When I was at the San Francisco Airport recently, I couldn’t help notice the giant size Tiger Woods ad from Accenture. I didn’t have a problem with the message on the Ad, which read:

“The road to high performance isn’t always paved.”

But based on the recent events in the life of Tiger Woods, it was time to change the Ad to something else.

Of course, this is easier said than done. I have seen these ads in multiple airports and several other Billboards elsewhere. It would cost millions for Accenture to get these replaced.

Enough said on that.

Let us look at another angle. The price that Accenture has to pay for what happened is not because of anything that Accenture did. When Accenture made a deal with Tiger Woods, there was an indirect responsibility placed on Tiger Woods that he would enhance or maintain his personal brand. Without that, the deal does not have the same value that it had when it was originally made.

Now Tiger Woods would not have signed any contract to that effect. Think of it like an unwritten (or even ethical) contract. Nobody asks for it but everyone assumes that one would live by it.

Now, not many people have a celebrity status like Tiger Woods. But everyone has an indirect responsibility towards people and organizations they are (and were) associated with them.

You too have that.

The school you attended, the teachers that taught you, your friends, your close family all of them expect that you lead a good life. You mess up and you not only hurt yourself but everyone that’s associated with you. It is your “responsibility” to not hurt yourself. It is your “indirect responsibility” to not hurt people associated with you.

Please don’t forget the (indirect) responsibility.

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Note 1: Here is a Squidoo lens that links to most of the previous articles in this series:
Squidoo: Distinguish Yourself

Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (PDF, Free)

Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:
ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas – Bite Sized Lessons for Life and Business (PDF, Free)