Thieves recently stole 143 million consumer records from credit reporting company Equifax. Claimed to be the worst data breach ever, the company’s response met widespread disdain. Regarded as dishonest, and lacking in transparency in business , one critic labels it “Full of vague cover-your-ass statements at the exact moment when […]
Tag: shareholders
Profits, performance and ethics: ready for the coming convergence?
“Top executives need to be paid a lot to be willing to do their demanding role. Company performance depends almost entirely on the top leadership’s capability. Ethics doesn’t pay, what matters is short term rewards for stakeholders.” These three widely used assertions about business sound increasingly threadbare, unsupported by credible […]
When culture and values fail—what next?
The fall of John Stumpf, long serving CEO of Wells Fargo makes good headlines. Some 5,000 or so employees fired for abusing the trust of the banks’ customers sounds even better. It seems to show a management on the war path. Is this the top team riding to the rescue […]
Boots and the reputation lessons for everyone else
VW was bad enough. Now, value destroying behaviour at Boots the chemist hits the headlines. It’s accused of “ripping off the NHS” and putting pressure on staff to collude with this. The questions this accusation raises apply to any other company that wants to be around in the longer term: Transparency: What […]
Short-termism: The fast route to unethical business behaviour
Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, is helping to fund a 200 foot tall clock designed to last millennia. He calls it “The 10,000 Year Clock” being built deep inside a Nevada mountain. “We humans have become so technologically sophisticated that in certain ways we’re dangerous to ourselves. It’s going to be […]
Speak up, or fail as a leader!
Leaders sometimes speak up. Ethical business leaders most definitely speak up, though not enough do. A sure way to fail as a leader in today’s demanding corporate environment is to keep quiet when you should be doing the opposite. Speak up about what though? How far should progressive business leaders […]
Reputation: perception or reality, does it really matter?
Does reputation really matter? Is this a will o’ the wisp? Quite simply, is reputation so intangible as to be irrelevant? These are no idle questions, as we watch the shredding of the reputations of such diverse organisations as the Bank of England, the BBC, most banks, the Catholic Church, […]
Exclusive: Interview with “Reputation Risk” author
Andrew discusses with Andrea Bonime-Blanc, CEO of GEC Risk Advisory, her new handbook on: Reputation Risk–in an age of hyper-transparency. See also Analysis: our review of her new handbook–due December 11th. “Why did you decide to write this book now, as opposed to say a year or so back–what has changed […]