Last week, I watched the documentary movie called Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. I think it should be a compulsory movie to watch for all MBA students and strongly recommended for anyone who works in business.

The interesting fact about Enron is that it was featured as one of the exceptional companies in the McKinsey book, The War for Talent!

Does that mean that McKinsey was another victim of the hype around a company that pulled Andersen down and put many financial institutions in an ethically questionable position?

We don’t think so. Many of the practices that they instilled were good. The problem is in the choice of the core values. We know that the key to sustain success is to have a disciplined organization based on core values. When a lack of ethical core values starts to be obbvious as portrayed in this movie, you get: electricity price and supply manipulations in California, accounting scandals, and tremendous loss of value. Let’s simplify what brought them down: greed as a core value! But being smart or talented doesn’t mean a smart guy or gal will immediately turn into a wise guy!

Values and ethical leadership are the keys to getting the most out of great talent, as opposed to talented people trying to get away with as much as they can!
At Taleo we are proud to emphasize our core values to our employees, partners, and customers:
Quality, Integrity, Passion, Humanity, Partnership, Innovation.