Morry Morgan's/ClarkMorgan's Libelous and Defamatory Conduct.

We, that is myself and my colleagues at TW Allison, have acted with considerable restraint in the face of Morry Morgan's bare-faced lying about our company. However, as Mr. Morgan continues to engage in completely unethical conduct against, not just our company, but against his own clients, I must speak out.

The latest incident of Mr. Morgan's unethical conduct, as far as I am aware of, occured just this past May of 2010. At that time, we were negotiating a partnership with BritCham, Guangzhou, in order to provide soft skills training for both member and non-members of BritCham.

Apparently, the GM of BritCham heard there was an IP issue between ClarkMorgan and our company, so he called Morgan. In the telephone conversation Mr. Morgan made the following claims.
He stated that ClarkMorgan was suing five different training firms, including ours, for theft of IP. He tried to scare BritCham's GM by stating that any company or organization that used our firm for training could also be caught up in the legal issues involved with IP theft.

Morry Morgan likely didn't realize that the GM of BritCham has an extensive background in "big business," and pretty quickly was able to see through Morry's bluster. Joryi Tan and I met with the GM of BritCham at his request, and we filled him in on the truth about what Morry has been up to with regards to our company. In fact, this was not the first time that Morry tried this same tactic in order to try to "crush" our company.

In May of 2009, after Morry discovered that I had conducted a two-day IBW course for Sun Microsystems in Beijing, he took it upon himself to phone Sun's Learning & Development Manger for Greater China. He told her that we were using stolen IP from ClarkMorgan for our training. This was most laughable, as the training I did for Sun was completely customized.

About a week after this, Morry sent an email to my business partner, Jane Wu. It was an obvious effort to try to scare Jane. In his email he stated,
"As I am sure you are aware, a number of clients have provided us with evidence that Michael Allison and Joryi Tan have supplied them with Intellectual Property (IP) belonging to ClarkMorgan. One such client is Sun Microsystems."

The interesting part about all of this, is that at the very moment that Jane received this email, I had literally just gotten off of the phone with the Learning & Development Manager from Sun Microsystems.

So, what do you think I did? I immediately called her back, and I asked her if she or anyone else
at Sun had given any of our training material to Morry Morgan or anyone else at ClarkMorgan. "Absolutely not," was her comment. "We would never do that."

Even, if Sun had given Morry Morgan our training materials, what do you think Morry would have discovered? Nothing to file a lawsuit over, that's for sure!

So, I forwarded this manager a copy of the email that Morry had sent to Jane Wu, wherein he made the staement above, or more precisely, wherein he made a patently false statement about one of his own company's largest clients. Yes, you read that correctly, Sun was one of ClarkMorgan's largest clients, and yet Morry Morgan thought nothing of lying about one of his own clients.

I'm sure you can imagine what the Learning & Development Manager at Sun thought about ClarkMorgan after this incident. Further to this, I sent Andy Clark, Morry's business partner, an email with all of these details and and suggested that Morry should call the L&D manager at Sun to apologize for his lie.

Subsequently, in the fall of 2009, Joryi Tan and I visited the L&D manager at the Sun offices in Hong Kong. At that time, she told us that neither Morry nor Andy had apologized to her over this incident and that it was not likely that she would use ClarkMorgan's services in the future.

You expect people that train your staff to practice what they preach. Funny thing, Morry Morgan talks about "evolving people," and yet he continues to spread his lies, not just about our company, but about others as well.

Morry's very proud of his brands - Network HR, Spark, ClarkMorgan, etc., and if you go to the website for ClarkMorgan you'll even notice that they've partnered with the LES50ONS company. I wonder what such a company would really think about having a partner that over and over again has proven himself to be the consummate unprofessional and is even willing to lie about his own clients and to potential clients in order to achieve whatever it is that he's trying achieve.

I wonder, what kind of a GM or Director would engage in such conduct?

I find it really interesting, that in his efforts to "crush" our company, Morry has done nothing but damage his own reputation. And as for TW Allison? Well, we're providing training for BritCham, so thanks Morry, you've simply given us an opportunity to highlight the truth about these matters.

ClarkMorgan Steals and Uses IP!

-The last time that I wrote anything on this blog was over a year ago. At the time, our company had been accused by Morry Morgan of stealing and using his company's IP in our training. Since then, on more than one occasion, Morry Morgan has called clients of ours in order to "scare" them out of using us as their training vendor. In the two cases that I am aware of, Morry's tactic has failed.

In fact, it appears that Morry Morgan really is not concerned about IP theft, at least when his company and trainers are the ones committing the theft. Please consider the following facts:

In the March 2007 issue of Network HR, a ClarkMorgan magazine that is sent out to approximately 8,000 HR professionals across China, there appeared an article titled: "Mind Over Matter - Using A Positive Mental Approach To Master Presentation Skills."

The article was written by ClarkMorgan's National Corporate Training Manager. Except that it really wasn't. In fact, the National Corporate Training manager plagiarized the article from the website of Ed Sykes and then signed his name to it. You may read the original at this link:

www.thesykesgrp.com/PresentationSkillsPublicSpeakingArticle02.htm

Should you wish to see a copy of the plagiarized article that appeared in Network HR magazine, I will be happy to provide you with a copy. When Mr. Morgan found out about the plagiarized article, which I informed him about, did he fire his manager? No. That individual continued in his role as National Corporate Training Manager for ClarkMorgan and continued to work as a trainer for the company.

So much for Morry Morgan's claims about wanting to protect IPR.


Further, On Thursday, July16th, 2009 and Friday, July 17th, 2009, ClarkMorgan Corporate Training conducted two 3-hour seminar training demonstrations in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The trainer demonstrated Psycho-Geometrics, a communication model developed by Dr. Susan Dillinger. Psycho-Geometrics is a registered trademark and in order to conduct and/or sell this training, you must be a registered Psycho-Geometrics trainer and/or company. As well, there is a substantial fee which must be paid in order to obtain the training rights. See the link below.

http://www.psychogeometrics.com/opportunities.php

Neither ClarkMorgan nor that were licensed at that time to conduct or sell this training. This was a clear violation of Susan Dillinger and Psycho-Geometrics trademark and IPR. Should you wish to contact Susan Dillinger regarding this matter, I will be happy to provide you with her contact information.

Where is that trainer today? He is still working for ClarkMorgan, training. You can see a video of him on their website. He used stolen property that he had no rights to use, demo'd it with the purpose of selling this training to ClarkMorgan clients, and Morry Morgan knows about all of this but still allows this trainer to train for his company.

Is Morry Morgan truly concerned about IP theft?

Ethics In Cyberspace.

Ethics in Cyberspace

Life is continually teaching us valuable lessons and one of the most important factors in our development as people is to learn from these lessons. This past week has been no exception.

As you all know, Morry Morgan has produced a Power Point presentation called: "ClarkMorgan vs. TW Allison," which he has uploaded to his page on SlideShare.net. Mr. Morgan also has a personal blog, and in his latest article about the Laowai, (that's me) he has made a couple of statements that are completely false and which I would now like to correct.

First, he states that I quit my job with ClarkMorgan, told a client it was because ClarkMorgan did not pay me, and then I offered to take that client under my own company, and Poof,! a new training company in Guangzhou was born.

This statement is completely false!

In January of this year I was doing BE training for a ClarkMorgan client. I was expecting to receive my full monthly salary for the month of December, which should have been RMB 15,000. However, I was informed by Morry Morgan’s business partner that I would only be receiving 75% of my salary, a total of RMB 11,250. Apparently an e-mail had been sent out to all trainers explaining this, however I never received that e-mail. I have no idea why I did not receive it, it may have been a technical glitch, but I had no idea about the cut in salary and it was unacceptable to me anyway. This was because on top of this, I had not received my 3rd or 4th quarter training bonuses for 2008, which in themselves should have been a total of approximately RMB 12,000. I had been informed that I would not receive those bonuses because of the financial crisis.

So, I decided I had had enough. I went to the client and explained that I would not be able to complete the training for them. I apologized, but explained that I was only receiving 75% of my salary for the month of December, and that I also had not received my bonuses for the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2008. I never said that ClarkMorgan did not pay me, implying that I had received absolutely nothing from the company, which is what Mr. Morgan suggests in his blog. Obviously, if I had received absolutely nothing in compensation from ClarkMorgan, I would have filed a lawsuit against them to recover my pay.

I told the client that if ClarkMorgan was not able to find a trainer to complete the last four classes, I would do it myself, for no financial compensation. Obviously, I would not receive payment from ClarkMorgan, since I was quitting, nor could I expect the client to pay me for the last four classes, as they had already paid ClarkMorgan in full. However, I was more than willing to finish the training for them on my own time and on my own dime. I never suggested the client could now come under my company and we would finish the training for them. Additionally, we contacted the Shenzhen office of ClarkMorgan and told them they would need to find a new trainer to finish this client's BE classes. That is not something we would have done if we were attempting to steal a client.

Morry Morgan may not believe these facts. Frankly, it does not matter to me whether he does or not. I know the truth, and the individual I spoke to at the client's office that day also knows the truth. Additionally, the people closest to me and who know what really happened at that time know the truth. As far as I am concerned this is the end of this matter.

Secondly, Mr. Morgan states that I am a "born again Christian." I am not, never have been, and never will be a "born again Christian." I do not know where Mr. Morgan gets his information from, but I have never told him or anyone else that I am a "born again Christian." For those of you reading this and who are not sure what a "born again Christian" is, please go to the following site, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_again_Christian, and you can read information about the beliefs of such individuals. I do not believe these things.

For someone to call me a "born again Christian" would be similar to someone referring to a devout Muslim as a Jew or vice versa. I am sure that neither of them would be pleased with being mislabeled in such a manner. That is how I feel about being referred to as a "born again Christian."

Now that you know the facts, what about "Ethics in Cyberspace?" If Morry Morgan feels that he has a case against me personally, or our company, what is the ethical way of handling such a matter?

The Internet is a very powerful tool. It is being used for much good. However, it is also being used in a very negative way, such as spreading rumor, innuendo, half- truths and outright false information. Whether intentional or unintentional, spreading such information can leave the person posting it open to the possibility of being accused of and charged with defamation of character, libel, vilification, slander, etc. I am quite sure that none of us would want to be accused of such things. Being found guilty of such action is a serious matter. There can be heavy financial damages placed upon individuals or organizations that engage in such conduct. However, even worse than financial damages, would be the damage to a person's reputation should they be convicted of such behavior.

In this particular situation, if Mr. Morgan feels he must pursue this matter further, there are legal means at his disposal to do so. From an ethical standpoint, this is what most companies and or individuals would do. Of course he has the right to protect himself, his intellectual property and his company's materials. No one, least of all me, would disagree with this. The question is, how does one do this ethically?

I wish the best for ClarkMorgan and all of the people still employed with the company. Morry Morgan and Andy Clark have worked tirelessly to build their brand. However, they chose to close their GZ office as well as get out of the Business English segment of this industry. We chose to open an office in GZ and fill the gap in the BE segment as well as offer our clients soft skills training. Our clients are very happy with our training solutions and our excellent service.

What I have learned this past week is that a GM has a responsibility to respond in a measured, professional, and ethical way to the situations he faces in running his company. This is not always easy to do, especially if you are a person like myself, who tends to be an emotional individual. However, we must always remember that we are being watched by others. We need to set the best example possible for our staff, clients, and the public in general.

Finally, let us all remember that life goes by very quickly. Sometimes it is hard for me to believe how fast 48 1/2 years have gone by, but it has, and it is gone. Life and time are both too precious for us to have to spend our energies in conflict. There is certainly enough room for all of us to grow and prosper in the training industry.

If you would like to send me a comment regarding this article, I would love to hear from you. Also, please feel free to visit our website at www.twallison.com