August 2005

Healing Thorugh Leadership: Carie Lemack’s Post-9/11 Journey

by Carie Lemack, MBA '04

Traumatized by the murder of her mother, Carie Lemack organized other victims' families to thwart terrorism.

On Sept. 11, 2001, my mother, Judy Larocque, was murdered. She was a passenger on board American Airlines Flight 11 that terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center. For eight years, she served as a successful CEO of a small market research firm in Framingham, Mass. More important, she was my best friend and confidante. There are not words to describe the experiences my sister and I faced in the days, weeks, and months after Mom was killed. Professionally, we had to manage her company and work with its board to eventually wind it down. Personally, we had to try to maintain our childhood home and, perhaps unsuccessfully, make sense of our new lives.

One day after the attacks, I presided over an agonizing “general meeting” of the employees of my mother’s firm. I had to confirm the loss of their leader and mentor and discuss the futures of their jobs and of the firm. Within 14 days of Mom’s murder, her company’s board of directors (to which I had been elected on September 14) held five board meetings—my first foray into corporate governance. I learned a lot about crisis management, but not in a way I had ever anticipated. Real life trumped the classroom.

At the Business School, we are taught to use reason and take actions accordingly. If there is an opportunity for a competitor to enter your field, it is logical to assume one will do just that, so make sure your firm is one step ahead. If your product will not solve your customers’ problem, perhaps your product needs a change. The notions of emotion and trauma enter into our classroom discussions as examples of situations we are taught to avoid or change, since they are not conducive to success in the marketplace. I found this view hard to accept because I had already learned that life brings unexpected, often undesirable situations that cannot be controlled.

In the midst of the chaos and horror, I realized there was power in numbers, and that the victims’ families had a better chance of protecting other families from our fate if we were able to unite and work together. Simple as this notion may seem, it proved to be incredibly challenging. It spawned the birth of a worldwide group, which we named Families of September 11, to support families of terrorism victims and taught me more than I ever could have imagined.

After a year of leading Families of September 11, I came to the Business School in the fall of 2002 (as had been my plan before my Mom was murdered) looking for answers on how to lead in times of trauma and distress. I found those answers, however, mostly by living—and surviving—the ongoing out-of-control situation that we, the families of September 11 victims, were unwittingly thrust into.

Shock is one of the immediate effects suffered by loved ones of people who are murdered. For some, this proceeds into full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder, a diagnosable but unpredictable ailment. For my sister and me, the first noticeable physical symptom—developed independently while she was stuck in Chicago and I was in Boston—was our inability to dial telephones. In my case, the buttons that my head told my fingers to press never seemed to match up with those my fingers pushed. Having never experienced motor-control issues, I was completely unnerved by this. I learned to be patient with my body and stop fighting it. An active sense of humor helped mitigate my frustration. I found myself laughing at my newfound appreciation for speed-dial.

In an effort to exert control over my uncontrollable world, I started taking on the task of organizing others. With all that has happened emotionally, professionally, and physically to me in the past four years, it is hard for me to step back and recall how I survived, but I believe strongly that my love for my Mom and my inability to let her murder be in vain drove me to instigate the formation of Families of September 11.

Since founding a victims’ organization was not on my expected career path, I knew I was a novice and needed to learn from “professionals.” I felt the need to connect and be trained by those who had done this before. The only experts I could think of were the families of Pan Am Flight 103 that terrorists felled in Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

Hearing the gut-wrenching story of the Pan Am 103 families’ fight to see the hijackers brought to justice, I was sadly comforted to know others had walked in our shoes. At the same time I was discouraged by the lack of success they felt they achieved. (An account of their story, told through one of their attorney’s eyes, can be found in The Price of Terror by Allan Gerson and Jerry Adler).

The families gave me clear advice: Be proactive, because no government agency or existing nongovernmental organization (such as the American Red Cross) will help you organize; and be persistent, because justice is served to those with the diligence and tenacity to overcome inertia.

The advice could not have been more right. In the almost four years since I cofounded Families of September 11, the organization has grown to include thousands of family members affected by 9/11 and supporters from all 50 states and 11 countries. We fought inertia for 14 months to force Congress and the president to create the 9/11 Commission. We monitored its progress, pushing for more funding, critical witness testimony, and even an extension of the federally mandated deadline when the commission’s work was stymied. We spent enormous amounts of energy and four long months of weekly travels to Washington making sure Congress acted on the commission’s final recommendations, which culminated last December in President Bush’s signature on the Intelligence Reform Act.

Beyond legislation and investigations, we tried our best to take care of each other and prevent others from joining our sad fraternity. The influence of Families of September 11 extends into traumatic grief research, city and town terrorism preparedness programs, and even the media’s understanding of how to use graphic images of death and destruction. All this, and yet there is so much more to be done.

As I sat through lectures in Organizational Behavior and High-Performance Leadership in 2002 and 2003 at the GSB, I repeatedly found myself comparing what I had learned through my personal experience with what I learned in class. Here is a list of lessons from personal experience that I did not feel were given adequate “airtime” in the classroom:

Don’t judge the validity of other people’s emotions. You might think you understand someone else’s grief, but you cannot.

In a fit of rage one day, a 9/11 widow and mother of a young, now-fatherless child yelled at me, “You shut up—you only lost your mother!” Somehow I was able to control my own rage and not snap back at her—strength I did not know I had, but I feel my Mom must have channeled to me. The woman’s comment still infuriates me; how would she feel if someone said that to her son? I can rationally understand that she was illogically taking out her anger on me; however, the pain I felt then and still do from her remark has shown me the importance of never judging another’s loss. As business leaders, we need to realize the grief of a worker may not end with bereavement leave, even if the worker has only lost a cousin.

Communication is key. In times of stress and uncertainty, we tend to hunker down and forget that those we are leading might need reassurance. If they are not sure in what direction we are going, they are less likely to help us get us there. This may be universally true of people, but it is particularly important to people in trauma. They have lost control over their lives and want desperately to get it back. Letting them know what to expect and how they can proceed is invaluable.

Take, for example, the situation for 9/11 families when the American Red Cross began accepting donations on their behalf. The Red Cross did not reach out to the families to explain how to apply for the funds. Families were forced to make phone call after phone call, usually talking to well-intentioned but uninformed volunteers. Understandably, perhaps, the infrastructure to deal with the families’ needs could not be set up immediately. A simple statement telling the public that the funds would not be distributed for a set amount of time might have caused some public relations backlash over the organization’s lack of timeliness in distribution, but it would have saved enormous time, energy, and valuable emotional reserves of the victims the Red Cross intended to help.

Traumatized people are emotionally and oftentimes physically exhausted. They feel beaten up and overwhelmed. When you offer them information, it is one less question they have to ask. They feel less abused and more taken care of. This is a lesson the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) is taking to heart.

LMDC is charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan. The task includes designing and building a memorial to the victims of September 11, all the while appeasing the local residents and ensuring the economic viability needed to attract business to the rebuilt center. Needless to say, LMDC has a difficult job with many constituencies who feel they own a large stake in the process. By regularly communicating the status and direction of progress, the corporation is, for the most part, able to keep paralyzing disputes at bay.

Admit mistakes, correct them, and apologize. I have learned firsthand the large impact an apology, or lack thereof, can make. For example, I continue to bank with Wells Fargo, even though they have no branches in my hometown of Boston, because they realized, corrected, and apologized for a mistake they made three years ago.

In the fall of 2001, the American Red Cross (ARC) made a decision to grant money only to the families of 9/11 victims who were “on the ground,” not to those on the four hijacked planes. This was due to the fact that airlines are legally required to offer some compensation to their passengers in the event of an aviation disaster. However, this decision was a slap in the face to the families of those on the planes, who were not able to explain such a distinction to friends, family, and others who donated to ARC in the hopes of helping their bereaved loved ones with their financial distress.

One day, logging in to my Wells Fargo account to determine how I would pay my Mom’s mortgage on my childhood home, I saw an ad saying, “Give to the 9/11 victims; donate to the Red Cross.” After having been told repeatedly that ARC would not help my family, I felt something in me snap. I wrote a letter to Wells Fargo and asked if they condoned the unadvertised discrimination they were promoting. As it turns out, they did not.

Within a day, I received a note back and a phone call from the vice president of Wells Fargo in charge of charitable matters with an apology and a promise to call ARC and look into the matter. I may never know the causality, but ARC soon after changed its policy and began treating all victims’ families equally. I am proud to be a Wells Fargo client (despite regularly having to pay those pesky ATM fees).

Be kind to yourself. We all will have times of crisis in our lives, even if we don’t like to believe it. The test of a true leader is not his or her ability to avoid these experiences; it is how to deal with them when they arrive.

Many overachievers, like those who graduate from Stanford Business School, are conditioned to believe that hard work can solve problems. When we get into trouble, we put our nose to the grindstone to find solutions and often forget to take care of ourselves. I argue, perhaps unpopularly, that it is in our best interest to take care of ourselves, since no one else can do it for us, and by taking care, we are more productive.

For me, that manifests itself in little things. In order to lobby Congress for the creation of the 9/11 Commission while enduring a full set of core classes as a first-year MBA student, I could not let myself get overwhelmed by classes. While many of my classmates dutifully stressed over midterms, I took many long walks to enjoy the peace of the California sunshine. My grades might reflect this “alternative” study habit, but it was the only way I could handle the stress of my two competing worlds.

Flexibility is crucial. Business students learn that developing plans, procedures, and programs helps them to get ahead. However, being able to respond effectively to rapidly changing events also is critical in the real world of politics and business.

Throughout the fall of 2004, a small group of 9/11 family members worked with the 9/11 Commission in an effort to implement the recommendations of its final report. It was a harrowing experience, perhaps comparable to my experiences as a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, with ups but mostly shocking downs and a last-minute come-from-behind victory against the unbeatable favorites.

Instead of the Yankees, we took on Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Congressman Duncan Hunter from California, and Congressman James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin. On Nov. 20, just when we determined that we had enough votes to pass the Intelligence Reform bill, another roadblock came our way: Speaker Hastert decided not to call for a vote, simply because it would not garner a “majority of the majority,” and he did not want to have to confront two powerful committee chairmen who vowed to stop any legislation that did not contain their special provisions. Each week we traveled to Washington, D.C., and each week our plans were thrown to the wind when new positions or new developments came to light. We had to remain undeterred and flexible enough to respond, even when defeat seemed inevitable.

Like the Red Sox, we did come from behind in the last hours of the congressional session and passed the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 in early December. But it never could have happened if we had not been willing to change plans as needed to play a winning game.

After a tough project is completed or a new program implemented, we often ask ourselves if we would do it all over again. In my case, I can honestly say I wish I never had to do any of this. That being said, I am grateful that I had an opportunity to learn vast amounts through these experiences. I feel privileged to share these lessons with fellow GSB graduates, because I believe that is the greatest way I can honor my Mom and her incredible legacy.

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About the Author

Carie Lemack, MBA ’04, cofounded the organization Families of September 11 after her mother was murdered in the 2001 terrorist attacks. Under Lemack’s leadership, the organization grew to more than 2,200 members and successfully lobbied for creation of the 9/11 investigative commission and for passage of the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. Now a graduate student at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, she remains active in the organization.