Picurro busted again?!? Will Other Company Leaders Please Step Forward

It seems that Mr. Picurro, the founder and CEO of the Tucson-based Picurro Pizzaria franchise, has been busted on yet another charge of soliciting sex with yet another sleuth who posed as a minor. Wasn't he just barely home on bail for his first incident? Peter Picurro, age 44, was indicted on seven new counts of soliciting sex with a minor after the local police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that he had propositioned a member, who was also posing as a child on the Internet. You may recall that his first episode was soliciting online to a police detective whom was posing as a minor.

After reading these stories, it seems that there's a lot of Net lurking going on, with the good guys and the bad. Parents beware. Come to think of it, leches beware! Your days are numbered.

But let's get down to business. As the franchise chain's namesake struggles for all of Tucson to see, the Pizzaria chain's brand name has really gone down the crapper, according to its franchisees. In this small chain, at least four of the franchisees are suiing the franchisor for breach of contract. They hope that since their contract has a morality clause that they need to have moral integrity in representing Picurro Pizzaria that the same applies to the founder. Unfortunately, that argument is dubious. What's good for the goose isn't necessarily what's good for the gander, legally speaking.

This sort of crisis is a challenge to the best of companies. It is one of the ultimate challenges on how this company handles crisis and chang, a test of the depth of its leadership and management. The question is how skilled, aligned and endowed with decision making authority are the franchisor's management. executive, advisory boards or board of governors. If it is a franchise system that fills management positions with cheap local management labor in order to increase its coffers while meeting only the letter of the law on its franchise support obligations, if those directly under the CEO are less leaders and more system standards enforcers or attack dogs for the CEO, and if the Franchise Committee is not endowed, then there will be a real crisis of leadership. Picurro Pizzaria's corporate and franchise leadership will be locked in a junior management mentality of passivity -- wondering what to do, engaging in endless arguements on how to press the levers of power in order to change things for the better, and no doubt sensing a sinking ship so sending out resumes.

In my opinion, there are some quick, hard decisions for Picurro Pizzaria to make. It has to make these choices with or without the cooperation of Mr. Piccuro, the alleged want-to-be child bugger. The company is an entity, equivalent in some ways to a human entity. There is a fiduciary responsibility for its life. There is a responsibility to the chain, to the owners who invested their life savings into a vision of Picurro's future. But does this chain have the structure, the power and the cojones to change during such difficult time and with possibly the obstacle of a CEO with his own difficulties who may not be cooperating. So far, there has been an obvious lack of leadership, and surely if they wait much longer it will be too late for anything. Good leadership is capable of making timely and tough decisions.

Here are but a few things corporate leadership should be doing. There should be strong statements coming from the head office to the franchise chain and to the community at large. Hire a small but good PR firm to help manage the crisis and help you with company statements. A name change may be in order, and quickly. Whether guilty or not, one could make a powerful argument that it is in the best interest for the franchise to have a new CEO, or at least appoint a new interrim CEO. Don't cower about it. Convene leadership councils and advisory boards on were the chain needs to go. The press is giving you unprecedented coverage. Announce it! This could be an opportunity for the chain to rise above Mr. Peter Picurro.

But it is the loud cries of the franchisees at the moment who are making the news, along with Peter Picurro. The head office is deathly quiet.

News Source: Tucson Citizen
Photo: Jeff Prieb via stock.xchng