Tag: leadership

Hardcore Culture or the Absence of Western Values??

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

Hardcore Culture, a shift away from company loyalty to a “market based” culture. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Market based: Yeah, based on market forces, that’s okay, right? Or is it?

John Stankey has been making people “return to the office.”

(Quoted directly from the article linked to below.) The increasingly strict return-to-office mandate that AT&T has rolled out in phases over the past year has also resulted in further reductions, multiple employees have told Business Insider, and Stankey signaled in his memo that he’s fine with more people leaving if they’re not on board with the company’s new direction. (End quote.)

The information that we have, that is, the facts, say that working from home and other such flexible work ideas have led to greater employee satisfaction and productivity. So, why would you make people return to the office. It’s pretty clear, isn’t it. It is a return to the dictator style boss, the kick them in the teeth style boss epitomized by the yuppies in the 1980’s.

Apparently the investors are eating this stuff up. They love reduced work forces, corporate mandates and divesting the company from previous endeavors. And none of it has to make any sense, they are like toddlers strapped in a car seat, they enjoy the motion of the vehicle and that is enough. Thinking logically, critically or even trying to protect their money is hard while reacting positively to the supposedly alpha male characteristics of hard charging decisions, commands rather than cooperation, lots and lots of forced resignations and an emphasis on the perceived toughness of the CEO, well, that’s easy.

If you get the impression I don’t think much of the investment community, you would be right. But there is something far more alarming here but first let me quote my article about our star of a CEO.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-ceo-john-stankeys-hard-202422959.html

(Quoted from article above.) As the company moves to sunset most of its copper network in the US by the end of 2029, Stankey has also instituted a broad cultural shift internally. He’s moved away from prioritizing 20th-century corporate values like loyalty and tenure in favor of a tech-style, “more market-based culture,” the AT&T CEO wrote in a sweeping memo last week that was first reported by Business Insider. (End quote.)

So, here’s my concern. Where are Western Values in all of this? A giant corporation like this one is also a political and cultural entity. In this article, there is an almost complete absence of any issue or topic related to Western Values save capitalism and market economics, and then only in its cruelest and simplest form.

What are Western Values? They fall into six categories: (From Wikipedia with my thanks!)

Does AT&T have any stance on obeying the law or participating in democracy or pledging to pay its taxes like a good citizen?

Why is a bald statement celebrating naked power and greed a positive for investors? And at the same time, the absence of any commitment to a better society, a greater nation or an improved civilization, and this absence does not trouble the investors at all. In face, I think they regard the evasion of human and moral values as a positive.

I think every corporation in the United States has a duty to the law and to its fellow citizens. I think we should all be invested with the responsibility of creating and maintaining a civil society and a program for human and cultural development because that is what a great people do and we should above all things strive to be a great people.

James Alan Pilant

Do Psychopaths Flock to Leadership Positions in Business??

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

(A public domain picture from a 19th Century book of fairy tales or in the present case an example of a psychopath.)

The answer may be surprising to you. Unfortunately old cynic that I am and having researched the subject in the past, I was not surprised.

Yes, psychopaths are attracted to leadership positions in business and are in those positions in large numbers in the United States. (My emphasis)

I was delighted to find the article below on the Internet and dismayed at what it reported and the implications of it reporting.

https://empatyzer.com/is-psychopathy-an-asset-in-business-facts-and-myths-about-ruthless-leaders/

(Quoted directly from the article above.) The statistics are surprising. While psychopathy affects about 1% of the general population, the numbers are significantly higher in the business world. According to research cited in “Philonomist,” psychopathy affects 4% to 20% of employees, with a particular concentration in leadership positions. Simon Croom, a professor and researcher at the University of San Diego, claims that about 12% of senior corporate leaders exhibit psychopathic traits, meaning “psychopathy is up to 12 times more common among executives than in the general population.” Recent studies suggest an even higher percentage: about 20% of CEOs may exhibit psychopathic traits. This overrepresentation is not accidental – psychopaths are attracted to power, and some of their personality traits can actually aid in advancing through the corporate hierarchy.

Twenty percent of CEO’s is a very high proportion of working CEO’s with a serious personality disorder. What are the implications? I have had the misfortune to encounter psychopaths in my work in criminal justice. As you might imagine they were wrongdoers, remorseless liars and miscreants without a shred of human feeling. It was best to lock them up and remove them from the larger population. And while we have this choice when their behavior results in criminality, what choices do we have when their behavior produces corporate success?

Not many. We live in a CEO worshiping culture where it is assumed that CEO’s are geniuses and swashbuckling entrepreneurs. I do find any of this to be true and my opinion of American CEO’s is barely printable or speakable in polite company. But in a culture where CEO’s are given free rein to commit economic havoc (and they do), the psychopathic CEO and all others are well protected from interference or any form of justice. I could point to hundreds of examples but Boeing’s decisions resulting in the crashes of two aircraft with more than three hundred dead resulted in no criminal charges.

You might say a psychopath functioning as a CEO has found his natural environment much like a lion on the plains of the Serengeti.

America’s wars have been a study of mine for some years. In the military it often said that you learn a great deal about a nation by the people who serve, their willingness to act bravely and on behalf of others. I can’t help but believe that our willingness as a nation to use psychopaths to run important organizations says a lot about us as a nation.

A sort of a post religious world sort of decision would be one conclusion. An utter emphasis on success measured in dollar amounts would be another.

It would seem that for much of our leadership in the United States, any consideration of religion, patriotism, or any other human quality like empathy or kindness is simply irrelevant. The only thing that matters is narrowly defined set of personal economic goals, you know, so much money, so many houses, the trophy spouse and the political influence. It creates and maintains a cruel and rapacious word where spouses age and must be replaced, neighborhoods go out of style so you have to move and friends and allies are little more than simple pawns to be discarded when convenient.

And of course, the planet itself is to squeezed like an orange for every last bit of use without any regard for sustainability or our posterity. In the world of the psychopath, things and people exist only for use.

From my point of view entrusting societal resources to the mentally ill is a bad idea. But apparently for many of our “leadership” class, they are too useful to give up.

I will return to the topic of psychopaths in business in later posts. The subject fascinates me and should concern you.

James Alan Pilant

The article above that was linked to and quoted from is entitled:

Is Psychopathy an Asset in Business? Facts and Myths About Ruthless Leaders

And I found it on a web site called:

https://empatyzer.com/

I am grateful for the article, its intelligence and hard hitting conclusions. For those who wrote it, “May blessings fall upon you from Heaven!”

AI Weaponized.

On By southwerkIn business ethics

As technology moves forward with often amazing speed, the law struggles to keep up. New offenses never even thought of before are happening every day. One tragic trend is the posting of fake nudes of high school students and there are many others. The internet is a massive information super highway of fraud, deception and filth. I don’t need to tell you in any detail because you see and experience yourself the horror of what the internet has become.

This case detailed in the links below alleges that Dazhon Darien used AI technology to imitate the Pikesville high school’s principal. The fake recording had the principal disparaging minority students and teachers. It was spread about on the internet. Darien was under accusation of having billed the school illegally for about $2000. It seems the motive was revenge.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/maryland-teacher-ai-principal

A quote from the article above:

Using cloning technology, Darien forged an audio clip in which it sounded as if the principal was frustrated with Black students and their test-taking abilities, police wrote. The recording also purported to capture the principal disparaging Jewish individuals and two teachers who “should never have been hired”.

The AI attack was very successful. The principal was temporarily replaced as complaints flooded in. This was a truly vicious unprincipled attack. There are many disturbing elements, the main one being this is a first use case. There will be others and the results are likely to be at least as tragic and probably much, much worse.

We must as a society find ways of dealing with these issues of technological criminal innovation much more quickly. AI is a revolutionary technology. To say that it could be used to kill is not an exaggeration. And I while I am seeing a great deal of concern and discussion, I’m not seeing much legislative and administrative action.

Our legislatures, our Governors, our federal system are all creatures of the past with long and storied histories. But they were developed in the age of the horse as the main instrument of travel and the written letter, the primary medium of communication. Let me just give you an example, in the great majority of states, Corporate law requires the Board of Directors to meet annually and keep records of that event. This is directly from an era in which they traveled by train and horse. Isn’t it obvious that the corporate board be regularly involved, meeting often and having some kind of regular contact with the company? Yet the law requires no more than that single meeting a year. And we’ve had the internet, automobiles and telephones for quite some time now and we have not adapted the the statutory law to mandate more contact in an ongoing business. And that is the story across the board in the United States. The laws are based on circumstances that have become obsolete.

I suggest that the Justice Department create a division devoted to technological innovation and crime. This will give the government a slim chance of getting ahead of the curve of these new kinds of crime. We really don’t want to wake up one morning and find that AI had killed, destroyed reputations, collapsed companies and crashed infrastructures without legal recourse for the victims or the government.

We need to act. We must act now. Because the wicked actors both here at home and overseas are not resting. They are actively plotting and will given any opportunity take advantage of these new technologies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-school-principal-faced-threats-after-being-accused-of-offensive-language-on-a-recording-now-police-say-it-was-a-deepfake/ar-AA1nJhWo

From the article above.

On January 16, a Gmail user known as TJFOUST9 sent an email to three teachers, including Darien, at their school email addresses. The subject line said, “Pikesville Principal — Disturbing Recording.” A sound file was attached. A man could be heard speaking. Among other disparaging comments, including one about two teachers and another about Jewish people, the man said Black students couldn’t “test their way out of a paper bag.” The recording proliferated. A teacher who didn’t get along well with Eiswert admitted to sharing it with a student “who she knew would rapidly spread the message around various social media outlets and throughout the school,” the report said. The teacher also sent the recording to media outlets and the NAACP.

Listen to the “Morality” of Laissez-faire.

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

The English government during the Irish Famine of 1845 – 1852 adhered strictly to a doctrine of Laissez-faire. I want you to listen to the cold blooded ramblings of a government in thrall to a cruel, vicious and irrational policy concept. This is where economic philosophy confronted tragedy and compounded it.

Watch the clip and see if you can avoid recoiling in horror at the voices of the decision makers mindlessly repeating the necessity of letting the market have its way.

James Pilant

Laissez-faire

When Ireland Starved Episode 3 Managing The Famine (Part 1 of 3) – YouTube

When Ireland Starved Episode 3 Managing The Famine (Part 1 of 3) – YouTube

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Sane ideas from Tufts psychiatry prof: Linking effective leadership and mental illness (via Minding the Workplace)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is different. Very different.

Mental illness as an advantage?

I guess. The article is persuasive.

Are mental problems really an adaption to difficulties. If the strategy is successful, maybe its not crazy but a successful adaption.

Maybe, someone smart enough to adapt in so strange a fashion has superior powers of creation and those have application in other fields?

I don’t know.

See what you think?

James Pilant

Sane ideas from Tufts psychiatry prof: Linking effective leadership and mental illness When Nassir Ghaemi, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center, studied prominent figures of the American Civil War, he discovered that many of the greatest leaders during the war (e.g., Abraham Lincoln and Union general Ulysses Grant) were mentally abnormal or mentally ill, while many … Read More

via Minding the Workplace

Power and Authority (via Business Management)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here we have a discourse on authority, a rare and precious gem. Few understand it. Most who believe they have it don’t. Those that understand it seldom explain. Can you tell if the author knows his subject or not?

Here’s a paragraph –

French and Raven identified five bases of power as: legitimate, referent, expert, reward and coercive. Legitimate power is authority. For example, police has legitimate power. Referent power arises from personal authority. It can be someone whom you like and want to follow (e.g your role model). When someone has expert power, that means this person has knowledge which others respect. Reward and Coercive power is the classic definition of carrot and stick. It means the person who holds the power to reward or punish has this type of power.

James Pilant

Power means “the ability to influence people”. For example, if you have the ability to persuade your friends to move in the same direction as you do, then you have the power. Authority is the “official power”. For example if you are assigned to a manager position where your subordinates are obliged to follow your orders then you have the authority. Military officers have the authority. French and Raven identified five bases of power as: legitimat … Read More

via

Responsible leadership: “move beyond the smell, sleep and newspaper test.” (via Thefutureleadershipinitiative)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

There are hundreds, thousands of posts on business ethics. Only a few are thoughtful and only a very few directly deal with the philosophy of business. This is one of those.

I was very impressed. If you have any interest in business ethics philosophically, this is the best writing on the subject I have seen in many weeks.

James Pilant

“Aligning self-interest to social responsibility is the most powerful way to sustaining a company’s success,” says Starbucks’ CEO Orin Smith. A larger notion of responsibility is moving to the centre of business leadership in the 21st Century. We’re moving away from the Milton Friedman adagio “live up to the law and maximize shareholder wealth”.  Why is that? When is leadership truly responsible? And how to lead responsibly? Thomas Maak and Nicol … Read More

via Thefutureleadershipinitiative

Ethics Roundup 2-20-11

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Picture by Greg Kendall Ball

The Crane and Matten Blog have a wonderful article up. It’s called Baron-zu-Googleberg. And it’s a morality tale. I’d go read this one just for the sheer fun of it.

From the post –

One of the funnier incidents in cypberspace is the facebook page on this (‘If Guttenberg has a Doctor, I want one too!’) or the new keyboard designed for PhDs a la Guttenberg – with all keys removed except the ‘c’ut and ‘v’-paste ones…

From Ethics Blog, a reflection on leadership –

We are most likely not heads of state, but we are all to some degree leaders. Can we be both feared and loved? I think it is possible. As parents we try to find the delicate balance between authority and love. Such balance can also sometimes be found in the military. We read and hear of stories about commanders who were both feared (court martial is always a possibility if one does not obey orders) and yet loved by their men who sometimes would even risk their lives for their leaders.

There is a new Chuck Gallager blog post and it is fascinating. Apparently, he had a blog post which another person had issues with (I want you to read the post for all the play by plays.). So he published his old post with the new comments entered into the appropriate places. It is a very ethical and intelligent way to handle the subject (and more than a little time consuming). I’m impressed.

David Yamada in his blog, Minding the Workplace has a great deal to say about the ongoing events in Wisconsin –

Governor Walker’s attack on human rights is unlike anything I’ve seen in the U.S. during my adult lifetime. He is using the state’s budget woes as a pretext to justify denying workers the right to bargain over their compensation and benefits. Hard bargaining at the negotiation table in the midst of tough economic times is one thing, but moving to deny workers a collective voice is pure thuggery.

Washington’s Blog has a truly fascinating post – Don’t Let Wisconsin Divide Us … Conservatives and Liberals Agree about the Important Things.

In fact, most Americans – conservatives and liberals – are fed up with both of the mainstream republican and democratic parties, because it has become obvious that both parties serve Wall Street and the military-industrial complex at the expense of most Americans.