Have Courage

The Times (UK) reports, probably for its juiciness quotient, that data from an internal Clifford Chance CRM system at the Paris office inadvertently came to light, and included—quelle surprise!—insights into some key executives at major clients including Airbus and EADS, its parent.  Last time I checked I thought that was part of the raison d'etre of a CRM system, but that would be to ignore the imperial spread of Political Correctness, which has now overtopped the levees, as it were, and threatens the ruination of informed and adult discourse.

What "insights," exactly, are we talking about?  On the one hand, we have:  “A great guy”, “very straight” and “a rising star”.  But then we also have: “very powerful for five years: marginalised since then” and “very stressed when he is under pressure”, as well as such facts as that one executive was recently divorced and another had lost his house in a chemical plant explosion.

Shall we now stand back out of range of the flying fur?  An Airbus spokesman promptly condemned the remarks as "absolutely inappropriate" and added for effect that they "were amazed,...knew nothing about it,...totally disapprove,...[and lest you doubt] feel very strongly."  They added that they might reconsider using Clifford Chance at all.

Meanwhile, a Clifford Chance spokeswoman said in no fewer than three sentence constructions that the material was "absolutely inappropriate," apologized for being "unable to stay on the back" of all 220 lawyers in the Paris office, and said it was an isolated incident, "not intended to be nasty in any way."

Upshot:  The information has been purged and evidently some Solon's may make inquiry into whether the material offended French privacy law, which declares with near total opacity that databases must contain only what is “adequate, pertinent and not excessive”, upon pain of up to a €300,000 (US$380,000) fine.

Now let's review the bidding:  In a consummately professional and indeed forward-looking fashion, Clifford Chance maintained—and lawyers actually contributed to, which may be the real miracle here—a CRM system with, in my opinion, Truly Useful information.  If someone becomes a hothead under pressure, I'd like to know that it's him and not me.  Likewise, I'd prefer to avoid bone-headed attempts at small talk that reference the divorced fellow's wife or the chemical plant victim's country home.  Upon exposure of this "pertinent, and not excessive" information (I cannot opine on whether it was "adequate" as I have no insight into the extent of the data), Airbus/EADS decided to go ballistic, to the extent of threatening to re-examine the entire client relationship.  And Clifford Chance, inevitably, given that their sudden opponent had gone nuclear, completely caved. 

I don't know whether the cravenness of Airbus/EADS or the unconditional and unilateral surrender of Clifford Chance to the P.C. gods is more depressing, but for all involved, ladies and gentlemen, I have three words:  Spine.  Backbone.  Courage.