There are a ton of stories this morning about how Bank of America is preparing to be “outed” by Wikileaks. You can run your own search for it or click on this one for an overview. Now, since we don’t do politics here I’m not going to riff on Wikileaks, freedom of the press, BofA, capitalism, or any of the inflammatory stuff that I’m not sure any of us are up for this early in the year. I do, however, have a business thought about this situation and I’d like to share it with you.
I’m not a subscriber to the “if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear” school. Businesses always have plenty to hide or, in the case of a bank, to protect. You know – your account numbers, your financial information, your transaction history. If you’re not a bank, things such as trade secrets we might not want competitors to have (the Colonel’s secret mix of herbs and spices!), or salary information we might not want other companies (or maybe other employees) to have. I don’t think every business is supposed to be an open book.
That said, I don’t think this is the sort of stuff that’s causing concern. I’m assuming, as the Times reports, that it has something to do with corrupt practices. Who knows – maybe more damning stuff about crappy mortgage loans. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter. It has to be about ethically questionable behavior of some sort and this is where I do believe that having as little to hide as possible is a good thing.
When it comes to how we treat our fellow employees, the standards we choose to follow as we compete, or our adherence to generally acceptable standards (acceptable by your Mom, not by your accountants or lawyers!), we need to assume that there will be total transparency and behave accordingly. It’s not always easy but you sleep better at night and, more importantly, you can’t be held hostage by a missing computer or file folder. It’s a simple point but as whatever this information is comes out, you might be surprised that the people involved couldn’t figure it out.
I’ll be interested to see what comes out of all this. If it helps people think once again about how they behave in the name of business, how can it be a bad thing? It is people, you know – companies don’t have points of view or ethical standards.
What are your thoughts?
Consult Keith 