the President apologized, and Sherrod was offered a new position.

So how did she react? She said she did not need an apology from the President. “You know, he’s the President of the United States. I would not want him to apologize to me.”

And after she got the apology anyway, she said, “I didn’t feel I needed that to feel whole or better,” she said. “If in any way what I’ve gone through can help move people in this country to a better understanding of each other, I’m willing to do it.”

No bitterness. No making the President or even Vilsack grovel. Come down to rural Georgia and see what this place is like, she said to the President. Let’s learn from this and move on.

Even though Sherrod, Joyce and Galarraga may be “the small people,” as BP Chairman Carl-Henrick Svanberg would say, they may offer lessons for corporate titans under stress.

When a person responds to adversity of any kind with dignity and a perspective that acknowledges theirs is not the biggest problem in the world, the public’s appreciation and admiration is huge.