What is the proper role of business?
Ben W. Heineman Jr. served as the senior vice president and general counsel of GE for 15 years so he has some sense of the role of business. During that period GE was one of the most respected and valuable companies in the world.
Mr. Heineman has an answer the question and it’s the name of his book. High Performance with High Integrity.
High performance means
- Strong sustained economic growth
- That is based on superior products and services, and
- That provides durable benefits both to the shareholders and to other stakeholders.
High integrity means
- A tenacious adherence on the part of the corporation to the spirit and the letter of the formal rules, financial and legal
- Voluntary adoption of global ethical standards that bind the company ans its employees to act in its enlightened self-interest
- Employee commitment to the core values of honesty, candor, fairness, reliability, and trustworthiness – values which infuse the creation and delivery of products and services and which guide internal and external relationships
The book covers a broad swath of business ethics and compliance issues in a concise 177 pages. Half-sized pages. The book can fit in a coat pocket.
It’s a book that only a compliance geek could love. The larger pool of business readers will find insights and may enjoy the admiration of Mr. Heineman’s tenure at GE.
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