There have been a rash of company “screw ups” these last couple of months. Everything from very public embarrassments of leading companies with respect to privacy issues, failures to acknowledge “do not track” requests to my own personal problem with my long time bank. It seems we forget, every now and then, who we are in business for in the first place. And then we wonder why we wind up with regulation, damaged reputation and customers who vote with their feet. And, to make matters worse, we’re right in the middle of campaign season, so we will now be subjected to wacky ideas of how to fix things.

Read the rest of this entry

Isn’t it enough to keep people employed and earn a profit?

The short answer is yes CSR matters and no it isn’t enought to just employ people and earn a profit; and it never really has been otherwise. The truth is that now there is more transparency (like it or not) around what companies and business owners are doing. And there is obviously much discontent over the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” or, if you will, between the 1% and the 99% to use the now quite ubiquitous rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street Crowd.

Read the rest of this entry

By now you know that Buffett’s heir apparent, David Sokol, has had to leave Berkshire Hathaway under an “ethics cloud.” As you would expect, there is much speculation around how much of this falls on Buffett and what he should be telling us about the incident. My view is that Buffett owns it all. Harsh?

Read the rest of this entry

Nice guys finish last. The only reason for a business to exist is to increase shareholder value. As long as it’s legal, you can do it. If it’s not legal and the fines are less than compliance costs, you can do it. If you think you won’t get caught, you can do it. Caveat emptor. Enron, WorldCom, Bernie Madoff, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. And lest you think it’s only business, check out the Federal Workers Unions, Teacher’s Unions and the Teamsters. And go ahead and name your favorite political scandal; Joe Wilson, Tom Delay, Charlie Rangel, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton. The list goes on and on and on. How about the sports figures and scandals?

Read the rest of this entry

In 1784 Immanuel Kant suggested that “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight was ever made.” This quotation came to mind as I was reading several recent blogs discussing the sad condition of US business. Off the record, many CEOs of larger corporations fear for our country; research, operations and new facilities overseas. The ease with which we can now outsource pieces of our operation has even very small private companies outsourcing some “back office” functions, for example.

Read the rest of this entry

So, it’s no fun to have made the call, but I see that Tony Hayward is in fact on his way out. He is being held accountable (not necessarily blamed, but the buck stops with him).A recent Gallop Poll showing how the “confidence” people had in various institutions means we have a very long way to go in getting folks to have faith in big business. Luckily, many still have confidence in small business. “Small businesses rate a 66% while big business gets 19% and organized labor 10%.”

Read the rest of this entry

It’s kind of like what I used to call “forced fun” at company sales meetings. It was meant to be team building but it really was “forced” in the sense that many folks did not really want to be there or even be participating. Many times, once they were there, they liked it well enough and actually had some fun in spite of themselves. The internet is causing forced transparency in company operations. Many don’t like it and would rather not be transparent. Some, like the forced fun situation, will find they can use the new rules of the game to actually win and have some fun along the way.

Read the rest of this entry

We all have companies we “love to hate.” There’s a video running around with a marine blasting an HP Printer that failed and the folks on the other end of the phone wanted to charge him for assistance (warning this guy is very angry and not using polite language).

My prime target is AT&T and without going into a long tirade, I’ll just say that I’ve not personallyexperienced more deplorable customer service at the hands of a company. I’m adding another one now though, Intuit. After deciding that the “gentle warning” on their website that the latest software was best for Windows 7, I paid my money and downloaded the QB 2010 software. That’s when it all began.

Read the rest of this entry

Many years ago I heard the statement made that “corporate staff is like body fat. You have to have some in order to survive. But the goal is to have as little as possible.” I think the same is true of Government. You have to have some, but the goal is to minimize it. So I start from the premise that Governments and Businesses have the same challenge – deliver value and necessary services while keeping the nonproductive activities and costs to an absolute minimum.

Read the rest of this entry

A colleague, Ira Wolfe, asked a great question over on one of the many leadership blogs we frequent. His question was, “The BP Gulf of Mexico Crisis is just gushing with leadership lessons. What do you think are the most important lessons leaders can learn from this?” I like this question and had been thinking about this very thing for weeks now. There were several responses, and I too contributed since I’d been pondering this topic anyway.

Read the rest of this entry