5 Signs Your Organization Might Be Headed for an Ethics Scandal; Harvard Business Review, December 18, 2017

Alison Taylor, Harvard Business Review; 

5 Signs Your Organization Might Be Headed for an Ethics Scandal

"Corporations often approach ethics as an individual problem, designing oversight systems to identify the “bad apples” before they can turn the organization into a “rotten barrel.” But at places like Wells Fargo, FIFA, and Volkswagen, we can’t fully describe what happened by reading profiles of John Stumpf, Sepp Blatter, or Martin Winterkorn. Bad apple explanations also fail to explain the string of ethical crises at Uber, the long-term impunity of powerful men who sexually harass colleagues, or any of the other ethics scandals we’ve seen this year. Rather, we see a “tone at the top” underpinned by widespread willful blindness, toxic incentives, and mechanisms that deflect scrutiny. These conditions seem to persist and metastasize. They replicate despite changes in leadership and in management systems."

Google has fired the employee behind that controversial diversity manifesto; Washington Post, August 7, 2017

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; Google has fired the employee behind that controversial diversity manifesto

""If you think about the continuum of the workforce, you’ve got one end where people are going to say this person should be fired," Kropp said, while on the other end, there appear to be employees who may agree with his remarks. "Whatever Google decides to do, they're going to be potentially disappointing somebody along one of those groups or making them angry."

The company’s new vice president for diversity, integrity and governance, Danielle Brown, who started at the company just weeks ago, had put out a statement in recent days expressing her disagreement with the essay, as did other executives. Brown wrote in an internal response that "like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender," and that "we are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company."

Ari Balogh, vice president of engineering at Google, wrote in a statement that "sharing different perspectives is an important part of our culture," but "one of the aspects of the post that troubled me deeply was the bias inherent in suggesting that most women, or men, feel or act a certain way. That is stereotyping, and it is harmful.""

Moral Vacuum in the House of Trump; New York Times, July 14, 2017

David Brooks, New York Times; Moral Vacuum in the House of Trump

"Once the scandal broke you would think Don Jr. would have some awareness that there were ethical stakes involved. You’d think there would be some sense of embarrassment at having been caught lying so blatantly.

But in his interview with Sean Hannity he appeared incapable of even entertaining any moral consideration. “That’s what we do in business,” the younger Trump said. “If there’s information out there, you want it.” As William Saletan pointed out in Slate, Don Jr. doesn’t seem to possess the internal qualities necessary to consider the possibility that he could have done anything wrong.

That to me is the central takeaway of this week’s revelations. It’s not that the Russia scandal may bring down the administration. It’s that over the past few generations the Trump family has built an enveloping culture that is beyond good and evil."

The big problem for Uber now: Attracting talent; Washington Post, June 14, 2017

Elizabeth Dwoskin and Todd C. Frankel, Washington Post; The big problem for Uber now: Attracting talent


[Kip Currier: Uber's ongoing travails provide an illustrative case study for the critical importance of organizational culture and core values. For an upstart start-up company betting the corporate house on developing paradigm-shifting self-driving technology, there's an ironic sense that the leadership and Board were asleep at the steering wheel (or revved up on too many Red Bulls!) for a very long time. Whether Uber can now shift out of "off-roading" bro-culture mode, institute tangible "cultural guardrails", and make lasting transformational change is anyone's guess.]


"Last year, software engineer Elizabeth Ford got what many young engineers in Silicon Valley once considered the dream job pitch: Would she be interested in working at Uber?

Ford was blunt with the Uber recruiter, telling her the company was immoral and asking not to be contacted again. “As an engineer in the Bay Area, I feel we’ve pretty much turned on Uber,” Ford, 27, who works at restaurant start-up Eatsa, said.

On Tuesday, Uber said it would be taking 47 wide-reaching steps to address a recent string of controversies about its anything-goes, cutthroat corporate culture, including allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior — accusations that have made Ford and many other tech workers, particularly women, skeptical of joining the company.

Ford said Tuesday’s actions did not change her views.

“The company still has so much toxicity,” Ford said by e-mail Tuesday evening. “They would need to change everything about their culture and how they operate to make me want to work there."

O’Reilly, Ousted; New York Times, April 20, 2017

David Leonhardt, New York Times; 

O’Reilly, Ousted

"Rupert Murdoch tried to make his firing of Bill O’Reilly seem as if it were based on morality. In a letter to Fox News employees (obtained by CNN’s Brian Stelter), Murdoch wrote that “we want to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect.”

This claim is false, and Murdoch’s use of “consistent” is especially rich. O’Reilly’s pattern of harassing women has been clear for more than a decade. Megan Garber of The Atlantic has a useful review — incomplete, no doubt — of his behavior...

But if O’Reilly’s firing wasn’t based on morals, it is still a victory for morality. A man who spent years abusing people less wealthy and powerful than him has lost his large public stage, in a very public way. His legacy — like that of his old boss, Roger Ailes — will always involve his ugly abusiveness."

Openness Is Key to Becoming Employer of Choice for Millennials; Inside Counsel, February 17, 2017

Devdeep Ghosh, Ally Klein, Inside Counsel; 

Openness Is Key to Becoming Employer of Choice for Millennials

"To drive change, it is important that these values are communicated to the entire department through sustained campaigning. While documented policies and guidelines (both from an HR and departmental perspective) are essential, it is critical to design a messaging campaign around the rollout of such culture-building initiatives. In the messaging campaign it is critical to answer the “what’s in it for me?” question; i.e., the law department needs to show how these values and the openness help each and every attorney and staff member in their daily work. The rollout of such a campaign needs to have a framework that will work in a loop to identify and develop the content needed, roll out the message, gather feedback and revise periodically. The framework should include types of communications, proposed media, frequency/cadence and audience, as well as success measures.

To ensure a cultural change, law departments also need to find a way to measure and review their alignment to these values. For example, criteria can be built into performance management reviews in order to ensure that all attorneys and staff are adhering to and promoting a culture of openness and collaboration instead of one that solely promotes competitiveness and individual merit. The law department should promote and require open feedback, as well as encourage employees to share information and be honest, responsive and transparent with their colleagues."

Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices; Harvard Business Review, 12/16/16

Ron Carucci, Harvard Business Review; Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices:

"Despite good intentions, organizations set themselves up for ethical catastrophes by creating environments in which people feel forced to make choices they could never have imagined. Former Federal Prosecutor Serina Vash says, “When I first began prosecuting corruption, I expected to walk into rooms and find the vilest people. I was shocked to find ordinarily good people I could well have had coffee with that morning. And they were still good people who’d made terrible choices.”

Here are five ways organizations needlessly provoke good people to make unethical choices."

Beyond business: Disgraced Theranos bloodied family, friends, neighbors; Ars Technica, 11/23/16

Beth Mole, Ars Technica; Beyond business: Disgraced Theranos bloodied family, friends, neighbors:

"If you think your Thanksgiving dinner conversation will be awkward and stressful this year, just be glad you and your family weren’t involved with Theranos.

As the once highly regarded blood-testing company crumbles under technological scandals and regulatory sanctions, the death toll of relationships among neighbors, friends, families, and long-standing partners is mounting. With lawsuits, investigative reports, and new accounts from a whistleblower, the company’s culture and inner-workings—which Theranos worked hard to obfuscate—are finally becoming clear. And what’s emerged are patterns of dishonesty, callousness, and litigiousness—if not outright belligerence.

Test of blood

Perhaps most startling of the recent revelations is the identity and family drama of one Theranos whistleblower: Tyler Shultz, grandson of George Shultz, the former secretary of state, who also happens to be a Theranos advisor. An exposé by The Wall Street Journal lays out how in the course of eight months, Tyler Shultz went from a bright-eyed Theranos employee to disgruntled whistleblower, personally disparaged by Theranos’ then-president and desperately trying to convince his grandfather to wash his hands of the doomed company."

‘Fraud is not a trade secret’: How a 27-year-old blew the whistle on Theranos; MarketWatch, 11/17/16

Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch; ‘Fraud is not a trade secret’: How a 27-year-old blew the whistle on Theranos’ :

[Kip Currier: Ethics instructors of all stripes were served up a whopping good case study with the story of Tyler Schultz (grandson of former Secretary of State George Schultz) exposing the dazzlingly fraudulent actions of health tech powerhouse, Theranos, Inc. and its now-disgraced CEO Elizabeth Holmes. This is one that should and will be studied in MBA programs and ethics courses for years.]

"‘Fraud is not a trade secret. I refuse to allow bullying, intimidation and threat of legal action to take away my First Amendment right to speak out against wrongdoing.’"

Members Of Congress Rip Into Mylan CEO; Huffington Post, 9/21/16

Lauren Weber, Huffington Post; Members Of Congress Rip Into Mylan CEO:

"“To have companies like yours take advantage of the situation, take advantage of these people who are really in need of this medication, I think it speaks to something that we are better than that,” Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) said. “How did we get to this point that we have a culture like this in corporate America that wants to stick it to consumers?”...

Cummings emphasized his disgust that pharmaceutical companies would continue to ratchet up drug prices for life-saving medication and said he hoped Bresch would apologize. She did not.

“After Mylan takes our punches, they’ll fly back to their mansions in their private jets and laugh all the way to the bank while our constituents suffer, file for bankruptcy, and watch their children get sicker and die,” Cummings said. “It’s time for Congress to act.”"

Wells Fargo CEO Takes Responsibility For ‘All Unethical’ Practices; Reuters via Huffington Post, 9/20/16

Reuters via Huffington Post; Wells Fargo CEO Takes Responsibility For ‘All Unethical’ Practices:

"The chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co on Tuesday apologized for the bank’s opening as many as 2 million bogus customer accounts that could generate fees for the lender.

“I accept full responsibility for all unethical sales practices,” CEO John Stumpf told a congressional panel...

[Ohio. Sen. Sherrod] Brown said employees were caught “forging signatures, and stealing identities, Social Security numbers, and customers’ hard-earned cash, so as to hang on to their low-paying jobs and make money for the high-paying executives at Wells Fargo.”"

‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf; Washington Post, 9/20/16

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; ‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf:

"In at least a couple of instances, she used the bank's own words against him. She began by reading from the bank's "vision and values statement," which says "we believe in values lived, not phrases memorized," and "if you want to find out how strong a company's ethics are, don't listen to what its people say. Watch what they do."

So, she said, "let's do that," noting Stumpf had repeatedly said "I'm accountable." Then she drilled into questions where he was unable to affirmatively answer that he had resigned, handed back money he'd earned or fired any senior executives."

The fall of Roger Ailes: He made Fox his ‘locker room’ — and now women are telling their stories; Washington Post, 7/22/16

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Scott Higham, Paul Farhi and Krissah Thompson, Washington Post; The fall of Roger Ailes: He made Fox his ‘locker room’ — and now women are telling their stories:

"“Boorish behavior is Murdoch company behavior — boorish behavior as defined by tough-guy behavior,” Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff said in an interview. “The tough-guy behavior sometimes intersects with sexual harassment, and this is very strong within the organization.”

In a statement Thursday announcing Ailes’s resignation (which made no mention of the claims against Ailes), Lachlan and James Murdoch said: “We continue our commitment to maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect. We take seriously our responsibility to uphold these traditional, long-standing values of our company.”"

American Universities Are Failing at Ethics; Time, 7/17/15

James Keenan, Time; American Universities Are Failing at Ethics:

"In other forms of professional life, we have long recognized a strong connection between the lack of professional ethics in a particular institutional setting and the lack of an ethical consciousness in that culture.

I believe that the absence of professional ethics is evidence of and symptomatic of a culture disinterested in ethics. For instance, as we come out of the sexual abuse scandals that have ripped apart the churches, we see that the disinterest in professional ethical accountability of bishops and priests was sustained by the church’s clerical culture that was more attuned to advancement than it was to ethical responsibility and transparency.

A similar culture is part and parcel of the contemporary American university.

Simply put, the American university does not hold its employees to professional ethical standards because it has not created a culture of ethical consciousness and accountability at the university. This is in part because of the nature of the contemporary university and because it needs ethics.

The contemporary university functions not as an integrated, transparent community but as a medieval set of fiefdoms in which transparency and accountability are singularly to “the person upstairs”: that is, to the chair, the dean or a vice president. Faculty and administrators are not accountable to any colleague, but only to a higher administrator.

Moreover, this accountability is only one-directional. For all the compliance, accountability and collaborative models that university faculty teach in their ethics courses to physicians, nurses, managers and lawyers, the university itself remains averse to developing any true accountability structures."

[Op-Ed] Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs; New York Times, 3/14/12

[Op-Ed] Greg Smith, New York Times; Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs:

"I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer."