Gosseen's Legal Believe It or Not . . .

A:  "I have a problem with authority."

A:  "The resolution was we were both fired."

A:  "Cross dressing isn't a problem is it?"

A:  "I get angry easily and went to jail for domestic violence.  But I won't get mad at you."

A:  "You should probably know I mud wrestle on the weekends?"

A:  "I need to check with my mom."

A:  "I stole some equipment from my old job, and I had to pay for its replacement."

A:  "What is two weeks notice?   I've never quit a job before, I've always been fired."

 

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Apology Watch 

Only in Canada Do Newspapers Apologize
 
Here is one for Ripley's Believe It or Not, a newspaper actually apologizes for inventing a scandal:
 
www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/business/media/03paper.html?partner=rss&emc=rss.
 

Editorial:  Will Business People Ever Have Integrity Again? 

You are reading this editorial, hopefully, because in the back of your mind you hope the answer is "yes?"  Well, that is my hope too, but every day that passes makes it less likely.  The reason is bizarre:  30 years of relentless business school-driven amoral, totally competitive, and greed-driven management education.  There is very little evidence to demonstrate that business people and businesses got the message the rest of us received from the enormous pain and suffering unleashed on October 15, 2008.
 
Some years ago, I was asked by a crisis expert to co-write a book about managing global crises.  The project fell apart because, at the time, we couldn't think of a global problem sufficient enough to write a crisis management book about.  Since that time, H1N1 and the global greed guys--insurance companies, banking, Wall Street (and one or two other stock markets), real estate, and the credit industries--have now defined for us the specifics of a truly global crisis.  And, true to form, these doughboys are already receiving and looking for huge bonuses while the rest of us scramble for a mortgage, a job, a way forward.
 
Since the scope of the devastation from last October is so dramatic and so pervasive, one would think that with millions of victims, most of whom will suffer (more or less) for the rest of their lives, that there would be an attempt to moderate the greedy, rapacious nature of businesses and the teachings of business schools.  Short of a serious number of CEOs going to prison, neither business schools nor their graduates have much to worry about.
 
That leaves you and me to head up the Integrity Squad.  And, actually, that makes a whole lot of sense, because companies and institutions can't have integrity.  Only the people that work with, in, and lead these organizations can have integrity, or not.  It is like the fallacy of corporate culture and the nonsense in business schools about shaping corporate culture.  Corporate culture is the combination of the cultures brought into an organization by those who work there and who are directly tied to the organization.
 
What is missing, of course, are strong openly ethical leaders, strong role models, business persons of solid moral character who take on this role with credibility as well as integrity.  In the meantime, while we wait for this messiah to materialize, a lot of efforts are underway and a lot of ethical jawboning is occurring, again, largely by business schools trying to rack up points in the "I talk more ethics than you" competition.
 
Keep your eyes on the bankers, the insurance industry, the real estate folks, Wall Street, and the credit industry, America's bonus--happy boys and girls.  These folks not only successfully defend against significant or serious regulations and oversight, they are learning how to defeat those measures that are being put in place.  If you think back about this last catastrophe, the very folks who caused it were among those folks who were called upon to resolve it, because . . .  who else are we going to call?
 
An old friend of mine (a former head of security at a Fortune 500 company and an FBI agent for 10 years or so), told me one time that if you really want to be a successful criminal, you gotta steal big.  Stealing big keeps you in control of your destiny, because they (society) have to give you a foot outside the jailhouse door, all of the time, on the chance that recovery will occur as well as, perhaps, a serious apology or admission.  Perhaps we can agree that the events leading up to October 15, 2008 were the quintessential strategy of "stealing big."  But remember that those in charge of solving the problem today are the ones who will benefit most and find their way through to profit from the next debacle when it occurs, which will be in approximately half of the time that it took for this one to develop (October 13, 1987 to October 15, 2008-about a generation).  Look for the next one, absent some significant change in the business management and regulation strategy in this country, to occur in only 10 years.  Absent any substantive regulatory reform, the countdown clock has already started running.
 
I have an idea.  How about an annual ranking of business schools, selected by the number of felons they have produced?  Business Week Magazine actually published such a list very briefly.  The list appeared in the magazine and on the magazine's Web site, but was taken down within a few hours or days of its posting.  You can imagine the flack that list generated.

Jim's Wisdom

1. Remain silent (the most toxic strategy of all)
2. Duck the issues (even those in your base audience will quickly question what you may be hiding by refusing to face situations directly)
3. Avoid answering questions (answers are the most powerful tool for settling people down and helping them quit caring about you)
4. Blame the accuser (discrediting accusers is the beginning of a leadership suicide strategy)
5. Blame the victims (a strategy that's likely to cause very senior people their own career-defining moments)
6. Send the lawyers out first (lawyers aren't trained for peace or empathy, they're trained for war; let them speak and war will commence)
7. Minimize the import and the impact (ignoring someone's pain and suffering causes outrage)
8. Take it out on employees (a sure fire way to create critics and enemies inside your organization, all focused against you)
9. Make an enemies list (once you make an enemy, they will always be your enemy)
10. Whine about how unfair life is to you after all you've accomplished on behalf of so many others-and yourself, most of all (whining is the strategy of perpetrators, everyone notices)