The Easy Choice That Made Everything Harder

You're not choosing between hard and easy—you're choosing between hard now and harder later.

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1982.

Seven people died in Chicago after taking Tylenol that had been poisoned by someone who’d tampered with bottles on store shelves.

Johnson & Johnson had a choice.

Easy: Recall only Chicago-area products. Minimize PR damage. Issue a statement. Let it blow over. Their lawyers recommended this. Selective recall, targeted response, damage control. Estimated cost: $10 million.

Hard: Recall every single Tylenol product nationwide. 31 million bottles. Pull all advertising. Full transparency. No hedging. Estimated cost: $100 million.

The easy choice made perfect sense. The tampering happened in Chicago. Why destroy the entire product line? Why take a $100 million hit when you could limit damage to $10 million?

But J&J’s CEO, James Burke, saw what the easy choice would actually cost.

If they did a selective recall and even one more person died from a poisoned bottle they didn’t pull, the brand was finished. The lawsuits would be catastrophic. The loss of trust would be permanent.

If they did a selective recall and nothing else happened, they’d spend years fighting the perception that they prioritized profit over safety. Every future crisis would reference this one.

The easy choice would save money short-term. But it would cost them the brand long-term.

So Burke chose hard. Recalled everything. 31 million bottles. $100 million loss. Immediate transparency. No carefully worded lawyer statements. Just: “We’re pulling everything until we know it’s safe.”

Wall Street thought he was insane. Board members questioned the decision. Competitors saw opportunity.

Within six weeks, Tylenol’s market share dropped from 37% to 7%. The brand looked finished.

Then something happened. Because J&J chose the hard path immediately, they controlled the narrative. They weren’t defending themselves or making excuses. They were the company that cared more about safety than profit.

They introduced tamper-proof packaging. Triple-seal bottles. New safety measures that became industry standard.

Within a year, Tylenol was back to 30% market share. Within two years, back to market leader.

The $100 million loss became the reason the brand survived. The hard choice immediately became the easy path long-term.

If they’d chosen easy - selective recall, minimal response, damage control - Tylenol would be a case study in corporate failure instead of corporate responsibility.

Hard now saved everything. Easy would have destroyed everything.