Leadership is Theatre
Book by David M. Boje
Publisher: Tamaraland (Las Cruces, NM), 2005
Chapter 7: What is the Z Dimension of Leadership? It’s Participation with Ethics
ABSTRACT
Z is the third SEPTET element, and it has everything to do with dialogs of ethics and
participation. Now what is a leader if not someone who facilitates dialog among all the
specialties and personalities of any organization? Some leaders know how to stimulate dialog
and others can bring people with wildly different logics and views into collaborative dialog.
Leaders stimulate more or less ethical dialog. This chapter is about “discursive ethics” of
leadership. Dialog consists here of Four Voices of leadership (see next chapter).
INTRODUCTION TO DIALOG
FOUR VOICES OF DIALOG (explained in chap 8).
A theory of leadership I developed to explain the Z-dimension of participation and ethics is called the Four
Voices of Dialog.
•One voice monologue – the leader tells everyone what is what, and there is no real feedback. Very
autocratic, not a listener when it comes to participation.
•Two voiced dialogue – leader speaks to the Other (in their head); there is an internalized Other who is
dialogic, at least empathetically to the leader. Leader may or may not participate with this Other outside
his or her own head.
•Three voiced dialogic – Moral Ethics! Maxims: “Thou shall not lie”; “Thou shall not steal”; “Thou shall
love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Third Voice is ethical; it is what Adam Smith (1723-1791) called the
voice of the internalized “impartial spectator.” The leader participates with an internalized ethical voice,
one learned at Mother’s knee, or in socialization.
•Four voiced dialogic – This next voice is the voice of the voiceless; the voices of silence; it’s a voice
present by its absence; examples: the animals, human, or environment that is unable to speak. This is an
internalized voice that is ethical and more aesthetic.
Dialog, a conversation of participation among several people, in the same time and place, is not the same as
“dialogic.” In the four voices model, 1st voice is monologue, and is neither dialog or dialogic. 2nd voice is
internalized dialogue (better form of participation would be to meet the Other in face-to-face dialogue). 3rd and
4th voice are dialogic (& beyond simple face-to-face or imagined dialog). 3rd voice is the internalized spectator
of one’s ethical voice (a transcendental voice), which is dialogic with the first two voices. 4th voice is voice of
silence, one that speaks by its silence; it would speak if it were able or un-oppressed. 4th voice is dialogic to the
other three voices. In 4th voice we expect an answer, but it does not come; yet the 4th voice leader invites its
participation, opens oneself to voice of silence, and hears an aesthetic response. For example, I imagine what
the old growth forest spoke to me before it was clear-cut. I imagine what this silent x-forest says to me, to my
children’s children who will never see such forest. Dialogic is Bakhtin’s (1973, 1981) concept, and can take
several forms that are beyond “dialog” of the simple here-and-now face-to-face conversation.
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Z Narrative Dimension - From Monophonic (single voiced) to polyphonic (many voices).
Figure Three adds a third dimension to what was displayed in Figure Three (and Two). This is the Y
dimension of monophonic to polyphonic narrative. The (blue) boxes in the lower potion of the figure on the
monophonic narrative types, whereas, the upper (orange) ones represents the polyphonic ones.
Figure Four: Leader in Three Dimensions © David M. Boje
In bureaucratic leadership, for example, there is mostly monologue; other voices are there on the stage but
forbidden to speak, or they can only be whispered, their words unhearable, drowned out by the one official
narrator who is authorized to take center-stage and speak and speak some more. As Kirkeby (2000: 232) argues
it is the right of power to narrate events, to declare them romantic, tragic, comedic, or ironic, and then of course
make them all into a romantic narratives that fits the bureaucratic pension for monophonic (single voiced)
influence. For any other voice to speak would be an act of bureaucratic espionage; certainly for the secretary to
speak would be unthinkable rebellion. Barry and Elmes (1997) look at monophonic and polyphonic aspects of
leadership strategy. See Boje (2000c) for more on the multiple voices of leadership.
1. Polyphonic Dialogism – several people each with vastly different logics or worldviews (ideologies),
may or may not be present in the same time/space of a dialog. In the four voices model, the more
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interesting polyphonic form of participation is way beyond the face-to-face meeting of people in a
conference room, or on a conference call. Rather, in the 3rd and 4th voice, there is dialogic participation
with ethical (transcendental, even spiritual) and aesthetic (voiceless) voices.
2. Stylistic Dialogism – The aesthetic (4th) voice, can be a dialogicality among different styles: everyday
speech used by advertisers (called skaz) such as “Just Do It” (Nike) or “I’m Lovin It” (McDonald’s) or
“Digital DNA” (Motorola) can be juxtaposed with official speeches of the CEO to shareholders, with
science-imitative speech like the income and loss statements, and with photos of minorities to make an
annual report appear to be participative, as well as other stylistics. Stylistic dialogism is defined as the
orchestration of widely different styles of speech. This orchestration may be the lie of 1st voice
autocracy pretending to be participative when it is not. It can be 2nd voice double narrative, where some
skaz ripped off from the Other is appropriated to by a corporation to make it seem like there is
participation (e.g. “Just do it” was ripped off from the inner city speech act “Just F_CK it!)! In 3rd and
4th voice the multi-stylistics move toward dialogic participation.
3. Chronotopic Dialogism – A chronotope is how one narrates or stories temporality and spatiality (or
time/space). Do people story the future as the land of progress, or revere the past in sacred tomes, or put
their faith in being in the moment in the here-and-now. Bakhtin was inspired by Albert Einstein’s theory
of relativity, where space becomes the fourth dimension of space. Chronotopic dialogism occurs when
there are multiple conceptions of time and space, and these begin to interact, to participate in one
another. Imagine the Navajo who meets the Astronaut; their conceptions of time and space will be vastly
different.
4. Architectonic Dialogism – Your family story is nested in your societal story. My grandmother Wilda’s
brother Gerard married Stella LaClair, a native American woman, and had a child named Georgia (or
Georgie, as some called her). It was still the age of genocide. Wilda’s second husband (Percy Brown, or
Brownie as we called him) was abandoned by his mother to be raised on the Yakima Indian Reservation.
On my dad’s side, my grandfather’s brother Edward Boje married a native American woman from the
Pulalup tribe in Washington state. The Boje family wrote Edward’s name out of the family bible, it was
forbidden to ever speak Edward Boje’s name, or his wife’s name, or the names of their children,
forevermore. I only learned of this silence, this shunning, this 4th voice of the voiceless when I was over
50 years old. Architectonics dialogism is a dialogic interanimation of cognitive, ethic, and aesthetic
discourses. In my story of Wilda, Stella, Gerard, Georgie, and Brownie – the voices of my ancestors are
nested in the societal discourse (voice of society), and resonate with my internalized (2nd voice of the
Others, the dead ancestors), and 3rd voice of ethical conscience, and 4th voice (the aesthetics of how my
family, & my country tells their narratives of Natives who were to be voiceless in the genocide, in the
appropriation of land by the settlers). What is brave about Wilda, Edward, Brownie, Gerard, Stella,
Georgie is they participated with the people different than themselves, and defied the edict of shunning,
and appropriation. In architectonic dialogism, the ethical voice resonates with the cognitive reasoning of
a society bent upon destruction, and the aesthetics of poetic storytelling where I let the voices silenced
speak to me in utter defiance of societal hegemony.
If you want to read more about Wilda, see - Boje, D. M. 2005g. Wilda. Journal of Management Sprituality
& Religion.Vol 2, Issue 3, 2005. Wilda essay and commentaries by Eduardo Berrera, Heather Hopfl, Hans
Hansen, David Barry, Gerald Bibberman, & Robin Matthews). Click Here
Next I talk of dialog, not the dialogic, but with Martin Luther King Jr. one could find both.
Dialog - Aristotle defined dialog (or diction) as the verbal and non-verbal exchanges among characters. Dialog
is a resource to express character, plot, and theme of the charismatic leader script. The dialog of Martin Luther
King has a pace, rhythm, repetition and stylistic that leadership researchers have identified as charismatic
(Conger, 1991). "Let freedom ring."
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Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
To me, what MLK is saying is the 4th voice, hearing the freedom ring, that has gone voiceless.
Another example: General Douglas Macarthur would prepare for a guest, or a group by memorizing every
fact he could about topics they were supposed to know as expert. In his flamboyance style, he would then
dazzle them with his expertise and breadth of knowledge. Macarthur worked on his dialog, both in the office
and on the floor of the Senate, to give a charismatic performance, often speaking his dialog from memory. You
can read more about his style at http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching/338/macarthur_douglas.htm He
managed his stylistics, making more participation appear to be happening, making 1st voice seem to be in dialog
with the other.
Next I want to explore the 3rd voice, the voice of ethical participation.
ETHICS DIALOG OF THEATRICS OF LEADERSHIP
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785/1993) distinguishes between
the ethics of “practical reasoning” and the ethics of “categorical imperative.” Practical reasoning ethics is about
“means” to some end. Categorical imperative is an “end” such as “humanity” is an end unto itself. When a
leader treats workers or customers as “means” to gain “profit” “power” “prestige” that is “practical reasoning.”
Categorical Imperative – be ethical even if it does not lead to your own happiness. Treat humanity as an “end”
unto itself, not a means to avoid punishment or as means to attain profit, happiness, etc. “I should never act
except in such a way that my maxim should become a universal law” (Kant, 1785/1993: #402, p. 14).
Maxim – “A maxim is the subjective principle of volition” (Kant, 1785/1993: #401, footnote 13, p. 13). An
example of a “maxim” is the leader’s “will.” The leader’s dialog can will their intent become a universal law,
or that it be just practical reason.
An example of Categorical Imperative is the white lie.
[This means that when you tell a lie, you merely take exception to the general rule that says
everyone should always tell the truth and behave that what you are saying is true. When you lie,
you do not thereby will that everyone else lie and not believe that what you are saying is true,
because in such a case your lie would never work to get you what you want] (Kant, 1785/1993:
#444, footnote 16, p. 15).
Are the 10 Commandments Categorical Imperatives or just Practical Reasoning? Are they imperatives
or just guidelines? (Following is Wikepedia) is from Exodus:
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Do not have any other gods before Me. Do not represent [such] gods by any carved statue or
picture of anything in the heaven above, on the earth below, or in the water below the land. Do not
bow down to [such gods] or worship them. I am God your Lord, a God who demands exclusive
worship. Where My enemies are concerned, I keep in mind the sin of the fathers for [their]
descendants, to the third and fourth [generation]. But for those who love Me and keep My
commandments, I show love for thousands [of generations]. Do not take the name of God your Lord
in vain. God will not allow the one who takes His name in vain to go unpunished. Remember the
Sabbath to keep it holy. You can work during the six weekdays and do all your tasks. But the seventh
day is a Sabbath to God your Lord. Do not do anything that constitutes work. [This includes] you,
your son, your daughter, your slave, your maid, your animal, and the foreigner in your gates. It was
during the six weekdays that God made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he
rested on the seventh day. God therefore blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your
father and mother. You will then live long on the land that God your Lord is giving you. Do not
commit murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not testify as a false witness against your
neighbor. Do not be envious of your neighbor's house. Do not be envious of your neighbor's wife,
his slave, his maid, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that is your neighbor's." (Exodus 20)
There are two sets of 10 Commandments, one I Exodus 20, 2nd is Exodus 34.
Which Ten Commandments? Source http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm
First Tables of Stone (Exodus 20)
("which Moses
didst break")
Second Tables of Stone (Exodus 34)
("the words
were on the first")
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall
have no other gods before me.
1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a
jealous god).
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You
shall not bow down to them or serve them.
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in
vain.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in th
month when the ear is on the corn.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou s
rest.
6. You shall not kill.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the
fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingatherin
the year's end.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with
leavened bread.
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8. You shall not steal.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until
morning.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt
bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. You shall not covet.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.
OK, pick one, translate them into whatever is your faith, or if you are without faith, then what is your list of 10
ethical categoricals? From here, we just like at the “supposed right to lie,” the corporation’s right to lie.
Does Nike have a First Amendment right to publicly claim that it is a leader in fighting sweatshops -- or is
that false advertising? An example of white lie justified by Practical Reason: In leaderly dialog, you find
occasions when the leader recommends a “white lie” as a expedient “means” to achieve rewards (profit, bonus,
etc.) or avoid punishment (going to prison, losing market share, etc.). Nike Corporation, for example, argued
that it can tell white lies in advertising (claiming that Nike does not contract with sweatshops, pays living
wages, gives workers in Third World factories the right to organize, has safe working conditions, etc.) – that
such white lies in its advertising is consonant with “Free Speech.”
Bill of Rights: 1st Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
14th Amendment gives rights to former slaves; it was opened as a loophole in 1886 court decision that
granted “personhood” to corporations, which is why Nike can legally claim protection under the 1st
Amendment.1
Nike’s Little White Lies - In the mid-90s, Nike officials launched a public relations counteroffensive against charges that workers in its Asian factories were subjected to dangerous
chemical exposure, physical abuse, and substandard wages. Nike sports marketing director Steve
Miller, for example, wrote to university presidents and athletic directors in June 1996 to reassure
them Nike was still a brand their teams could wear proudly. The company's subcontractors, he
claimed, were obliged to follow "government regulations regarding minimum wage and overtime
as well as occupational health and safety, environmental regulations, workers' insurance, and
equal opportunity provisions" (Josh Richman, Mother Jones)2
Nike in 2003 agreed to pay $ 1.5 million to settle the lawsuit claiming the corporate dialog in its advertising,
about global labor practices, was a pack of white lies (& some real whoppers). The suit was brought by Marc
Kasky in 1998, a labor activist in San Francisco. The California Supreme Court, in a 4-to-3 decision in 2002,
ruled that Nike's statements were commercial speech subject to the advertising law because Nike was "engaged
in commerce" and its statements were "likely to influence consumers in their commercial decisions."3 Lest you
be fooled, the $1.5 million went to the “Fair Labor Association” an enterprise founded and funded by Nike,
Reebok, etc. to monitor global labor practices of these same corporations contract factories adherence to
corporate codes of conduct; in short, it is if Nike lost the law suit, then settled by giving the money to its own
enterprise.
1
Source for Personhood of corporations and the Nike case http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7110
Josh Richman, Mother Jones, “Greenwashing on Trial” 2001 http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/02/greenwash.html
3
Source material http://reclaimdemocracy.org/nike/nyt_nikesettles.html
2
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Adam Smith (1776) on Sweatshop Wages: “A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least
be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be
impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first
generation” (Smith, 1776, CHAPTER VIII Of the Wages of Labor).
Kant (1785/1993, #427, p. 65) takes the position that even a white lie, “does harm to humanity in general,
inasmuch as it vitiates the very source of right.” Kant gives the example of a murderer who asks you if their
intended victim is in your house; even then according to categorical imperative, a white lie is not allowed.
It is indeed possible that after you have honestly answered Yes to the murderer’s question, as to
whether the intended victim is in the house, the latter went out unobserved and thus eluded the
murderer, so that the deed would not have come about. However, if you told a lie and said that
the intended victim was not in the house, and he was actually (though unbeknownst to you) gone
out, with the result that by so doing he has been met by the murderer and thus the deed has been
perpetrated, then in this case you may be justly accused as having caused his death. For if you
had told the truth as best you knew it, then the murderer might perhaps have been caught by
neighbors who came running while he was searching the house for his intended victim, and thus
the deed might have been prevented. Therefore, whoever tells a lie, regardless of how good his
intentions may be, must answer for the consequences resulting there from even before a civil
tribunal and must pay the penalty for them, regardless of how unforeseen those consequences
may be (Kant (1785/1993, #427, p. 65).
Derrida’s Rebuttal to Kant’s Categorical Imperative Against the White Lie - Derrida (2000) raises the
issue, about what happens when two (or more) categorical imperatives come into conflict. What happens when
“thou shalt not lie” under any circumstances comes into conflict with the categorical imperative “of
Hospitality?” There is an ethics of Hospitality, a maxim (will) that you do not give over guest in your house to a
murderer. Is there a “supposed right to lie out of humanity” (Derrida, 2002: 67). Kant argues that one should
never lie, under any circumstances. Derrida makes the maxim of unconditional hospitality by host or hostess to
their guests something that is a categorical imperative (a maxim he seeks to make a universal law), the “laws of
hospitality” (Derrida, 2000: 77, 81): “to give the new arrival all of one’s home and oneself, to give him or her
one’s own, our own, without asking a name, or compensation, or the fulfillment of even the smallest condition.”
“Should one hand over one’s guests to criminals, rapists, murderers? Or lie to them so as to save the people one
is putting up and for whom one feels responsible?” (Derrida, 2000: 151). Derrida’s reply is to cite the story of
Lot, who did offer hospitality to strangers who it turns out were being hunted by murderer’s
Lot came out to them at the door, and having closed the door behind him said, “I beg you, my
brothers, do no wicked thing. Listen, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send
them out to you, to treat as it pleases you. But as for the men, do nothing to them, for they have
come under the shadow of my roof” (story of Lot from Genesis 19: 1-9; as told by Derrida, 2000:
153; see similar story, Judges 19: 23-30).
To what extent does one universal, categorical imperative, such as ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, have
precedence over another imperative, UNCONDITIONAL HOSPITALITY, over yet another, NEVER
ABUSE WOMEN? In the stories from the bible, men give women to the rapists or murderers, rather than give
up a stranger (given hospitality) or rather than tell a white lie.
Now the question arises: does a leader have an ethical categorical imperative NOT TO LIE, to tell the
truth, even in advertising? Other questions: does a leader’s dialog, speak the truth, and does the leader have an
unconditional obligation to extend hospitality to all workers, especially to women workers in a sweatshop in
Asia, making garments or sneakers for some 1st world corporation?
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Kant speaks of the Kingdom of Ends, the ideal utopia in which all people behave with categorical imperatives
(speaking truth, extending hospitality, etc.). “We think that Kant’s utopia, the ‘kingdom of ends’, could hardly
include ‘downsizing’ and involuntary ‘career re-adjustments’” and I will add lies in advertising and sweatshops
for young women (Campbell, Parker & ten Bos, 2005: 46). Why? Because in Kingdom of Ends, ends matter,
not utilitarian, practical compromises, not practical reasoning (where means to ends are paramount).
Global (free market) sweatshop trade is opposite to Kant’s project for perpetual peace, which is all about the
means (sweatshop) justify the ends (lower prices at Wal-Mart; higher dividends to shareholders; humungous
salaries for executives). People thinking of their own ends (i.e. greed), bring great harm to humanity.
You would have to conclude that business leaders, for the most part, operate using Practical Reason ethics; its
Ok to tell white lies (even whoppers) if the extends the bottom line. Kent envisioned autonomous individuals,
seeking to make their maxims universal, to operate with humanity as an end unto itself. It has been suggested
that business ethicists invoke an instrumental interpretation to fit the bueinsss ethics of practical reasoning
(Campbell, Parker & ten Bos, 2005: 52).
Dialog between leaders and followers, between leaders and customers, between leaders and society – is
considered (un) ethical discourse. The ethical (or not) discourse of a top executive permeates the dialog of the
entire organization; “he or she set the tone, influencing the behavior of the next tier of executives, and down the
line to rank-and-file employees, although there may be an occasional exception or whistleblower” (Hartley,
1993: 310). This is the case in Bhopal (Union Carbide), unsafe consumer goods (GM Corvair; Ford’s Pinto),
corporate mis-advertising (Nike), in predatory global practices (Wal-Mart), and in the energy fraud (Enron).
When the dialog values bottom line (greed) over the hospitality to its workers, or the truthfulness of its
executives, it’s evident that (instrumental) practical reason, has precedence over Kantian categorical
imperatives.
In dialog, there is a herd mentality; the herd follows the lowest ethical conduct of the leader. The energy traders
followed the off-the-balance sheet behavior, and other practices of Enron. Reasons given by competitors who
followed Enron, are same as those of the S&L scandal:
1. Since everyone else is doing it, it must be the thing to do
2. If we don’t do likewise, we will be at a competitive disadvantage and our viability may even be
threatened (Hartley, 1993: 312).
This is the dialogic herd mentality, ways of discourse that invariable lead to practical reasoning to justify what
is unjustifiable in the ethics of Kant’s categorical imperative.
You will read in this chapter about Enron’s attempts to tell white lies, about their attempts to cover up when
those white lies were found out. There has prolonged denial and cover-up by many corporations, about the
white lies, about worker safety, about environmental impact, about sweatshop labor practices. Nike and WalMart blame their sub-contractors, or the oversights of their monitors. They try to escape responsibility,
answerability and blame for sweaty practices.
It’s all about Public Image The white lies are a way to preserve public image to salvage a besmirched
reputation, to engage in dialog of the white lie. A besmirched public image can negatively affect sales, profits,
and those executive bonuses. Monsanto, Nike, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s have “war rooms,” teams of public
relations specialists dispatched like SWAT teams to counter any negative dialog on college campuses, in
academic meetings, and anywhere in the public square where the whistles are about to blow. A corporate
reputation has currency; protecting the public image at all cost, by whatever practical means, is the work of the
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war room. The history of these firms is one public relations disaster after another. The dialog between corporate
leaders, their staff, the public, and the critics is all about disputing public image.
DIALOG Self-assessment using XYZ Model of leadership
If the leader is part director, what is the script, who is the characters, what is the plot of this leader adventure to
change theatre? You can consider you as leader or a leader you are studying; what is the relevant dialog? How
does the social field conspire to demand that this leader dialog be created and staged at this point in history?
What societal (discourse) script runs you? (are you a workaholic, shopaholic, substance-addict, sex addict, or
just everyday Joe/Jane?) What is your character role in your life script? How does your inherited ancestral
script, you’re here-and-now life script interact with what the societal scripts tell you to do, to be, to think, to
imagine? How do other people (parents, co-workers, lover, boss) script you? Hw does society script you?
Phone solicitors have scripts, so do servers at McDonald’s and those associates at Wal-Mart: “How may I help
you? Do you want fries with that…” Everyone who works has dialogic scripts to learn. Deviate from the script
and the dialog-police turn up. Some scripts are written, others are in our head, put their by years of
programming, by thousands of ads.
Main point: all the scripts of dialog that we enact, to what extent do we put on the dialogic act, and when
do we participate in its construction. People, who work in dialogic organizations, participate in decisions,
they are not voiceless, their voice is not imagined in the head of 1st voice autocratic leader. They are not just
told to speak their lines and turn their brain off. They bring their ethics (3rd voice) to work. The main point I
want to make is about ethical dialog; when does the person act from their ethical voice in the here-an-now in
time and place with others. When do they stand up for ethics of the voiceless (4th voice). When is it not dialog
(here-and-now face-to-face or phone-to-phone) and is dialogic across times and spaces (such as me and Georgie
or Edward’s native wife & children, whom I never met, was not allowed to know about, until secrets were
unleashed)?
In metatheatre, finding your ethical voice, listening to that third voice (the internalized spectator) can be quite
difficult. We will define metatheatre, then look at the Enron case, where the 3rd voice (the ethical voice) was not
being heard; and people followed scripted dialogues (were not allowed to speak), scripts made by others
without much ethical reflection, or did not care about ethical considerations. Next we look at Enron and our
post-Enron world, where every corporation tries to look ethical, to be transparent about its numbers and
overseas practices, etc.
METATHEATRE DEFINED – is the amalgam of all the simultaneous theatre that is going on; it is all the
confusing dialog-scripting by many simultaneous characters; the metascripts are performed on many
simultaneous stages, back stages, and this invisibility theatre (Boal’s term), I call a metatheatre. Metatheatre is
when participation is pretend, ethics is a sleight-of-hand, and what appears dialogic is really 1st voice trying to
lie to everyone, and convince you that there is “real” participation, instead of deciit.
Enron is Metatheatre in 3 ways.
Sources for these Enron excerpts (Boje & Rosile, 2003, 2004; Boje, Rosile, Durant & Luhman, 2004; Boje,
Smith & Gardner, 2005; Smith, Gardner, & Boje, 2005).
First, Enron is Metatheatre in how it sets out to deceive using façade and illusion. For example, each year
(between 1998 and 2001), an elaborate theatre stage was constructed on Enron’s 6th floor to simulate a real
trading floor; it’s expensive theatre, $500 to set up each desk, and more for phones in this stage-crafted
spectacle, and more for the 36-inch flat panel screens, and teleconference conference rooms; the entire set was
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wired by computer technicians who feed fake statistics to the screens. People at Enron did dialog, but not a
very ethical kind.
On the big day several hundred employees, including secretaries, played their rehearsed character roles,
pretending to be ‘Energy Services’ traders, doing mega deals, while Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay played
their starring role in the Enron Dramatis Personae to a target audience of invited Wall Street analysts, who can
not tell real from fake.i[i]
According to former Enron employees, on the sixth floor of the company's downtown
headquarters was a set, designed to trick analysts into believing business was booming… former
employee Carol Elkin said that it was all an act, and that no trades were actually made there. The
people on the phones were talking to each other.ii[ii]
Second, Enron is Metatheatre as a way to control and motivate employees using the technology of theatre;
several times a year, Enron hired choreographers and dramatists (Banerjee, 2002)iii[iii] to coach executives in
character roles in elaborate corporate extravaganzas; executives and staff would dress in Star Wars or other
costumes; executives would enter the ballroom riding Harleys or elephants to the thundering applause of
employees and spouses.iv[iv] This is a kind of spectacle use of theatrics.
Finally, Enron is Metatheatre in a much more important sense of Shakespeare’s “Life is theatre” a part of our
daily lives in work and consumption (Boje, Rosile & Malbogat, 2002). For example Rebecca Mark’s
globetrotting visits on the Enron jet, became a road show complete with an entourage of WB, WFO, IMF, CIA
agents mixed along with Mark’s hair dresser, make up artist, and a flock of assistants. When Mark landed, the
force of the Whitehouse landed with her. This is more of the spectacle.
Another good example of metascripting combined with Metatheatre is the early morning preparations of
Tuesday October 23 2001. It is an example of people gathered around to write the dialog, to put on the
role performance so as to spin a story, one aimed to deceive.
Lay is huddled with a small group of advisors in a conference room adjoining his 50th-floor office suite.
They are rehearsing “a carefully worded script” prepared by Enron’s publicists and several executives
(Witt & Behr, 2002: A01). Lay is to preside over a live webcast chat with security analysts in an effort
to quench the media firestorm about Fastow’s role in LJM partnerships. The script “suggested that no
one at Enron was responsible for the LJM partnerships. Failure it would seem, was an orphan” (Witt &
Behr, 2002: A01, bold is mine).
With minutes to spare before the conference, Ronald T. Astin, a lawyer with Enron's outside law
firm, Vinson & Elkins LLP, was asked to help fix the script. He rewrote it to say that it was
Fastow who presented the LJM proposal to the board.
Fastow read Astin's changes and exploded, Astin later told investigators. Fastow yelled that
Astin was wrong about who was responsible for LJM. "It was Skilling!" he shouted.
At 8:30 a.m. Houston time, financial analysts from Boston to San Francisco joined the
conference by phone and Internet.
"There has been a lot of recent attention to transactions Enron previously entered into with LJM,
a private equity partnership,"
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Lay said, addressing LJM and Fastow head on. "Let me reiterate a couple of things. We clearly
heard investor concerns earlier this year, and Andy Fastow, Enron's chief financial officer,
ceased all affiliations with LJM."
Lay added that Fastow was doing "an outstanding job."
"We're very concerned the way Andy's character has been kind of loosely thrown about over the
last few days in certain articles," Lay said. Fastow's role at LJM had been monitored rigorously
so that Enron's interests would never be compromised, he said.
DIALOGS AT ENRON
CLICK FOR DEFINITION OF DIALOGS
Enron is an excellent opportunity to study processes of antenarrative-dialog production, distribution and
consumption that emerge in corporate as well as congressional theatre.
Antenarrative defined - a bet, a pre-story can transform the world. There are antenarratives that trouble Enron,
and ones Enron construct in dialog, in order to persuade, or to deceive.
It is through dialogs, including bunkum speech-making and antenarrating that Enron's dramatis personae was
produced and distributed for mass consumption. Dialog is one of the seven critical Septet elements of corporate
theatre. Corporate theatre is defined here as a performance system of antenarrative production, distribution, and
consumption, suspended in intertextual dialogue with selective events (and texts) antenarratively related to other
times and places. There are different genres of dialogs, such as legal, political, accounting, and corporate
accounting/narrating. It was through seductive and rose-tinted dialogs that Enron rode the New Economy wave,
becoming its superstar, and it is through corporate gibberish and fanciful rhetoric that Enron was able to float a
facade before so many stakeholders who gladly thought they saw reality in Enron's corporate theatre. It is
through dialogs that Enron trans-morphed its hideous facade and sustained a masquerade of conspicuous
consumption and opulence, while few noticed the cracks in the facade that let reality shine through a hideous
masquerade. Enron is a kind of dialogic schizophrenia, a way to present seductive predictions in the face of high
risk, if not outright fraudulent corporate practices.
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Dialog is constituent to all socialization. Recruits are Enronized (socialized) in into the dialogs that constitute
Enron's corporate culture (values & norms) and idea systems (ideological frames). They learn to dialog with
their Enronite voice; it is a voice that has been Enronized into Enron dialog practices. Enron's E-terms are what
Burke (1966: 50) calls "terministic screens" that filter and blinker through interpretive vocabularies that focus
our attention on one screen instead of another. And it is through the terministic screens that Enron accomplishes
its alleged fraud in theatrical masquerade and facade.
CRITICAL DIALOG
In terms of Critical Dialogs Analysis (CDA), Enron Dialogs about capitalism chain together events in talk and
texts, into chains of dialogs that are proximate and remote from climatic or catastrophic events (e.g. the first
raptors or LJM partnerships, the collapse of Enron into bankruptcy, the August 2002 arrest of one Enron
executive, the promised reforms to Capitalism, the inevitability of Enrongate for President Bush). Enron's
raptors (LJM, Chewco, Southampton) realize in the genre of executive meetings, scripts are edited by PR-types
and lawyers, then translated into press releases, annual reports, as well as into the Metatheatre of Enron, such as
the simulated trading on the sixth floor masquerade meant to persuade Wall Street analysts into believing Lay
and Skilling's stock projections were realistic, and Lay's performed script-readings in webcasts and ballrooms in
Houston and D.C. Enron dialogs were rhetorics that opposed regulation and advanced the cause of deregulation.
Enron published info ads to push its agenda of energy market deregulation and minimalist government
oversight. Enron recruited a cast of institutional characters to change laws, regulations, and national policy, not
just in the U.S. but around the world.
THE DIALOG OF ENRON: Enron dialogic terms, reports, releases, ads, and speeches, became part of global
discourse. There was a global colonization of Enron language of energy deregulation, free markets for utilities,
and energy trading. that resulted in the minimization of government oversight to Enron's social practices. There
is a dialogic system of text and talk production, distribution, and consumption that is transformative. What
could not be accomplished with dialog was done with cash and appointments. Dialogs changed the image of
Enron as an "I" character but also the "We" cast of characters (the network of institutions that dialoged). Edialogs reshaped government administration, government regulators, accounting, & Business College) identities
(their dramatis persona in narrative-texts, narrative-talk, & theatric performances). Metaphoric shifts in the
dialogs from asset-heavy to asset-lite, from brick-and-mortar to virtual corporations, from regulated to
deregulated markets co-opted language to transform Capitalism. Enron rhetors in their dialogs among the
institutional cast of characters changed the practices of global Capitalism. The problem said the E-rhetors was
not corporations who paid no taxes, but over-regulation of corporations in ways that made energy markets
inefficient. In the bandwagon effect of getting with it, learning all the New Economy rhetoric terms, we forgot
history. We forgot the dialogs that brought about regulation of oil, electricity, and natural gas markets in the
first place. We forgot a very bloody and corrupt set of dialogs of the late 1800s that effected regulation over
energy markets and utilities in the 1900s. We forgot that Robber Barons' predatory and amoral practices
inspired a national dialog that demanded social protection against monopoly and trust. Trusts are secret
networks of partnerships that allow mega-corporations and their CEO, Robber Barons to subvert capitalism to
the ends of a few players. We forgot the national debate, the conflicting dialogs of the Old Economy, in our
fervor to realize the New Economy dialogs.
E-dialogs about market system reform, pushed along the LJM (raptor off-the-balance-sheet partnerships) in
what Business Week (March 4, 2002: 18) partnership networks in what is called a “flurry of rhetoric about
tighter accounting rules includes the use of metaphor and more responsible corporate boards. And then a long
silence until the next time.” Until the next Trust-building, off-the-balance-sheet network of secret partnership
agreements. Aristotle (350 BCE: #1549b, p. 5) says, “a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the
similarity in dissimilars.” The dialogs surrounding the off-the-balance-sheet partnerships (except LJM which is
explained below) are right out of Star Wars and Jurassic Park with names like JEDI and its sequel JEDI II (Joint
Energy Development Investments), and the infamous Chewco Investments (as in Chewbacca). The Jurassic
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metaphoric names include Condor and Raptor. Enron's dialogs about New Economy of deregulation and
minimalist oversight changed the social practices of accountants, auditors, regulators, consultants, Presidents,
and Business College professors. These dialogs globalized, diffused and integrated into local economies, into
the diffuse and integrated Spectacles of Enron.
THE GAS BANK DIALOG EXAMPLE - Enron would be intermediary between buys and sellers of natural
gas, exploiting the spread between the buying and selling price. In this “Gas Bank” antenarrative, “gas
producers” were “depositors” in the “commercial bank” and the “consumers” were the “borrowers”; “Enron”
was the “bank” that “pooled the deposits” (i.e. the supply commitments) to fund long-term (15 year or more)
commitment to gas buyers (the borrowers). What happened with the Gas Bank idea is also unsettled. In one
version, when Skilling presented his “Gas Bank” antenarrative to the assembled Enron Board and executives,
the idea was soundly rejected. However, in yet another version, Kenneth Lay himself decided to ignore their
advice, and give Skilling a chance to make it work. Others say it was Richard Kinder, Enron's president, (and
not Kenneth lay) who asked Skilling to join the company to run the new Gas Bank adventure (Barnes, Barnett,
& Schmitt, 2002). Most storytellers agree that on June 29, 1990 Skilling left McKinsey to join Enron. Skilling
described Enron’s Gas Bank strategy as, “get in early, push to open markets, position ourselves to compete, and
compete hard when the opening comes” (Kaminski & Martin, 2001).
In 1991, Fastow comes up with a way to get the money, a ‘partnership strategy’ called Cactus. Cactus
partnerships took in money from banks and lent it to “energy producers energy producers in return for a portion
of their existing gas reserves” (Barnes, Barnett, & Schmitt, 2002). Like the Gas Bank antenarrative, the Cactus
re-scripting has disputed beginnings. The dialogs of Enron among institutions (Whitehouse, congress, senate,
SEC, Wall Street, Business College) constituted and constructed the quasi-objects known as the raptors (e.g.
LJM).
Dialog of Congressional Hearings - For Democrats it was payback time, and within such a frame, dialog is
about positioning. "There will be no witch-hunt," says Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), eager as ever to cloak his
partisan instincts with the rhetoric of high-mindedness. Some rhetoric is not persuasive. For example, “I've
never seen a better example of cash 'n' carry government than this Bush Administration and Enron,” said
Democrat Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, “who has received $3,500 in campaign contributions from
Enron and $20,460 from Arthur Andersen since 1995” (Capital Briefs, 2002: 2).
“ENRON ROBBED the bank, Arthur Andersen provided the getaway car, and they say you were at the wheel,”
Rep. James Greenwood, R-Penn., chairman of the House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
intoned to former Arthur Andersen manager David Duncan in late January, at an early hearing about Enron.
“Did you give an order to destroy documents in an attempt to subvert investigations into Enron’s collapse?” the
chairman asked (Dean, 2002).
Dialogs between Enron and Wall Street Analysts - Seth Libby, an analyst who covered Enron for Boston-based
research firm Yankee Group, said Enron executives were "the kings of obfuscation." But he also said his
counterparts on Wall Street may not have raised questions because of their firms' financial interests. Wall Street
firms with analysts on staff had large financial stakes in Enron's success. For example, J.P. Morgan Chase &
Co. revealed in December that it is owed $2.6 billion from dealings with Enron going back at least to 1998.
Sherron Watkins Dialogs with Kenneth Lay and Enron's Law Firm (Vinson & Elkins') Dialogic Response Julia Kristeva suggests that each text has an intertextual “trajectory” that is historical and social (1980a: 36).
This is waht I (Boje, 2001a) mean by 'antenarrative trajectory.' Norman Fairclough (1992) adds the idea that the
intertextual trajectory is embedded in hegemonic struggle, in selling and distributing ways of making sense. A
good example of intertextual antenarrative trajectory is Watkin's memo to Lay, and her followup meetings. She
met with Lay on August 22. That is when the seven-page memo was discussed (cover page plus six page
supplemental letter). By all accounts:
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The [Aug 22] session was businesslike, and Lay seemed genuinely concerned. Watkins brought along a sixpage letter detailing her worries, and Lay promised to have a team of lawyers review the controversial deals.
But he decided to use Enron's law firm, Vinson & Elkins, despite Watkins' unease about a conflict of interest.
Vinson & Elkins had been paid for work on Condor and Raptor transactions. But Lay went ahead with the
review--whose scope he kept strictly limited (Duffy, 2002).
The subsequent re-readings and re-citations include Max Hendrick III, of Vinson & Elkins, letter to James V.
Derrick Jr., Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Enron Corp which is dated October 15, 2001 title
“Preliminary Investigation of Allegations of an Anonymous Employee,” and subsequent Congressional
testimony about Watkins’ texts. The Vinson & Elkins’ analysis of the Watkins letter and supplemental material
(7-page text) yielded a nine-page text that is more intertextual in its dialoguing with Watkins text, quoting prior
texts, anticipating being reread, and in its relations to other texts. Vinson & Elkins’ text is a permutation of
texts, citing and referencing utterances from other texts that serve to neutralize the Watkins text, just in time.
“There are many events in the womb of time” (Yargo’s line from Othello). At the hearings, Watkins indicated
she was “disappointed” and “frustrated” that Lay did not take action to fix the situation before collapse was
inevitable. The day after the Vinson & Elkins letter, i.e. October 16 2001, Enron rewrote its equity downward
by $1.2 billion and declared losses of $544 million.
The Watkins and the Vinson & Elkins texts are a juxtaposition of various voices and quotes supplemented by
narrative interpretations that are written to be consumed by anticipated audiences. As intertextual systems, the
texts are embedded in wider social and historical networks. The two letters are produced to be distributed and to
be consumed. This production, distribution, and consumption process of intertextuality is also part of a covert
struggle of power and resistance.
The consumption of the Watkins Dialog/Text - We live in theatres of consumptions (Firat & Dholakia, 1998).
As an intertextual weave, the hegemonic aspects of spectacle and carnival are to present a “ready made” textual
interpretation for distribution and consumptions (Fairclough, 1992). For Congress and the public, Watkins is
scripted as a national folk hero, a manager who dared to tell the truth to the boss. One ready-made consumption
of the Watkins’ memo is as theatre of confrontation, exposing Skilling’s confidence trick, so spectators to the
Congressional hearings could now see the ‘star’ of the New Economy was poised on the edge of the abyss,
would trip into the abyss and “implode in a wave of accounting scandals.” Congresspersons would utilize
Watkins’ memo and her dramatic testimony as proof that Enron executives were swindlers; all too aware of the
games they were playing. “Andrew Fastow would not have put his hand into the Enron cookie jar without the
explicit or implicit approval of Mr. Skilling,” Watkins said at one hearing where she was seated at the same
table as Skilling. And Mr. Skilling she said “put the fox in charge of the hen house.” Watkins is writing a book
titled, “Power Failure” about the Enron spectacles. Further consumption of the Watkins text is scripted by the
media under the heading of heroic resistance (but as we have discussed, Watkins was not the first Whistle
Blower, that is a fictive construction of the U.S. media, not the foreign press). Carnivalesque Resistance to
Spectacle Dialog - Aristotle’s poetics is re-crafted by Boal into a Poetics of the Oppressed:
In order to understand this poetics of the oppressed one must keep in mind its main objective: to change the
people – spectators, passive being(s) in the theatrical phenomenon – into subjects, into actors, transformers of
the dramatic action (Boal, 1979: 122).
Enron Popular Culture Dialog - As the Enron megaspectacle scandals replayed on TV and radio talk shows, in
the press, and in Enron jokes circulating on the Web, Enron attained popular culture cult status. Enron's dialog,
the financial techie's, for example, had a fondness for Star Wars and Jurassic Park lingo --- was just too juicy a
dialogue not to become Enron-mania and the subject of Enron-economic dialog, or Enrononomics. JEDI, as in
Jedi knight, stands for Joint Energy Development Investments. JEDI prospered-the Force must have been with
it-as Enron deftly bought and sold energy stocks, power plants and other investments, earning a 23 percent
annual return (Sloan, 2002). Like the movie, JEDI had a sequel, JEDI II. The problem for Enron was to keep
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JEDI I off the balance sheets while it ramped up JEDI II. “Making JEDI I part of Enron would have cut the
company's reported profits sharply, and increased its reported debt by more than $500 million” (Sloan, 2002).
To solve this problem, Enron ginned up Chewco Investments-as in Chewbacca the Wookiee, a partnership of
Enron executives and some undisclosed outsiders. Condor and Raptor are deal names inspired by Jurassic Park.
“Enron had booked huge profits from these entities while its stock price soared in 2000, despite the fact that
neither Condor nor Raptor had any hard assets” (Duffy, 2002).
Executives may create spectacles that fill passive consciousness with slogans, like “loose-tight.” Jeffrey
Skilling, for example, was recruited from McKinsey consulting, and named the world of Enron in the “loosetight” managerial language expounded by other McKinsey alums, such as Tom Peters and Bob Waterman
(London & McNulty, 2001).
Political dialog appropriates Enron rhetorical devices. For example, Daschle, last January is quoted as saying
Bush was trying to "Enron" Social Security and leave seniors without retirement savings. Enronites, Enronitis,
and being En-roned are part of the popular discourse. To “Enronize” means to hide fiscal shortcomings with
creative accounting. An “Enronic” is a seemingly invincible person who goes down in flames. “Enronica” is the
name given to E-bay items being sold as souvenirs. “Enrontia” is a burning desire to shred things.
“Enronomania” is political scandal and economic fallout. “Enrontropy” is the the principle that a corporation's
greed is directly proportional to how many lives its failure would ruin (items adapted from Zielbauer, 2002).
WHEN HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Ignore History and the Dialogs Repeat - For example, the dialogic rhetor moves of Enron parallel those of the
Seven Sisters (Sampson, 1975). The Seven Sisters of Oil are Exxon, Mobil, Shell, British Petroleum, Gulf,
Texaco, & Chevron). Kenneth Lay worked for Exxon before he worked to create Enron; the dialog of Enron is
rooted in the dialog of Exxon. November 1, 1972 Standard Oil Company of New York became the Exxon
corporation date of shareholder approval). In the 1920s America debated in dialogs about the "free play of selfregulating market[s]" in the aftermath of the Teapot Dome scandal involving Oil man Harry F. Sinclair (Engler,
1961: 272).
Livesey's (2002) analysis of Exxon/Mobil is relevant to my dramaturgical analysis of Enron. Livesey's analysis
of Exxon/Mobil's public dialogs (discourses) presents a Burkean analysis of dramaturgy combined with a
Foucault analysis of knowledge and power transformation. Knowledge produced, distributed and consumed by
the Exxon/Mobil cast of characters (including institutional allies) "helped to constitute each [character] as
powerful in particular ways, while their very power helped to legitimate the knowledge they produced" and
distributed for consumption (Livesey, 2002: 14, bracketed additions mine). Similarly, Enron's cast of characters
through dialogs was able to characterize themselves as heroes of the New Economy, and everyone else as the
Ludites who resisted Free Market capitalism. But, there is a deeper historical chronological relationship here.
Enron's dialogic moves are embedded in the history of the Seven Sisters.
In the 1880s Oil was a new industry to John D. Rockefeller, just as Natural Gas in the 1980s was a new industry
to Kenneth Lay. In 1911 the U.S. government dismembered the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (called
Jersey for short). Jersey had become a Trust (a network of 322 interlocking corporate partnerships) controlled
by a few executives. The same pattern of cash-for-political-access of Jersey was replicated in Enron ( with 3500
subsidiaries and partnerships). History recurred. Presidents changed edicts, legislatures passed laws, energy
policies were written by Oil men. And now energy policies, laws, and edicts are written by Oil men. In both
Enron and Jersey, it was a network of managers, and not the average stockholders who were in control. Enron is
not some new cast of characters that have all of a sudden invented dialogs of deregulation, cash-for-politicalaccess, or networks of corporate partnerships. This is a pattern of dialogs rooted in the history of the Seven
Sisters. It is a spectacle that recurs. Like Exxon/Mobil, Enron had an income greater than most countries. This is
a long sub-plot of modern energy history, how networks of government agencies finance third world energy
15
projects for Jersey and for Enron, how wars are fuelled by dialogs that are not new at all. Engler (1961: 270) for
example says "Oil has sought to establish a privately intimate relationship with the administrative processes of
government." Oil men in the U.S. government did not begin with George Bush and the cast of Enron characters.
Ida Tarbell did not condemn capitalism itself in her classic History of Standard Oil Company, but "the open
disregard of decent ethical business practices by capitalists." This is the same debate about the relation between
Enron and capitalism. Is it capitalism or just Enron? See more on this topic at Enron is 7th Sister.
Gretchen Morgenson’s Talk at NMSU on Sept 30th 2002 – Lecture Notes by David Boje Oct 1 2002
Today we talk about DIALOG, about corporate dialog and leaderly dialog. I think it is too full of “Weasel
Words.” For example when Enron, Global Crossing, Qwest, etc says their accountants, lawyers, and executives
certify their financial reports are accurate “to the best of their knowledge,” that’s Weasel Dialog. Executives
and corporations are using 'Weasel Words.' In the Theatre of the Mind, the dialog in their head, they know
these statements to be inaccurate. Enron, for example is all about obfuscation.
Yesterday (Sept 30 2002) I hear Gretchen Morgenson, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist from the New York
Times speak on the NMSU campus.
Provost Flores introduced her by raising some important questions:
1. Are CEOs of American corporations ethically challenged?
2. How do we raise the issue of ethics in our classes?
3. Can we rethink what we do in the business world?
Morgenson asked these questions:
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1. Is greed a bigger problem than it has been historically?
2. Are executives more ethically challenged than before?
3. Are we witnessing a corporate crime wave?
Lerach noted that the U.S. is "awash in the largest wave of financial fraud since the 1920s."
CEOs have become the chief cheerleaders, and in terms of dialog, the chief spinmeisters. They use their dialog
to push up sales revenues when that is the measure of their performance, or shift liabilities into the asset column
when that is the measure of their performance review. The charge is that executives lead according to what is
best for their executive incentive plans. For WorldCom, it was billing; for Enron it was number of trades.
She qualified her remarks by saying she is a capitalist and not against big business. She is in favor of the free
market and is not a socialist. But she is also concerned about the long term trend, the transfer of shareholder
wealth to a few executives.
People in high places have abused the system. A few greedmeisters are destroying capitalism. She then offered
the first line of this well known quote by Rohatyn:
Only capitalists can destroy capitalism. Populist capitalism of a type is very beneficial to the vast
majority in our system, but an ethical tradition is needed to make it all work. When you have senior
people walking away with hundreds of millions, leaving everyone else in the dirt, that is hugely
depressing and very dangerous.
—Felix G. Rohatyn (Ambassador to France in December 2000;
Chairman of the Board of Aton Pharma, Inc., a company recently formed to develop and test a
promising cancer therapy).
Gretchen Morgenson gave a list of corporate CEOs who were out to destroy capitalism:
1.
TYCO, she says gets the “Grasping Executive Award” - Dennis Kozlowski used company funds to
buy homes and expensive artwork; he himself an $18 million apartment and $13 million worth of
paintings.
2.
Qwest - CEO Joseph Nacchio – Qest was the Greediest of the greediest executives and companies in
Fortune’s September 2, 2002 issue. Nacchio walks away with $200 million from his stock, after adding
$1 billion in phony revenue. Executives sold $2.26 billion Phil Anshutz, Directoror of Qwest
Communications, made $1.57 billion. Former CEO Joe Nacchiw, got paied $230 millionThe stock was
at $65 and is now at $3. “Nacchio was paid a $1.5 million bonus, as well as a cash payout of $24
million, on top of his $1.2 million salary and miscellaneous stock options, for a year when Qwest
teetered on the brink of bankruptcy” (Garcia Aug 25 2002 Alb Journal).
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3.
GLOBAL CROSSING - Chief Executive Officers John Legere and Gary Winnick (founder of GC)–
Winnick, worth $3.2 billion today, did accounting trickery similar to Enron. Winnick made $508 million
in his stock sales. In October, Global Crossing pardoned two-thirds of a $15 million loan it made to
newly appointed CEO John Legere when he worked for the company's Asian subsidiary. Former CEO
Gary Winnick sold $735 million in Global Crossing stock. Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jack
Grubman, boosted his Global Crossing stock and served as an adviser to them. He mad tens of millions
on a merger he designed. Like Qwest, it sold network capacity to other companies, then bought the same
amount back. Enron did with energy swaps. Stock boosting strategies bought this CEO, Gary Winnick, a
$94 million house, but his shareholders took a $47 billion loss.
4.
WORLD Com – CEO Bernard Ebbers – used accounting trickery and Andersen auditors and Wall
Street’s Jack Grubman, to boost stock prices. WorldCom counted $3.8 billion in ordinary operating
costs as a capital expense in 2001 and 2002, so they could claim profits when they actually lost money.
They shifted another $1 billion in operating costs to capital accounts during 1999 and 2000. Their
whistle blower is Cynthia Cooper. The shareholder losses were $191 billion. CEO Ebbers made $408
million from loans he took against WorldCom stock.
5.
ENRON – CEO Kenneth Lay; former CEO Jeffrey Skilling – Used accounting trickery and
metatheatre to keep the media, Wall Street analysts, regulators, employees and investors thinking Enron
was more than it was. The result was a shareholder loss of $68 billion, while Enron insiders sold $1.1
billion in stock. And froze employee stock selling, while executives sold theirs. Fortune Magazine
named Enron America’s most innovative company six times; they were not skeptical or critical; they
were cheerleaders. Enron hid its debt in 3500 off-the-books partnerships. Former division head, Lou Pai
married a stripper and cashed in $270 million. Ken Lay marred is secretary Linda, and cashed in $102
million. Rebecca mark, former division head, cashed out $80 million. Jeff Skilling cashed out $68
million. Andrew Fastow made over $30 million on the off-the-balance sheet partnerships, plus his stock
sales.
6.
Adelphia, a cable TV company, had claimed up to 500,000 fictitious subscribers while keeping two
sets of accounting books, one of which inflated the amount it was spending on upgrading its cable
systems. No wonder the company is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) and is the subject of criminal investigations by two federal grand juries. Adelphia's auditors,
Deloitte & Touche, also have a lot of Enron -style questions to answer.
Executives are over-paid: “Business Week reported that in 2000, CEOs in 365 top companies were paid 531
times more than their average hourly worker. In 1980, they were paid 42 times more” (Garcia, 2002). The
Robber Barons are back, says Morgenson. The "robber barons" of the late 19th century brought American
capitalism into disrepute, but were then tamed by a series of anti-monopoly laws which restored law and order
to the market place. Under the order issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June,
companies and their officers are liable to penalties by federal agencies.
Gretchen’s point was that CEOs are amassing wealth while shareholders are left holding worthless stock. She
explains this as the love of the stock option that is now the root of all evil. Executives use DIALOG to get stock
price to soar, then exercise their stock options to cash out. This is causing a crisis in investor confidence and
employee confidence in executives.
The problem with the Stock Option is that it is tied to performance of the company. This sounds like a great
idea, but becomes a powerful incentive to cook the books. Executives use dialog to “shade the truth,” to
overstate earnings, to inflate cash flow, and pad earnings with contract swaps, and to form off-shore
partnerships and stock options so as to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
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THE INSTITUTIONS INVOLVED
These are mega scandals that are embedded in the bedrock of American institutions: financial, education,
political and industry. It is more endemic than in previous megaspectacles. Wake up business is not a
democracy; executives are bagging away stock options and leaving investors and employees in the dirt.
Wall Street has come under inquiry - Investment banks Merrill Lynch and CSFB have each been fined $100
million for bad practice; analysts were pumping up stocks to suit the requirements of the firm's investment
bankers, while privately describing their recommendations to investors as "crap" (or worse). Citigroup's star
telecom analyst, Jack Grubman, got so close to Global Crossing, a telecom stock he was touting, that he
masterminded two of its acquisitions and became personal finance adviser to its boss.Gruman was chief
cheerleader for WoldCom. Wall Street did not question the new of-the-balance sheet partnerships. They did not
question the stock option accounting methods. The International Accounting Board is trying to get better stock
option reporting standards; to report it as an expense instead of an obscure footnote. Standard and Poors is
doing this now in its ratings (the first to do so). The Journal of Finance is recommending that executives be
forced to hold their stocks for several years, to give them incentives for the long term, instead of cashing out
and running.
The Press - Journalist played a role in issuing dialog about executive and corporate performance, without using
critical thinking. They are says Gretchen the un-indicted co-conspirators. They were not acting as skeptics;
they were part of the club. Reporters were put on special advisory boards and paid fat fees. Reporters were
gulled into believing in the New Economy. Financial journalists reported only what was told to them by the
corporate PR staff.
Boards of Directors – The boards are not governing. They are irresponsible to the mx. They are not meeting
their fiduciary responsibility to investors. They are not being skeptical about the CEO dialog they hear. They
are lulled to sleep. Are they incompetent or just lazy? Gretchen recommends peppering executives with
tougher questions. Not to just buy into the rhetoric that an Andrew Fastow hands out and suspend the corporate
code of ethics so he can run off-the-balance-sheet partnerships and be the Chief Financial Officer at Enron
(conflict of interest).
401 K – Pension plans shifted from sold investments to the risk of 401 (K). The problem is the new pension
plans are tied to corporate stock prices. Fine as long as the price is up.
IS THIS ANY WORSE THAN HISTORICALLY?
Great Crash of 1929 resulted in a new financial framework in the 1930s, including Wall Street's very own "cop
on the corner", the SEC.
They said things like "greed is good" (Ivan Boesky) and "Only the little people pay taxes" (Leona Helmsley);
Webster's dictionary defines greed this way: "excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or
possessions." After 9-11, greedy corporations and executives developed lots of new option grants, because their
stock prices were temporarily lower.
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The good news is after this wave of corporate leader crime, there is no more wide-eyed acceptance of executive
statements. In the leadership class we learn critical thinking, we learn to be skeptical about dialog.
In the last two decades, we have put CEOs, such as Jack Welsh and Chainsaw Daggut on a pedestal. Now we
see on TV the weekly perp walk. It began with a couple of WorldCom executives taking the perp walk after no
Enron executives did.
CBS poll conducted last month, 67 percent of those surveyed said most executives are not honest. Only 27
percent disagreed.
Gretchen put it this way, “CEOs are held in lower esteem than used car salesmen.”
SEC rule, new legislation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, gave this requirement greater force.
Over the coming months, the top executives of all 14,000-plus publicly traded companies in the United States
will be required to certify the accuracy of their quarterly and annual reports filed with the SEC.
Under Sarbanes-Oxley, the penalties are more specific than the SEC's still-undetermined penalties. The law
provides that CEOs who falsify their companies' financial reports can face a $5 million fine and up to 20 years
in prison.
Bottom line, populist capitalism, its spectacle needs an ethical tradition. We need an ethics course in the
Business College.
Do you want a system of capitalism where shareholder wealth is diluted so that only a few executive
shareholders amass the lion’s share?
Gretchen Morgenson did not mention that there are still some ethical executives:
Business Week (Sept 23, 2002) lists
“In fact, they have led their companies an average of 18 years and worked in them for an average of 26 years.
James D. Sinegal, of Costco Wholesale Corp., co-founded his company 19 years ago, while James C. Morgan
has been in charge at Applied Materials Inc. for 25 years” (BW Sept 23). Here are some counter examples to
the Enron, WorldCom, GlobalCrossing, Tyco, etc. leaders”
James Sinegal, Costco
Reuben Mark, Colgate-Palmolive
James Morgan, Applied Materials
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James Keyes, Johnson Controls
Harold Messmer, Robert Half International
Joseph Neubauer, Aramark
The following are commonly taught templates of leader and follower in participative dialog:
TANNENBAUM & SCHMIDT 1958 Continuum of Leader Behavior (Autocratic to Democratic
BOSS
CENTERED
LEADERSHIP
SUBORDINATE
CENTERED
LEADERSHIP
CONTINUUM
Use of authority by manager <----------------------> Freedom for subordinates
Manager
Manager
Manager presents
makes decision
"sells"
ideas and
and accounces
decision invites
it
questions
TELL
SELL
Manager
presents
tentative
decision
subject
to
change
Manager
presents
problem,
get
suggestions,
makes
decision
CONSULT
manager
defines
limits;
asks
group to
make
decision
Manager permits
subordinate to
function within
limits defined by
superior
SHARE
Tannenbaum, R., Schmidt WH (1958), How to choose a leadership pattern. Harvard
Business Review 36/2, 1958: 95-101.
Note: The Autocratic to Democratic continuum model of Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1958) builds upon the
early work of Lewin et al (1938), both autocratic and democratic styles are apparent, but laissez-faire is absent.
Main Point -> Again this is all about transactions, be it tell, sell, consult, or share. Share and consult
transactions are nicer and more social than tell and sell, but it is still about transactions.
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Yukl
Yukl References under construction.
Mintzberg Managerial Roles
Mintzberg's (1973, 1975) classification of managerial roles. Mintzberg did observation studies of five chief
executives, and found that they did not divide their time into planning, organizing, influence, lead, and control.
Rather the manager played ten fragmented roles in a high interruption environment. Half of these managers'
activities lasted less than nine minutes and are very transactional.
INTERPERSONAL ROLES
1. FIGUREHEAD
2. LEADER
3. LIAISON
INFORMATION ROLES
1. MONITOR
2. DISSEMINATOR
3. SPOKESMAN
DECISIONAL ROLES
1.
2.
3.
4.
ENTREPRENEUR
DISTURBANCE HANDLER
RESOURCE ALLOCATOR
NEGOTIATOR
Out of the Box Interpretation - Leadership is theatre, and the leader is suspended in a web of ten scripted roles.
Some leaders use these roles with more persuasive power than others to influence spectators and other actors.
The point - it is not transformational leadership until the leader changes the script of the organization.
RESOURCES:
For more on ENRON METASCRIPT - see Boje, D. M. (2002b) Enron Metatheatre: A Critical Dramaturgy
Analysis of Enron’s Quasi-Objects. Paper presented at the Networks, Quasi-Objects, and Identity: Reintegrating
Humans, Technology, and Nature session of Denver Academy of Management Meetings. Tuesday August 13,
2002. http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/enron_theatre_LJM.htm
22
Mintzberg web site and references
Mintzberg, H. 1975. The manager’s job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review 53: 49-61.
Mintzberg, H. 1973. The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper & Row.
References
Bakhtin, M. 1973. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (C. Emerson, Ed. & Trans.). Manchester, England:
Manchester University Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. 1990. Art and Answerability. Editied by Michael Holquist & Vadim Liapunov. Translation and
Notes by Vadim Liapunov; supplement translated by Kenneth Brostrom. Austin, TX: University of
Texas Press. From Bakhtin’s first published article and his early 1920s notebooks
Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin (ed. Holquist, M.). Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Boje, D. M. 2005g. Wilda. Journal of Management Sprituality & Religion.Vol 2, Issue 3, 2005. Wilda essay and
commentaries by Eduardo Berrera, Heather Hopfl, Hans Hansen, David Barry, Gerald Bibberman, &
Robin Matthews). Click Here
Boje, David M. & Rosile, G. A. 2002. Enron Whodunit? Ephemera. Vol 2(4), pp. 315-327 Available on line at
http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/2-4/2-4bojeandrosile.pdf
Boje, David M. & Grace Ann Rosile. 2003. Life Imitates Art: Enrons Epic and Tragic Narration. Management
Communication Quarterly. Vol. 17 (1): 85-125. Pre-publication version at
http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/theatrics/7/EpicTragicTheatre.pdf
Boje, David M., Rosile, G.A., Durant, R.A. & Luhman, J.T. 2004. Enron Spectacles : A Critical Dramaturgical
Analysis. Special Issue on Theatre and Organizations edited by Georg Schreyögg and Heather Höpfl,
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Methodologies Journal 2005. ORM Journal is one of the top 20 rated tier-one ranked journals in
management. Pre-publication draft at
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/690/papers/Enron_Ethnostatisics_2005.pdf
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Kant, Immanuel. 1785/1993. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: On a Supposed right to Lie because of
Philanthropic Concerns. Trans by James w. Ellington. 3rd edition, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing
Company. Original is 1795, English 2nd edition 1981, 3rd edition 1993. # refers to sections, as is custom in citing
Kant.
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Kirkeby, Ole Fogh. 2000. Management Philosophy: A Radical-Normative Perspective. Heidelberg, Germany:
Springer-Verlag publishing group. German version 1998; English 2000.
Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; other copies
Smith, Adam. 1759. The Theory of Moral Sentiments ; Alternate copy. 1759
Smith, W. I; Gardner, C; & Boje, D. M. 2004. Using the Ethnostatistics Methodology to reconcile rhetoric and
reality: An examination of the management release of Enron's year end 2000 results. Qualitative Research In
Accounting & Management. vol 1 (2): 1-16. http://business.nmsu.edu/mgt/jpub/boje/ethnoenron-qram2004.pdf
Next chapter examines the four voices of leader participation in more detail, as it relates to dialog.
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