Lehman Brothers Discussion
Week Six – Lehman Brothers
NAME
MGT/521
DATE
INSTRUCTOR
"Lessons from Lehman Brothers: Will We Ever Learn?"
MEMBER 1
QUESTION 2:
What was the culture at Lehman Brothers like? How did this culture contribute to the company 's downfall?
DISCUSSION/ANSWER:
One would think that with the many years of studies, investigations, and teachings on what not to do in corporate America, it 's frightening that a company like Lehman Brothers was able to get away with such unethical corporate practices for so long. Unfortunately, the entire company’s culture was unethical, beginning with its top executives. With that in mind, unethical leaders played a major role into the downfall of this organization. According to the legal expert Anton R. Salukis, Lehman Brothers excessively used accounting manipulations. The negligence or the willful blindness of Lehman’s CEO, Richard Fuld, promoted the practice of filing misleading financial reports by abusing an accounting device, Repo 105. Through this accounting manipulation, they could remove fifty billion of unwanted assets off the balance sheets on 2008 (Robbins, 2012, p. 147). With the information gathered, Team B determined that not was Lehmans Brothers unethical in its organizational practices, but it was also corrupt; and the appearance of its leader’s motivation was for the love of money.
Through the company’s financial success, it inherently brought about greed. Greed drove leadership them to lie, steal, and cheat. There were even reports that revealed where the company had lied about its true profitable gains and engaged in risky negotiations with other investors and stakeholders.
Furthermore, there were even reports that the employees engaged unethical practices as well. This type of behavior is not difficult to believe because typically, yet scarily, we are all products of our environments. Our environment can have a great impact on us psychologically. Those who live and work every day with
NAME
MGT/521
DATE
INSTRUCTOR
"Lessons from Lehman Brothers: Will We Ever Learn?"
MEMBER 1
QUESTION 2:
What was the culture at Lehman Brothers like? How did this culture contribute to the company 's downfall?
DISCUSSION/ANSWER:
One would think that with the many years of studies, investigations, and teachings on what not to do in corporate America, it 's frightening that a company like Lehman Brothers was able to get away with such unethical corporate practices for so long. Unfortunately, the entire company’s culture was unethical, beginning with its top executives. With that in mind, unethical leaders played a major role into the downfall of this organization. According to the legal expert Anton R. Salukis, Lehman Brothers excessively used accounting manipulations. The negligence or the willful blindness of Lehman’s CEO, Richard Fuld, promoted the practice of filing misleading financial reports by abusing an accounting device, Repo 105. Through this accounting manipulation, they could remove fifty billion of unwanted assets off the balance sheets on 2008 (Robbins, 2012, p. 147). With the information gathered, Team B determined that not was Lehmans Brothers unethical in its organizational practices, but it was also corrupt; and the appearance of its leader’s motivation was for the love of money.
Through the company’s financial success, it inherently brought about greed. Greed drove leadership them to lie, steal, and cheat. There were even reports that revealed where the company had lied about its true profitable gains and engaged in risky negotiations with other investors and stakeholders.
Furthermore, there were even reports that the employees engaged unethical practices as well. This type of behavior is not difficult to believe because typically, yet scarily, we are all products of our environments. Our environment can have a great impact on us psychologically. Those who live and work every day with
References: Robbins, S. P. (2012). Management (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Lunford, P. (2008). We are products of our environment. Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/we-products-our-environment-1505581.html