TGIF – The Messiness Of Capitalism

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “A particularly troubling and consistent finding from our survey is what the future holds for Wall Street. Many of the young professionals who will one day assume control of the trillions of dollars that the industry manages have lost their moral compass, accepted corporate wrongdoing as a necessary evil and fear reporting misconduct. This is a ticking economic time bomb that responsible organizations must immediately defuse.” from the Wall Street article cited below.

Humor Break:

Al: It seems to me that some of those Wall Street and banking types, all they want is more and more.

Bev: True, but we have something they can never have.

Al: What’s that?

Bev: Enough.

Stat of the Week: A friend of mine wrote me recently about the necessity of the “messiness of capitalism”. I hope this isn’t what he had in mind. This week’s stats come from an alarming report (do not attempt to read the report before bedtime): Wall Street in Crisis: A Perfect Storm Looming.

Key Findings:

• Despite the many reforms put in place in the wake of the financial crisis, only 36% of respondents felt that Wall Street has changed for the better since Dodd-Frank’s passage in 2010.

• More than half of respondents–52%–felt it was likely that their competitors have engaged in unethical or illegal activity to gain an edge in the market; 24% felt employees at their own company likely have engaged in misconduct to get ahead.

• Misconduct is still widespread in the financial services industry; 23% of respondents indicated that they had observed or had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace.

• 29% of respondents believed that financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal activity in order to be successful.

• More than one-quarter of all financial services professionals–26%–believed the compensation plans or bonus structures in place at their companies incentivize employees to compromise ethical standards or violate the law.

• An alarming number of financial services professionals, 24% of respondents, likely would engage in insider trading to make $10 million if they could get away with it.

• Shockingly, and consistent with recent and high-profile criticism of the culture within the financial services industry, a full 28% of respondents felt that the financial services industry does not put the interests of clients first.

• Building on this seemingly endemic culture problem, a concerning number of financial services professionals indicated that their leadership may put profits above ethics; 17% felt their leaders were likely to look the other way if they suspected a top performer engaged in insider trading. Equally concerning, 15% doubted that their leadership, upon learning of a top performer’s crime, would report it to the authorities.

Action Tip: Please read On Wall Street, a Culture of Greed Won’t Let Go, a New York Times article addressing the issue. The article also contains a PDF link to the above cited report (Stat of the Week).

Self-Development Corner: Here are next week’s free online university courses which may be of interests to our readers:

Business and Management Courses: Law and the Entrepreneur (Oct 23, 6 weeks, Northwestern University)

Computers and Science Courses: Nanotechnology: The Basics (Oct 21, 4 weeks, Rice University); People & Networks (Oct 20, 13 weeks, Peking University – in Chinese)

Health and Medicine: The New Nordic Diet – from Gastronomy to Health (Oct 21, 4 weeks, University of Copenhagen)

General Interest: Global Warming: The Science of Climate Change (Oct 21, 8 weeks, University of Chicago)

Happy learning!

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.