Humanizing Rules

INTRODUCTION: The Wrong Envelope

You Had One Job

Sometimes in life, we say things we later come to regret. Very occasionally, those become “famous last words”, something we are likely to regret, if not for the rest of our lives, for a very long time. If we're unlucky, it'll play out in public.

In Brian Cullinan's case, the famous last words were probably something he said in an interview¹ in January 2017:

It doesn't sound very complicated, but you have to make sure you're giving the presenter the right envelope.

Cullinan was talking about his forthcoming role in the 89th Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Annual Awards. You and I know it as “the Oscars”. At the time, Cullinan was a partner at the professional services firm PwC.

The purpose of the – now deleted but very much alive in archive form – interview was to showcase Cullinan and his fellow partner Martha Ruiz's role in supporting the awards.

Unsurprisingly, given the firm they worked for, Cullinan and Ruiz were involved in a simple but crucial logistical exercise. Their job was to count the votes and keep the names of the winners secret until the presenters revealed them during the Oscars ceremony. They would be responsible for handing over red envelopes containing the winner's name to the presenters just before they went on stage. As Cullinan's comment made clear, he had one job to do. In the same interview, he explained that nothing had ever gone wrong.

Hitting the Headlines

Until on 26 February 2017, ...