It should come as no surprise that the jury found Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling guilty of fraud and conspiracy in the Enron trial. The verdict is a wakeup call for corporate America. Make that a shakeup call. Corporate leadership in a post-Enron era needs to rid itself of the insular arrogance that can corrupt a company to the core.
Here are some recommendations I would make to CEOs who want to come clean and create a true culture of transparency that ripples beyond the boardroom.
- Implement a corporate responsibility plan that identifies the company’s core values.
- In addition to a board of directors, create corporate responsibility committees that represent a cross-section of company management and employees who meet on a regular basis to address corporate ethics, accountability and responsibility issues.
- Create positions in the executive lineup for an ethics officer and a corporate responsibility officer. These positions not only help manage the accountability process, they add credibility to your company’s “corporate values” commitment.
- Communicate your company’s core value and corporate responsibility statement to suppliers, business partners and consumers. Remember, Sarbanes-Oxley is more a federally-mandated check and balance system for financial accountability.
Being a CEO is not a lifestyle, it’s a responsibility. Perhaps on the wall in the main office suite, next to the family photographs, you should have a tally of the millions of lives your company impacts on a daily bases – from employees and customers, to communities and shareholders. Better yet, how about a tally of the jail time Lay and Skilling are facing. Maximum sentence combined: 350 years.
Required reading: Business Ethics for Dummies, author to be determined.
Magazine subscription: Business Ethics.
