Ken Lay, RIP
Enron's Ken Lay's sudden death has some how shocked millions of Americans. Some are amazed because he's relatively young (early 60s), others are amazed that he is going to his grave without any jail time, others still are saddened that a man who apparently worked so hard for many years to have a great reputation well be remembered in such a negative way. There seems to be very little room for compassion, however, with a headline from CNNMoney Alert reading "The Guiltiest Guy in the Room: In the end Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling couldn't escape their own lies. And that's good for Corporate America." Wow, harsh.
People who have known Lay for years (I'm not one of them) still seem to have nothing but respect for him. I have sat across the table at lunch with an old golf buddy of his and his head will drop and he will begin to mumble. Like others who knew Lay with whom I visited, he said something like "Lay invested millions in the community," "many non-profits crashed and burned with Enron," and "he always seemed to be a good man in my dealings with him." These are just a few of the comments I've heard.
Ken Lay spent decades positioning himself as a leader and seemed to be focusing on building a legacy and not merely a reputation. However, in a few short months in the Fall of 2001, he went from having his name, company name, or picture on the wall of virtually every non-profit in the city to almost doing a magical transference to the front page of every scandal sheet in the country. This is not the kind of transformation that people want to experience.
Since that time the leadership in Enron has evolved from "the smartest guys in the room" (as they liked to project themselves) to the "guiltiest guys in the room" as we have seen so often in headlines. Their sympathizers might argue that Ken Lay was not really guilty and that a Presidential pardon even seemed likely (this has been mentioned often on talk shows). Lay, they argue, couldn't have been at fault in light of his personal history. I find this hard to believe. If this PhD in Economics wasn't the guiltiest guy in the room, he had certainly become the dumbest. His stupidity was so far reaching that he could be found guilty of several premeditated crimes.
The lesson for each of us is the old adage that it "takes years to build a great reputation and only minutes to destroy it." That might be the perfect epitaph for Lay's tombstone.
People who have known Lay for years (I'm not one of them) still seem to have nothing but respect for him. I have sat across the table at lunch with an old golf buddy of his and his head will drop and he will begin to mumble. Like others who knew Lay with whom I visited, he said something like "Lay invested millions in the community," "many non-profits crashed and burned with Enron," and "he always seemed to be a good man in my dealings with him." These are just a few of the comments I've heard.
Ken Lay spent decades positioning himself as a leader and seemed to be focusing on building a legacy and not merely a reputation. However, in a few short months in the Fall of 2001, he went from having his name, company name, or picture on the wall of virtually every non-profit in the city to almost doing a magical transference to the front page of every scandal sheet in the country. This is not the kind of transformation that people want to experience.
Since that time the leadership in Enron has evolved from "the smartest guys in the room" (as they liked to project themselves) to the "guiltiest guys in the room" as we have seen so often in headlines. Their sympathizers might argue that Ken Lay was not really guilty and that a Presidential pardon even seemed likely (this has been mentioned often on talk shows). Lay, they argue, couldn't have been at fault in light of his personal history. I find this hard to believe. If this PhD in Economics wasn't the guiltiest guy in the room, he had certainly become the dumbest. His stupidity was so far reaching that he could be found guilty of several premeditated crimes.
The lesson for each of us is the old adage that it "takes years to build a great reputation and only minutes to destroy it." That might be the perfect epitaph for Lay's tombstone.
posted by Kevin Price at 3:08 PM
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