Stand up and be counted
By Steve | May 12, 2006
The Conference Board's Business Ethics Conference in New York City ended today on a terrific note. Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, gave an excellent keynote speech on the power of integrity, available online at www.dow.com. What was especially impressive to me, however, was Liveris' response to questions, where you can discern if a CEO (or any executive) really know his stuff or is simply good at delivering speeches crafted largely by others. And by this criteria Liveris clearly knows his stuff.
For example, in response to a question about whether Dow encourages suppliers to develop ethics programs, Liveris gave a profound answer discussing how society is based on law, logic and relationships. Europe, the U.S., and Australia (the country of his birth) emphasize law and logic, while the rest of the world emphasizes relationships. Dow's task in the relationship oriented part of the world is to develop, nurture and leverage relationships only with companies where due diligence and history indicate that the other company is ethical and law abiding.
Is either Dow or Liveris perfect? I doubt it. Liveris' speech acknowledges as much, when he describes their journey to greater levels of transparency and integrity in action. But after a period of time in which many companies and CEOs kept their heads down because of the epic business scandals, it is gratifying to see a few with the courage to stand up.