182. Paid the cost to be the boss (Condition #30: hierarchy)

For the first time in OMG history, I scrapped an entire script concept in the crafting of this episode. I had a whole nother narrative here that was about rules and bosses and a bunch of other stuff that, sure, matters to corporate governance, but it just didn’t align well with the spirit of our season-long thing about the conditions that affect decisions. So instead, let’s remember back to episode 135, called “is everyone in an organization ‘doing’ corporate governance?” The argument I made there is basically that corporate governance is the sum total of all of the decisions that happen anywhere in an organization, no matter who’s making them. The decisions made on the front lines impact the decisions made at the top and vice versa. Everyone *is* doing corporate governance. That means that good governance matters everywhere, too. Remember the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal in 2016 – which seems to somehow maybe be back AGAIN as of August 2023? If not, you can take a sec to google it. A lot of people who educate corporate directors use it as an example of a board failure. I always thought that was a bit of a stretch. But it *is* a governance failure. They failed to intentionally cultivate conditions for their sales people and their managers to make effective decisions. And I actually think it’s a great exercise for boards and senior executives, from their position at the top of the hierarchy, to wonder about their role in cultivating those conditions. And also wonder how the decisions by those throughout the corporate hierarchy might be affecting conditions in the boardroom. It’s foolish to think there’s no effect.