东芝丑闻教训：有一个撒谎的CEO，就会有一群撒谎的员工

    “赚大钱没什么窍门，只要你一门心思就想着这件事，你就能赚大钱。”

    在奥逊·威尔斯担任导演、威尔斯和赫尔曼·J·曼凯维奇担任编剧的电影《公民凯恩》中，剧中人伯恩斯坦这样评价查尔斯·福斯特·凯恩。凯恩失去了所有自己珍视的东西——朋友、家庭和自尊，因为对他来说，积累财富比诚信更重要。

    东芝的丑闻让我想起了伯恩斯坦的这句话。调查机构发现，2008年以来该公司将利润虚增了三倍，东芝公司CEO兼社长田中久雄随即辞职。《财富》上周的相关报道中引述了调查机构出具的报告，内容令人震惊，其中写道：“东芝的公司文化是不能质疑管理层的决定……员工被迫采取不当的记账方法，比如推迟披露亏损，或将某些成本项目计入随后几年的账目中。”

    究其根本，东芝出现丑闻的原因是没有把人品当成重要的职场问题认真对待。但就像我中学时的乐队指挥告诉过我的那样，“拨乱反正”对东芝来说不算太晚。要想让你的公司避免陷入东芝那样的境地，只要遵循下列三条指南。

    1. 依品行招人。

    公司招人时一般会从两方面考察应聘者，那就是知识和技能。在这方面，东芝和其他企业别无二致。看看它网站上的招聘广告，就会发现这样的例子不胜枚举。

    我在上面随便找了一条，招聘的是销售代表。无可否认，销售代表需要对业务有所了解，而且能进行有效地沟通。但从其中的职位描述来看，似乎只要具备这些条件就能做好这份工作。

    但情况并非如此。就“好”的最深刻、最重要的涵义而言，一位好的销售代表还要诚实、可靠而且勇敢。换句话说就是应该品格高尚。

    大家真的希望自己的销售团队成员都是些极其善于沟通，业务敏感性高人一筹，但不诚实、不负责任、不愿和“坏”客户针锋相对的人吗？当然不想。那么，招聘广告中为什么没有把诚实、可靠和勇敢列为应聘条件呢？

    同时，应当讲诚信的不光是销售代表。企业各个层面上的人员都应如此。如果在品格方面没有原则，公司就有可能聘用像查尔斯·福斯特·凯恩那样纯粹受利润驱使的人。正是这样的思维给东芝带来了麻烦。

    在各个领域，大多数公司都存在过分关注知识和技能的问题。把品格和才干同时纳入考虑范围是招到更出色员工的途径之一。

    2. 依品行提拔人。

    去年秋天，我曾为一家《财富》100强公司提供咨询服务。该公司首席执行官在午餐会上的讲话让我肃然起敬。他介绍了五名以这样或那样的方式展现出良好品质的员工。其中一位年轻人，姑且称他为埃米利亚诺，在该公司门店的停车场发现了一枚价值1.5万美元的钻戒。他花了很长时间来寻找失主，后者发现钻戒失而复得时欣喜若狂。

    埃米利亚诺的谦逊尤其令人感动。我在之前谈及泰勒·斯威夫特的《财富》专栏文章中曾提到过这种品质。埃米利亚诺在人头攒动的会场中对大家说：“我只是做了自己的工作。”我相信，会场里不止我一个人在想“我应该像他一样。”

    埃米利亚诺赢得了盛赞，拿到了奖金，同事们起立为他鼓掌欢呼。这位CEO确实让员工看到了诚实和谦逊的人对该公司的成功有多么重要。可以相信，埃米利亚诺会迅速得到提拔。

    想象一下，如果东芝（以及你的公司）在决定晋升哪些员工时像这家公司一样考虑员工的品质，情况会怎么样呢？

    “Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want is to make a lot of money.”

    So said Mr. Bernstein about Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. Kane lost everything he held dear—his friends, his family, and his self-respect—because accumulating wealth was more important to him than integrity.

    I’m reminded of Bernstein’s observation in light of the latest corporate scandal, this one involving the Japanese business colossus Toshiba. As Geoffrey Smith reported in Fortune this week, Toshiba’s CEO and president Hisao Tanaka resigned after investigators discovered that since 2008 the company had intentionally overstated its profits by a factor of three. Smith quotes the investigator’s disturbing report: “Toshiba had a corporate culture in which management decisions could not be challenged … Employees were pressured into inappropriate accounting by postponing loss reports or moving certain costs into later years.”

    At its core, the Toshiba scandal is about the failure to take character seriously in the workforce. But it’s not too late for Toshiba to, as my high school band director Melvin Meads used to tell me, “straighten up and fly right.” Your own organization would do well to heed the following three guidelines for avoiding a Toshiba-like mess.

    1. Hire for character.

    Employers generally look at two areas in a job candidate’s profile: knowledge and skill. Toshiba is no different in this regard. Take a look at the job listings on the company’s website, and you’ll see plenty of examples of this.

    I selected one at random: sales representative. No one can deny that sales reps need to know something about business and be able to communicate effectively. But judging by the job description, these qualities appear to be all that one needs to do the job well.

    That’s not true, however. A good sales agent, in the deepest, most meaningful sense of “good,” is also honest, accountable, and courageous. In other words, he or she is a person of high character.

    Would you really want your sales team to be made up of men and women with great communication skills and superior business acumen but who were also dishonest, irresponsible, and unwilling to stand up to a corrupt client? Of course not. Why, then, aren’t honesty, accountability, and courage listed in the job description?

    And it’s not only sales reps who ought to be people of integrity. The same applies at every level of the organization. Without scrupulous regard to character, companies run the risk of hiring candidates who are solely driven, like Charles Foster Kane, by the bottom line. And that’s exactly the kind of thinking that got Toshiba intro trouble.

    Focusing obsessively on knowledge and skills is a problem in most companies in every field. Taking character as well as competence into account is one way to hire better people.

    2. Promote for character.

    Last fall I consulted with a Fortune 100 company, and a lunchtime presentation by the CEO left me awestruck. He introduced five employees who had demonstrated high character in one way or another. A young man whom I’ll call Emiliano had found a diamond ring worth $15,000 in the store’s parking lot. He spent a considerable amount of time tracking down its owner, who was beside herself with joy upon getting the ring returned.

    Emiliano’s humility, a trait I discussed in an earlier Fortune column about Taylor Swift, was especially touching. “I was just doing my job,” he told a packed auditorium. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in that room who thought, “I want to be like that guy.”

    Emiliano received a prestigious award, a bonus, and a standing ovation from his peers. The CEO makes sure that employees see how important honest and humble people are to the success of the business. You can bet that Emiliano is on the fast track at that company for a promotion.

    Imagine if Toshiba—and your organization too?—paid this kind of attention to the character of its employees when making decisions about who to promote.