Talking with Mr. Blankfein About Placing Ethics First From the Wall Street Journal on May 5, 2010: “Frankly, at this point, we have to go with an open mind and determine what we may be doing wrong,” Mr. Blankfein told customers of its private-wealth-management business during a 30-minute conference call. “On a very microscopic level, …
Starting a Business/
Business Laws & Ethics
Today in Boston the Board of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center today fined chief executive Paul Levy $50,000 for engaging in a personal relationship with an employee that over time “created an improper appearance and became a distraction within the hospital,” according to a statement by Board Chairman Stephen Kay. Mr. Levy has had a …
An Advisory Board (or Advisory Council or Advisory Committee) is a collection of people formed to advise members of a governing Board of Directors. The Advisory Board does not have formal authority. It cannot issue directives that must be followed as is the case with a governing Board. There seems to be an increasing number …
The issues surrounding Goldman Sachs highlight many of challenges facing the business ethics industry. There has been a public furor over the integrity of certain industries, such as finance, even though the leaders of those companies can state categorically that they acted legally, and ethically, within the guidelines they have worked within for some time. …
(The following post applies as much to for-profit Boards as nonprofit Boards — many for-profit Boards, especially in family-owned corporations, operate as working Boards.) A “working Board” is a personality of a governing Board. There is no clear delineation as to what’s a definitely a working Board or not. However, it’s commonly viewed as a …
What About “Big Names”? Many Board members believe that adding a very prominent person to the Board will bring great prestige and credibility to the Board. They believe that funders and other organizations will take those Boards much more seriously. Often, that’s a big mistake. Rarely do those famous people ever show up to the …
As opposed to offering opinions without having all of the background and knowledge, I thought it might be more helpful to start a discussion about the questions: Many people have written that Toyota’s problem was that it sacrificed a core value of safety for profit. To frame the issue this generally is to miss the …