In the autumn of 1982, Johnson & Johnson watched one of the strongest consumer franchises in America become, almost overnight, a threat to the reputation of the company itself. Tylenol was the world’s largest-selling health product, held roughly 37% of the U.S. pain-relief market and reportedly accounted for an estimated 15–20% of J&J’s profits. Then seven people in Chicago died after bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol had been deliberately laced with cyanide. Nobody knew how many bottles had been tampered with, whether the contamination would spread, or whether consumers would ever trust the name again. J&J’s shares fell sharply; analysts openly questioned whether Tylenol could survive.
James Burke, J&J’s chief executive, faced a choice with no obvious safe answer. A nationwide recall would remove 31 million bottles and ultimately cost more than $100 million. It could also amplify the panic, invite copycats and signal that a criminal could bring a major corporation to its knees. Those were not hypothetical objections: according to the Harvard Business School case later written about the episode, the heads of both the FBI and the FDA initially opposed a wholesale recall. Burke listened and remained uncertain. Meanwhile, every hour that passed carried the possibility that somewhere, on another shelf, there might be another poisoned bottle.
The decision is still admirable even four decades later, as it was anything but easy in the moment. There was no celebrated case study to consult, only imperfect information, competing responsibilities, and a decision capable of defining the company for years. J&J ultimately recalled the product, and Tylenol’s market share promptly collapsed from roughly 37% to 7%. The brand would recover, but nobody around the table could have known that when the decision was being made.
For a director, that is the more interesting part of the story. Imagine a dilemma of that magnitude arriving at your own board table: management under extraordinary pressure, credible experts arguing different sides, the economics severe, and the facts still moving. What would you want from the people sitting beside you? Another impressive résumé would be useful, but you would probably value something harder to capture in a biography: Someone able to challenge conviction without creating decision paralysis, introduce a dissenting view without turning it into an unwinnable debate, and help directors distinguish between what is fact and what is belief.
That is why one question we often ask directors is so revealing: Who is the best board member you have ever served with and why? The names vary, but the “why” less so. Directors rarely begin with the scale of a company someone ran, the number of boards they served on, or the depth of their technical expertise. They remember the person who asked the question that changed the discussion, challenged without creating defensiveness, made complexity manageable, or voiced the concern everyone else sensed but had not articulated.
There is a simple paradox in this: Boards recruit for skills, but they admire behavior. Experience, industry knowledge, and strategic judgment matter enormously; they are often what earn someone the seat. Yet once a board is filled with accomplished people, these qualities become largely the price of admission. What distinguishes the directors who are admired is how they use what they know and what their presence enables everyone else to contribute.
This does not mean making the room more comfortable. Great boards are often defined by their ability to disagree well. Their strongest members can introduce an alternative view that allows for dissent, press hard without making disagreement personal, and resist consensus that has arrived too quickly. There is friction, but it is productive, sharpening judgment, not eroding trust.
CEOs feel the distinction acutely—ask how they feel the night before a board meeting. With the best boards there is a certain anticipation: assumptions will be tested, blind spots exposed, and the strategy may leave the room stronger than it entered. With weaker ones, CEOs talk about preparing for personalities rather than preparing for the discussion. One CEO captured the difference simply: “The best board meetings don’t make me comfortable. They make me think more clearly.”
That makes the question we posed in “How Effective Am I as Board Member?” more personal. Think about the director you admire most. Chances are you do not remember every intervention they made or argument they won. You remember what happened in the room when they were there: If conversations became more candid, complexity more manageable, or another voice found its way into the discussion. In one way or another, they made directors think better, and by doing so, made for a better board.
There is a final element of the Tylenol story that is easy to miss. J&J did not invent its principles in the middle of the crisis. Years earlier, Burke had led a series of “Credo Challenge” meetings to test whether the company still genuinely believed in a Credo that placed responsibility to those who used its products before responsibility to shareholders. When the crisis came, those principles had already been debated; the extraordinary moment drew on conversations held when the stakes were ordinary
Boards work much the same way. They do not suddenly acquire the ability to listen, challenge, disagree, and trust one another when the defining decision arrives. Those habits are accumulated meeting after meeting, when the consequences appear smaller. Then, occasionally, a Tylenol moment arrives, and the stakes are not small at all. The board does not suddenly become something different; it reveals what it has been becoming all along.
Which is perhaps why the question is worth asking before that moment comes: Am I the kind of board member I admire?
