Quote:
Originally Posted by NeonSamurai
Their structuring is one of diffused responsibility "I'm not responsible, I am just a shareholder" "I'm not responsible, the shareholders dictate what I do", and thus utterly lacking in ethics or care as well.
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This reminds me of a story I read about Coleman Lanterns.
Evidently shortly after WWII, there was a rash of fires caused by Coleman Lanterns due to a defect.
There was a big meeting where the corporate lawyers were discussing how to address this problem without actually admitting fault and the engineers were discussing how to gradually makes the changes while keeping profits up, and the marketing people were worried about how to spin this so that sales would not drop.
In walks William Coffin Coleman (Old Man Coleman himself!) to this meeting. This was unusual as by now Mr. Coleman was getting up there in years (he died in the late 1950's) and was having less to do with the details of the corporation.
After the lawyers, engineers, and market people had their say, Old Man Coleman, according to this story, stood up and said
"Are you telling me that
MY lanterns are hurting
MY customers?
(Nods from the people around the table)
"Fix the problem now!" and he walked out.
To everyone else it was just a corporation with, what NeonS wrote, a feeling of diffused responsibility.
To Old Man Coleman, they were still HIS lanterns... and HIS customers... and therefore HIS problem.
They recalled the faulty lanterns, fixed the design problem and re-issued new lanterns for the customers. Lost a ton of money, but got a ton of customer loyalty. Perhaps this was why Coleman had such a good reputation after that.
You don't find too many Old Man Colemans around these days. Pity.