“When someone asks for the ethics tape, we know they’ve already decided to invest. They just want some… — Max Barry
“When someone asks for the ethics tape, we know they’ve already decided to invest. They just want some reassurance so they can feel good about it, too. That’s the thing you learn about values, Jones: they’re what people make up to justify what they did. Did you take business ethics in college?”
“Yes.”
“They teach you people’s behavior is guided by their values, right? That’s a load of crap. When you watch people like we do, you find out it’s the other way around. Look, I believe in what Alpha does, I really do. But do I worry about whether every little thing we do is ethical? No, because you can rationalize anything as ethical. You talk to a criminal—a tax dodger, a serial killer, a child abuser—and every one of them will justify their actions. They’ll explain to you, totally seriously, why they had to do what they did. Why they’re still good people. That’s the thing: when people talk about the importance of ethics, they never include themselves. The day anyone, anywhere, admits that they personally are unethical, I’ll start taking that whole issue seriously.”
p. 111Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
Senior Management may have been incompetent; it may have been corrupt; it was certainly full of assholes—but they were their incompetent, corrupt assholes.
p. 294
“What happened to sticking together? What happened to teamwork?” He gives Holly a dirty look.
“Hey,” Holly says. “You know what Roger told me? He said there’s no such thing as teamwork. It’s a con. The company doesn’t promote teams. If you want to get ahead you have to screw everybody else and look after yourself. Co-workers are competitors. Roger told me the truth: there’s no I in team, but there’s no U, either!”
p. 237
Mona says bravely, “I can’t see how this will work. You can’t abolish Senior Management. Zephyr isn’t a democracy. It’s a corporation.”
“I believe,” Klausman says, “that Jones is advancing the theory that those two concepts are not mutually exclusive.”
p. 289
