Character Flaws and Corporate Calamities

Sometimes it is difficult to spell out the human weaknesses that give rise to risk. A risk manager needs to get along with a wide range of colleagues, and that necessitates a degree of diplomacy. So it is refreshing to read what Mohammed Siddiqui, Chief Enterprise Risk Management and Audit Officer of Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc, thinks about the relationship between risk and the frailties of his fellow man:

'Clearly arrogance, greed, dishonesty, incompetence, and anger are major causes of corporate catastrophes. It is human behavior which creates corporate “suicide bombers”...'

Indeed - but we rarely encounter anyone willing to say it quite like that. Mohammed then goes on to list Nick Leeson and Bernie Madoff as examples of enterprise assassins. It is a shame he forgot to mention Bernie Ebbers and Worldcom, the most prominent examples from the communications industry…