Ме?ньше зна?ешь — кре?пче спишь.

“The less you know the better you sleep.”

- A Russian proverb

Amway Leader Threatens Beating

On a trip to Russia last October my translator told me about an angry telephone call from one of the local leaders set up by the Amway Corporation.  This particular person is a friend whom I admire.  But I was now with XanGo, a different company.

According to my translator, he was furious, huffing and puffing.  Someone from the corporation had called him to say that I was contacting his Amway leaders, trying to recruit them into XanGo. “Doesn’t Doug Wead know that he is being followed by Amway Security everywhere he goes?” the leader told my translator, “Isn’t Doug Wead afraid of getting beaten up? You tell him to stay away from my ‘Diamonds.’” (A “Diamond” is Amway nomenclature for a top earner.)

“Now, just a minute,” my translator said. “Has Doug Wead contacted one of your Diamonds?  Name one?”

“Well,” the Amway leader said, “I can’t say.”

“Okay, so settle down.  He is here to speak for a XanGo corporate function in St. Petersburg and he has to meet with some of the parents of children who attend his school.  (I help run a private Christian boarding school in Oregon.) And he has to settle old business accounts but he is only meeting with people who have asked to see him and need to see him.  And that’s all. Who told you he was contacting Amway leaders?”

“Well,” the man allegedly replied.  “Someone from the company called me to warn me.”

“Well, they are wrong.  Mr. Wead has not initiated contact with a single Amway distributor, Diamond or otherwise.”

Of course, that was not the complete story.  The fact is that I had met with one Amway leader, at his initiative, and afterward, when all the Amway leaders were called and warned not to meet with me, “the phone started ringing off the hook.”  Diamonds wanted to meet me for dinner, for lunch, for breakfast, for in between.  Their curiosity was insatiable. Why did I go to XanGo? Is Amway going retail?  Are they dumping expired products from Malaysia on the Russian black market? Why are they requiring loyalty tests? Are they going to end systems income?  Are they trying to change the laws in Russia to outlaw systems? How will we live or make any money without it?   How can you build the business without functions and cd’s?

Now, here is where it gets really funny.  I can’t speak Russian.  I don’t even know how to spell the names of any of these people.  I don’t have their phone numbers or addresses.  In all my years I have never taken business cards or collected names or built a mailing list.  Why would I? These are Amway leaders whom I respect.  They invite me onto their stage, why would I want to hurt their businesses?  I had my own reasons for getting into XanGo.  (See: Why I Chose XanGo.)

In Moscow, later in the week, when I met with one of the parents from the Christian school in Oregon he laughed about it all, “Well, well, you are causing quite a fuss.  I am getting all kinds of phone calls from Amway leaders saying that their security people are following you and they are taking pictures.  Anyone who gets their picture taken with Doug Wead is in danger of getting kicked out of Amway.”  We both suddenly looked to the restaurant window where a student with a back pack held up his cell phone.  Making a call or taking a picture?  And then we both made ugly faces and laughed.

On my trip to Russia I had requested only one meeting with an Amway leader and that was with Natasha Yena, a wonderful person with great networking skills.  My purpose for meeting her was to set the ground rules on what I should say or not say or how I should act as a new XanGo distributor.  Of course, I didn’t need her permission or her suggestions.  I wanted them.  I know very well how hard it is to build a network.  And I had a lot of fans in Russia.  I had, and still have, no intention of trying to recruit Diamonds.  If there are any more of you out there trying to call just hold your horses.  I have no interest in taking you from Amway.  If you are making money and are happy, just stay where you are.

On the last night I sat in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Moscow, talking with a former Diamond, who had called me and asked to meet with me.  His ex-wife was still in Amway and according to him the company was now threatening her income.  How would she and their children survive?  During the meeting he got an anxious telephone call. “We know you are meeting with Doug Wead right at this moment in the lobby of the Marriott hotel.”

But he interrupted the threatening caller, “I’m not in Amway,” he retorted angrily, “Talk to my ex-wife.” And then he hung up on them.  At least, that is how it was all explained to me in translation, this happening right in front of me.

We all paused to consider the irony of the moment and had a big laugh. He and my translator explained that they had all been through this before during the Soviet era.  It was what often happened to ordinary citizens in those days.  Threatening people was common. But it was amusing to see it acted out again in Russia with associates of an American corporation calling itself Amway. (The American Way.)

When I returned to the United State I spoke to a very kind and reasonable man from the American Amway Corporation.  He has been with them for years and he assured me that he has never seen such things.  “Amway doesn’t follow people.” And he promised to look into it.

Meanwhile, I resolved to forget the whole thing.  Who wants trouble?  In the last 30 days I received only a few random communications from Russia and not necessarily from top leaders.  And then?

Once again I started getting calls from Diamonds, this time from friends who were warning me.  One note said that, “reprisals have begun.”  What did that mean?

And finally late last night a warning call from Russia.  An Amway Diamond had talked to my friend. “Is it true,” the Diamond had asked, “Is Doug Wead speaking at a XanGo event in Astana, Kazakhstan on December 15, 2009?”

“I’m not sure,” my friend hesitated. By the way, XanGo is perfectly legal in Kazakhstan and they have a large group there.  Amway is not legal in that country, although they have tens of thousands involved.  And then the Diamond said to my friend, “If Doug Wead comes to Astana we will have to take protective measures.”

Now, what would that mean, I wondered?  And then I was told a chilling story.  Attila Gidofalvi, a leading distributor in the Forever Living Company, had just visited Kazakhstan.  Attila, like me, was also a former Amway distributor.  And his company, Forever Living, like XanGo, is also legal in Kazakhstan.  But Attila, I was told, the man who is called the father of Amway in Russia, the man who once had 122 diamonds, including Natasha, was accosted and beaten in Kazakhstan.  Could this be true?

Once more, the story was just too unbelievable for me to fathom.  But this afternoon I worked up the energy to track down Attila himself and eventually found him.  I put him on speaker phone and brought in a witness to hear his story.  He said he was attacked on a train by some people identifying themselves as Amway distributors.  They beat him badly.  Then they threatened to kill him if he returned to their country.  When the train arrived at its destination he and his traveling companion reported it to the police but his assailants were gone.

I was told by my caller to hire bodyguards, and good ones, when I visit Russia next week.  It will be part of an around the world trip.  And yes, I will be stopping by Astana, Kazakhstan, a great city, in a great country.  But why would I need bodyguards to protect me from people I love?

It has been my pleasure to work with Amway on many levels for 35 years. Most of them are great people, who have done great things.  When I worked in the White House years ago I proudly arranged for several of their leaders to sit next to the President at events I moderated, knowing that they would give him good and sound advice.  At my urging and nomination, one was appointed to a Presidential Commission.

But the great leaders I worked with are retired.  And I know that big corporations sometimes delegate their “problems” to public relations firms, who hire former police and intelligence people to solve especially knotty challenges.  (See an exaggerated, Hollywood version of this in the recent movie Duplicity.) And sometimes these projects get out of hand, as in “We’ll take care of this, just leave it to us. And don’t ask questions.” And sometimes it may result in “a beating.” And sometimes things get set into motion that cannot be called back.

So just for the record, I am making this public, so that if I should be found in my hotel room in Moscow with a heart attack or found unconscious on the streets of Astana after an apparent random mugging, you won’t blame it on Russia or Kazakhstan.  It is probably someone’s version of “public relations.” (Imagine actually having to pay money for that sort of thing?)  Or maybe it is a case of some bad apples in a company culture that has so much power that it is getting a little out of control, and has lost its way, and its values, and its purpose and has made the dollar more important than the lives of its own people.

Hopefully, this all has a simple explanation.   If not, let me state the obvious, if think you have to hire ex-police and spies to follow and photograph and intimidate your own people to keep them from leaving your company, if you think you have to track your competitors and threaten to harm them, you just may have already lost the war.  And you misunderstand your own leadership, who were promised that they could be “Independent Business Owners” not employees who must take loyalty tests and who are now arbitrarily audited by corporate chosen “vendors”, who are sometimes their very own crossline rivals, competing for the same money.

Hopefully, this sort of thing won’t be repeated when I return to Russia.  If it is, I will be sure to keep you informed, for my own protection, of course, and for the sake of my five children and for the public record.  And then, also, to keep those of you who are students of “public relations” up to date on the latest techniques – American style.  Who knows? Maybe this sort of thing works and society doesn’t really care.

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