Posts Tagged ‘Ethisphere’

Thankfully it is getting near the end of the year. No better time than now for Ethisphere to come out with its 2009 list of the most influential people in business ethics.  I thought I would look at how many chairmen and/or CEOs made the list during these past 12 months of dismal business scandals and economic news. Only six CEOs of Fortune 500 companies made the business ethics leadership list in 2009. This is a comedown from 2008’s list where nearly three times more CEOs were considered influential business ethics leaders.  A larger 16 Fortune 500 CEOs were included in 2008. No comparison and hey, no surprise.  This is an indicator of why CEO reputation has been so low and getting lower. The CEOs who made the 2009 list are below.

Ranking*Name*Title*Company

6. Mike Duke – CEO, Walmart

15. Sharon Allen – Chairman, Deloitte

17. Jeff Immelt – CEO, General Electric

19. Herbert Fisk Johnson, III – Chairman & CEO, SC Johnson

26. William Ballhaus – CEO, DynCorp

63. Ed Breen – Chairman and CEO, Tyco

Former GE CEO Jack Welch made the list at #65. I did not include him above but it is worth noting what Ethisphere said about him for making the list: “Welch makes the list for admitting in an interview with Financial Times that his focus on ‘shareholder value’ was ‘the dumbest idea in the world.’” I wish I had remembered this quote for my recent posts on why CEOs matter. If you have been reading, you’ll know that I commented on the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times stories on the most worthy CEOs. (See previous posts) Their yardstick was financial performance. Point made.

  Not sure it means anything but we thought we’d take a look at whether there are more scorecards/rankings now vs. one year ago. We keep this large, complex and detailed database on which awards exist for companies seeking to be recognized as being the most responsible, best at diversity, most ethical, best leadership, best reputation, best training, etc.  The database looks at when applications are due, when they are announced, who fills out the surveys, how to apply, how popular the ranking  is, etc.  You get it.  The database, called Scoreboxx™, helps companies “credentialize” themselves and communicate how they lead the industry.  It is part of our reputation-building services.

Since we realized it would be next to impossible to determine if there has been a change in the number of scorecards year over year since many scorecards just disappear or just get added randomly, we took a look at response rates to some of the rankings in 2007 vs. 2008. Not a scientific analysis but interesting nevertheless.  Listed below is our brief analysis of some of them for what’s worth.

Some are up and some are down. Some are flat. Here is what Liz, my colleague, and I think. For those awards where recruiting or talent  are important, higher responses have been recorded year over year. More employers returned surveys for BusinessWeek’s Best Places to Launch a Career and Fortune’s Top 100 MBA Employers, more applications were received this year for DiversityInc Top 50 and more nominations came in for the World’s Most Ethical Companies.  It goes without saying that the lower number of respondents for BusinessWeek’s Most Innovative Companies means nothing since this has been a disruptive year for business and some executives were just holding your breath that they were not getting pink slips. And presumably many did.

What does seem interesting is that in a world where companies have stumbled catastrophically and reputational equity has been slipping away, the focus on talent, diversity and ethics might be a good sign of better things to come.

I should have mentioned that I received wonderful news that I am very proud of. I do not know if there is protocol for “tooting one’s horn.” But the greater part of this plug is for the work done by Ethisphere. The organization has been mentioned before on my blog when I described their new coalition BELA. Check it out because companies should consider being regularly audited on their ethical compliance to help restore trust in business.

I was included in their 2008 Most Influential People in Business Ethics and part of the description as to why has to do with some of the topics I review on this blog. This made me quite happy in these mostly down times. A good start to the new year does not hurt. Thanks for reading.