Act now, or pay later

Friday’s Fiasco

How to extend a scandal ⏳

Fujitsu appeared before MPs this week to explain why, two years after admitting a "moral obligation" to compensate Post Office scandal victims, they still haven't named a figure because they are waiting for the inquiry report.

The damage is documented. Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongfully prosecuted because of faulty Horizon software. Some imprisoned. Lives destroyed. Taxpayers fund £1.8bn compensation while Committee Chair Liam Byrne MP explained Fujitsu collects £1m daily from government contracts. The company admits software faults existed "right from the very start." Yet their accounts contain no provision for compensation. Their European chief told MPs the firm would "decide a figure when we see the report" and insisted "we are not a parasite" when challenged about continuing to profit from government work.

When you've spent two years saying the right things while doing nothing concrete, when you're profiting from the same government funding the compensation you refuse to quantify, and when your defence is "we're legally entitled to keep taking contracts," you're not managing a crisis, you're extending it.

If Fujitsu's board asked for our advice, here's where we'd start:

Stop hiding behind the inquiry. Sir Wyn Williams' report is documenting your indecision. The inquiry will establish what you did wrong. Waiting for it to tell you what repair costs infers that you don't understand what repair means. Every quarterly report without a provision tells every victim and every future client where your priorities lie.

Recognise when legal advice contradicts your values. Japanese corporate culture understands collective responsibility and swift acknowledgment when harm occurs. Your expensive lawyers are probably telling you that naming a figure increases liability, that provisioning creates evidence, and that waiting protects your position. They're optimising for legal defence where strategy minimises what courts can force you to pay. This won’t minimise reputational damage, lost contracts, or decades of toxic brand association. Cultural instincts to act swiftly and accept responsibility are correct in the long run.

Name a figure this month. Not "we'll contribute." A number that can be paid over a designated period of time. Or forgo the extension in government contracts. Publicly take a significant hit. Giving a redress figure isn't a failure of leadership - it's a mark of strength. Let the inquiry adjust upward if evidence demands. But what you must not do is to wait for your hand to be forced. Trust requires acting before you're compelled to.

Understand this is a slow-motion scandal. The inquiry will conclude and you'll pay compensation eventually. But every month you delay while continuing to profit from government contracts creates a permanent record of your priorities. That record - choosing profit over repair - will cost you more in lost trust and future business than acting now ever would.

People won't remember the findings of the inquiry. They will remember how Fujitsu behaved during one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history. “Parasite” or not, the damage won't go away until you commit to repair.

Fix me! 🔧

Dear Leah,

I'm chief people officer and I'm completely baffled by what's happening. Three months ago, one of our senior leaders made inappropriate comments in a team meeting that caused significant offence. We investigated, the behaviour was confirmed, the leader attended training, and gave a formal apology to the affected team members. Everyone said the right things in the meeting where the apology was delivered.

But since then, two people have gone off sick with stress, the team has stopped contributing in meetings, and the leader is confused because they "did everything asked of them." The leader genuinely believes they've made amends and can't understand why people are still upset. Meanwhile, the team feels the apology was performative and nothing has really changed. How do we bridge the gap between someone who thinks they've apologised and people who don't feel heard?

— Sorry seems to be the hardest word

Dear Sorry seems to be the hardest word,

Your leader learned to say "I apologise" but never learned what genuine accountability looks like. The team knows the difference between a script and sincere remorse, and they're not buying what your leader is selling. 

Fodder from the floor 📚

When being smart makes repair harder 🧠

Most of the repair work we’re called into isn't caused by incompetent leaders. It's caused by very smart people. With excellent track records. And perfect logic. Which is exactly the problem. David Robson's book The Intelligence Trap asks why intelligent people so often make terrible decisions. Answer? Smart people defend decisions, not outcomes. The more intelligent you are, the better you are at justifying your thoughts, your opinions and yourself.

In a crisis, this means leaders craft sophisticated explanations for why the harm happened, rather than simply acknowledging that it did. You focus on intent over impact. On process over experience. On complexity over reality. Intelligence becomes a tool for avoiding the first step of repair: acknowledgement.

So when something breaks, you don't ask "what am I missing?" You explain why “no one could have seen this coming”.

The problem is that most organisational failures aren't unforeseeable. They follow predictable patterns. Patterns that we were talking to a client about this very week. Sadly, intelligent leaders don’t think their behaviour is predictable until they are forced to see it in one way or another.

Expertise creates blind spots in exactly the places you feel most confident. We are taught to see technical risks clearly and overlook the human impact entirely.  Robson calls the gap between your perfectly formed justification and your team’s  lived reality  “cognitive entrenchment”. In repair terms, leaders learn to solve for the problem they understand rather than the problem that was experienced.

The smartest person in the room is often the last person to understand what repair actually requires. That's why repair starts with looking beyond your own experience.

Book Leah to speak at your next event on why smart leaders can't see the damage they cause 🧐