Is there no decency?

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: Role of corporate board in restoring decency in management - Editorial

As a youngster in the 1950s, I got an early exposure to courage in the face of reckless overreaching by watching tapes of the Army-McCarthy hearings. What an electrifying moment it was when the Army's counsellor, the courtly Boston lawyer Joseph Welch, exasperated at the bullying tactics of Sen. Joe McCarthy, finally blasted back with that memorably sharp rebuke, "Have you no sense of decency, sir...?" It was a devastating blow from which the witch-hunting Senator from Wisconsin never recovered.

In the late 1990s, "decency" as a behavioral concept sometimes seems as outdated as an "I Like Ike" button. How else to explain certain aberrant behaviors among our leaders in government ('nuff said elsewhere) and in business?

Such as how Walter Forbes, as what appears to be massive accounting fraud is uncovered in his CUC International business (post Cendant), can make this statement to the press: "I don't believe I could have known, therefore I don't believe I should have known." Considering that he cashed in a reported $30 million in stock during the years that profits were being inflated, for him to disclaim any responsibility for this fiasco begs for someone to rise up and say, "Have you no sense of decency?"

According to Pearl Meyer & Partners, whose data on executive compensation are some of the best around, the average CEO pay (salary plus all forms of incentive remuneration) among the top 200 corporations in 1998 is $8.3 million. Every one of those leaders may be worth every penny and more. But there has to be a sense of personal responsibility that goes with such rewards...