The fallout from the Enron collapse continues to impact the global business community. The sad fact is that it appears that it wasn’t the business concept that Enron got wrong; it was the corporate culture that was wrong. The impact now affects Andersen, the accounting firm that audited and appears to have approved the methodologies used by senior Enron executives to “cook” the books and to pad the financial reports given to shareholders, the investment community, and employees. It also affects numerous other companies as the investment community is acutely attuned to not getting caught out by the “next Enron.”
Not surprisingly, the issues of ethics, business ethics, and corporate ethics, have suddenly become key topics of conversations and the subject of numerous articles in the business press. Unfortunately, the suggested solutions often mentioned – more rules and regulations, more oversight entities (both internal and external), and clearer reporting of financial transactions – will merely treat the symptoms of this current managerial crises but will do little to remedy the underlying condition.
The true way to fix this problem is to understand how to create the right corporate culture through the corporate image management process. The sure-fire way is to develop a corporate culture that not only emphasizes ethical behavior, but a so punishes and ostracizes those who do not live up to the desired standards. Very rarely can a single employee engage in unethical behavior without other employees being “in the know,” or at least suspicious.
A corporate culture, communicated and spread throughout the organization, that exhibits zero tolerance for unethical behavior and that is intricately tied to the corporate image is management’s best form of assurance against this deadly disease. This works a whole lot better than having internal policy police and a bundle of quarterly forms submitted, analyzed, and then stacked in some compliance officer’s cupboard.
Companies that win the marketing battle are those who have the internal strength from knowing who and what they are, and where they are headed – three of the most critical elements for managing the corporate image.
Nothing touches the customer more than how he or she perceives your corporate image. This fundamental perception will be the major factor that determines whether the customer will decide to conduct business with you and, more impotently, enter into a long-term and mutually rewarding relationship with your organization.
There may be no greater marketing issue than corporate image management in today’s increasingly competitive markets. Likewise, there may be no greater methodology for heading off potential business ethics and corporate ethics problems in your own organization than through re-evaluating your corporate image management process. And it’s not just in the area of financial manipulation that business ethics in recent years has gone astray.
Unfortunately, as marketers we are often no less dirty in our shenanigans and tricks than our colleagues in the financial department have been. Are the dirty tricks of politics now firmly embedded in the business world? Is the business community about to sink to the same level of distrust as politicians? It is indeed a slippery slope that we collectively appear to be on.
If you’re the CEO, Managing Director, or other senior leader, you need to create and manage the right corporate culture. If you are a department head or work group leader, you need to “walk the talk,” – in your personal life as well as your corporate life.
Ethics is not a gray issue. If you have a single seed of doubt about what you are doing, or planning to do, is wrong, it probably is! As Dr. Martin Luther King wrote –
“Cowardice asks the question – is it safe?
Expediency asks the question – is it politic?
Vanity asks the question – is it popular?
But conscience asks the question – is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is RIGHT.” What does this have to do with marketing?
Conducting business the RIGHT way is the ONLY way. This principle should be a nucleus of your marketing strategy and corporate culture. As Nelson Mandela said, “the time is always right to do right.” If you don’t, then your organization could well be on its way to a future induction in the Hall of Shame & Failures.
