“Ok, guys, enough bullshit.”
All large corporations today must display their values on their websites. It is
a question of image. It could be a question of governance, but this would be too
far from reality. Still today, we have the impression that CEOs of large
organizations systematically provide a Ronald McDonald smile when they are asked
about values.
Just think of the director of a multinational seen in the documentary The
Corporation. He is seen filming a segment on corporate values and symbols,
evoking the image of an eagle with its nobility, power, elevation, penetrating
gaze, etc. At the end, not realizing that the camera is still filming, he stands
up and lets slip the comment, “OK, guys, enough bullshit.”
It’s all there. Corporations need values but don’t yet know it. They give in to
pressure from the public, which demands behaviour that is a little bit more
ethical, but they still do not believe in it.
Those sincere efforts that have been made are still immature. There is confusion
between values and professional codes of ethics. A value is not simply a rule of
behaviour. According to René Villemure, founder of the Institut québécois
d’éthique appliquée [Quebec institute of applied ethics], “True values are not a
means to an end, but the end in themselves. A value must not answer the question
“how” but “why.”
A new accounting-related term has made its appearance: “return on value.” But as
long as businesses continue to perceive the human being as strictly a
stakeholder or a consumer, they will find it difficult to develop a genuine
interest in values.
There is one considerable obstacle: human beings must live with the consequences
of their actions and words. A corporation can sell its name or go bankrupt and
reappear under another name on the same day, free from any obligation,
responsibility or scruple…
The criterion of truth is always production for stakeholders and managers, who
are themselves human beings with families and who live in a society. But as
stakeholders or CEOs, they become dehumanized abstractions. As proof, we need
only recognize that the stakeholders, without realizing it, are often you and
me…
