09.17.09
Trust But Verify
Trust but Verify is the title of this post, as in the news of late so many companies out there don’t.
The Burr Oak Cemetery scandal in Chicago, the newest out of LA, and the list goes on and on. If these companies understood this simple principle, the negative news accounts would not be happening.
CemOps has been contacting companies for years now, offering services before and when news breaks, to lessen the occurences that are now nationwide news. If these companies that own locations nationwide would simply perform more on site investigations, these issues would not be so prevelant. Many times it takes an outside agency to get to the root of troubles, and when everything is handled internally, friendships and blind trust can get in the way of good business principles.
The only answer to this is to “trust but verify.”
You may have all the faith in your local management group in the world. But if you seldom visit the location, you have no idea whether operations are proper or not. If you have those in charge of these locations that make you comfortable, but never check to see if they are truly doing their jobs, then you have no defense when these occurences hit the news.
Too many times, issues arise when those trusted persons are in charge, and you just know things are being handled in the proper manner. If you trust this with no execution of periodic due diligence, you get exactly what you deserve. If you blindly allow operations to take place with no periodic investigation because you are comfortable with location or area management, and a news item appears, then you get exactly what you deserve.
CemOps has been here conveying this message now for years, and it has fallen on deaf ears. The news articles continue to grow in numbers and horror, but the messages fall on deaf ears. An outside, disinterested party is what it takes to uncover these items and fix them before the news media or courts are necessary. But those in power continue to ignore the messages and fall into their comfort zones until something breaks like the latest two in Chicago and Los Angeles.
There is help out here for those who wish to pull in their egos and use the professional help available. There is help out here that is considerably less expensive than class action lawsuits that cost millions of unnecessary dollars to defend. There is help out here for insuring your well thought out policies and procedures are actually being followed. There is help out here……………..
Think you don’t need it? Set yourself up some google alerts and read every night like we do, the accounts of events that shake this death care industry to the core. Set up google alerts for cemetery, funeral homes in financial trouble, cemetery news alerts, etc. You will see there is a need for more diligence in this industry.
If you aren’t willing to do this, then call those out here that are set up to help. Or, continue to suffer the consequences when it is discovered you aren’t protecting yourselves and the families you serve to the fullest extent. It’s your choice, which to date is not working, or the accounts would have stopped a long time ago.
There is nothing more frustrating than to have the expertise necessary and be ignored. If this industry is not willing to correct itself, then the government will surely step in. As you read this, Illinois is calling for more legislative controls. Other states are showing similar interests, yet the industry continues to ignore the inevitable. It is only inevitable due to the lack of true interest of assurance in this industry.
This is a wake up call. Maybe the final one.
