catapult magazine

catapult magazine
 

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Christians in business

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dddroog
Mar 04 2003
10:40 am

Special thanks to the author for an excellent article. I have one comment to make.

The author mentioned several books including one by Michael Novak, Business as Calling, and speculated that Enron?s Lay, Skilling, and Fastow ?likely never got around to reading any of such fine? books. The interesting thing is Novak mentions Enron and Lay in several of his writings (this was pre-fall Enron) as examples of a work place and a leader that promoted free thinking and apparently Lay has read most of Novak?s work. The point being, the difference between wrong and right cuts through all of us and having read one book or another neither makes us immune from having to fight ourselves nor immune from suffering because of the indiscretions of others. Because if we really believed that reading the ?right? books would have made all the difference, then the exploits of telecom analyst Jack Grubman would make sense – he had do to everything he could to get his twins into the ?right? school where they read the ?right? books.

I realize the author in no way suggested that the ?right? book club membership could have prevented Enron. My point is, being more thoughtful than the American public, we should realize that fixing social problems, like corporate corruption, means addressing social norms, like profits at any cost, rather than replace the ?wrong? people with the ?right? people.
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