And that she was always supposed to be transitional. Maybe. Who knows? Who cares? Just get somebody a lot better.

As I first noted in my fanshot (how’s that for a self righteous blog comment?) “Graham Spanier can go to hell,” the reason the board was put into a position to go off half cocked is because Graham Spanier failed to properly prepare for the firestorm that erupted once PSU executives were named in the Sandusky case. Certainly, the BoT acted in an uncoordinated way, and appeared to allow themselves to be bullied by public opinion. But these are the things that can happen if the man assigned to prepare you for a major problem drops the ball.

Now, we get the news of our GC “retiring as planned.” I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to assume that had Judge Baldwin better prepared the University for this mess, she would still hold her position. I have heard from several BSDers that she was with Curley and Schultz at least immediately before they testified. Spanier must have consulted with her on this. How does a former State Supreme Court Justice miss the risk?!?

There is still more information to come out, of course. But I will tell you that all signs are pointing to an insular, nepotistic, trust-over-talent culture at PSU. This is now two major misses in the bureaucracy; Curley/Schultz failing to act on MM’s report, and the General Council’s failure to appropriately vet what turned out to be a colossal threat. Without an aggressive culture of openness and risk management, with a clear understanding of how crisis metastasize in the media age, any organization is at serious risk of what should be an easily managed problem becoming an iceberg. Penn State proves that no organization is above this.

And I certainly agree that they went off half cocked and made a rash, poorly managed decision regarding Joe. But my point is that this is the sort of thing that happens when you wake up to an angry mob outside your house, which is exactly what happened to the BoT. That’s on Spanier and his team, not on the BoT. Even the best leaders (which the BoT is not, apparently) can make mistakes when they have to move on the fly. That’s why so much of management is predicting problems before they materialize and planning to minimize them.

True managers take the most pride in two things; selecting excellent individuals to serve on their staff, and being prepared to predict and manage problems before they become crisis. Spanier failed on at least one count, and possibly both if his newly reorganized law department missed this freight train coming down the tracks.